001[Music] we're live and we're now recording thank you katie can you pick a referral call yes mr antonio here mr badger you're mr blitho i'm here miss kiavaci here mr frank here mrs heyman miss karionicus here dr morris here mrs ginsberg here alex kendall here and morgan wilson here this evening thank you katie will everyone please join me now reciting our pledge of allegiance [Music] thank you everyone and welcome to this may 2nd meeting of the women's and school board if you look at our agenda we first list out our prior meetings we had a work session on april 25th and the nciu board of directors met on april 27th we have a couple upcoming meetings on may 9th is our next budget workshop on may 16th we have our racial equity oversight committee meeting
002and also the north marco joint operation meeting on may 31st we have our next work session on june 6th is our regular public board meeting and on june 13th is the board retreat and goal setting session now we will move on to our presentations and tonight we say goodbye to two of our student board reps alex gondaya and morgan wilson both are graduating this year alex is leaving us for warmer weather at the university of florida to study finance and morgan is heading to the university of delaware to study either sports management and or marketing so we as a board just want to take a few minutes to thank both of you for your service to this board you both joined us in july 2020 in the midst of the coven 19 pandemic looking back
003when you considered applying to be a student representative on this board i'm sure you never anticipated what we would be what you would be asked to do over those two years attending meetings virtually and being asked opinions on things you probably never thought about before masking and virtual education these were issues that had never come before the board either and these were issues we struggled with over the course of those multiple meetings over multiple months but you both always came to our meetings and were prepared to offer a student perspective on any issue that came up i'm always so thankful to have your insight your peers i am sure are also very thankful for your service on this board these past two years i wish you both much success as you enter this new exciting
004chapter of your life so thank you so much [Music] would any of my other fellow board members like to make any comments marshall sure i'll start at the end of the row guys first of all congratulations uh graduation is an incredible accomplishment uh and uh once you decide uh where you're heading off to what you have and you start your college career it is an incredible experience that you'll never forget and this was uh the foundation uh that they got you there what you should be most proud of is the fact that as members of our board you've taken on a leadership role not just volunteers but leaders and that will guide you as you navigate every path that you take from graduation through college and beyond whether it's a job or an adventure or
005whatever it is you do and think about that that of all of your classmates the two of you are sitting here as leaders and that is what your professors that is what your co-workers family members are looking for is people who are willing to say i'm here i'm willing to roll up my sleeves i'm willing to help and who knows where that will take you but the path is great for both of you and maybe someday you'll be sitting on this board isn't that exciting wouldn't that be great you can have my seat if you'd like it [Music] but the point is you're at a point in your lives where you've decided i'm not gonna wait for somebody to ask me or tell me what to do i'm gonna take that on i'm gonna take
006the bull by the horns and i'm gonna make not only myself but everybody around me better and that's what makes you you and that's what has made it such a pleasure to work with you congratulations to both of you and congratulations to everything that you're about to do we look forward to seeing [Music] joe did you have some remarks um i just wanted to comment on that when alex and morgan started it was not only the midst of the pandemic but that summer really was also you know sort of a big um you know a lot going on with the killing of george floyd and i think that started the district um sort of recognizing its own practices and shortcomings regarding educational equity in our own district and um to me the two of them
007were part of like the start of our district's journey in trying to make a more equitable inclusive uh district for all students and their voices their perspectives and their input in that process over the past couple years has been really important and valuable and i want to thank you guys for uh contributing and uh also it's fantastic to see you here at first to be honest i don't even know if i've ever seen you in an in-person meeting [Music] i just wanted to say something really quick to you guys is that you are now entering college which are which is probably like the four best years or maybe five i don't know but they're the best years of your life and i have developed like i was in college a long time ago and i
008have friendships that have lasted through that time so you should look forward to it congratulations i i wasn't on the board when you guys started but it's so good to see you and congratulations for all that you've done zephy guys i'm so proud of you both i'm not going to echo everything they said because i totally agree with everything that's been said but i'll be a little pragmatic as well this is something you should talk about on every single interview you go on for you know crisis management you know how to cross-functionally talk to people you know how to kind of see the light so um congratulations to you both it was awesome meeting and working with you i wish you all the best any other comments [Music] all right well guys you know what
009i have plaques for you and katie do we want to get pictures yes okay i will now turn it over to jim for our next presentation okay thank you so um we have a couple really awesome um segments of the presentation tonight one of which is a secret and one of which was not on the agenda there's a little bit of deception uh going on here tonight uh you may recall the same story live from last week or when we honored miss tina durkash who spent her career and much of her life um doing lots of great things for kids and we have this annual award called the wiss nation hero award where we pick somebody maybe in the spotlight maybe not who just goes above and beyond for kids and so that tina's recognition
010last meeting was actually held over from 2020. and so we still have a blank on this from 2021 this is the plaque with nation award hero plaque that goes up on the wall but there's not a blank here anymore for 2021 because we have tricked somebody into coming here tonight to join us so if you think about this last couple years and who and what group of people did the most for kids in our schools it's got to be our incredible cadre of nurses we have regular nurses we have staff nurses we have sub nurses we have people going above and beyond every day to keep kids in school to meet kids needs and we did that and this is really for all of our nurses but there's one leader of nurses who be tricked
011into coming here tonight hello miss dearborn [Music] her name is kathy dearborn and she may have been told that she wanted to support members want to say hello which is sort of true but but the the the full truth is that she is the 2021 recipient of the west nation hero award she's already asking me stuff you know by the way she's also she's a mental health expert for superintendents she worked incredible hours talking me off the ledge and helped me understand all these things and so i can only do so much for this i've asked two people to come speak say a few words about kathy and there's one person in particular who knows very very well what she does over the years estonia and then we have a surprise speaker as well who
012is a recipient of all of her kindness and generosity so first it's a pleasure to introduce miss janice walsh who's the guidance counselor at stony good evening everyone i'd like to thank dr cristfield for the opportunity to share a few words about kathy and the incredible impact she is here at wisset hicken while these words are for kathy i'm honored to share them with you in this room and those at home kathy your ability to remain calm when handling serious concerns is so impressive i've seen your calm caring and respectful approach with all students who enter your room you take the time to listen and support each student who visits you no matter how big or small they're concerned you juggle the phone a student has a bloody nose and a student who comes in
013with the teeny tiny little cut and you make them all feel supported and cared for there may even be a student or two that has a stomach ache and really they're just stopping in for a little little dose of dearborn kindness and attention this doesn't apply to just students many of us at stony creek visit you myself included apparently dr crystal too for support and guidance when dealing with our own challenges you always take the time and we are so very grateful for that your commitment to our community is unwavering he worked above and beyond during the pandemic to help students and families those of us working directly with students your nursing colleagues and administration at large i know you spent many hours before and after school and on the weekend supporting your nurses through
014the relentless copic changes and challenges you along with your amazing nursing staff help us get through this unsettling and scary time your professionalism medical expertise and a great sense of humor has helped us weather the storm as nursing department chair you have collaborated with us you've informed us you've cared for us you've guided us and supported us at wizard and we are forever grateful i am so happy as a colleague and friend that you're being recognized tonight by being awarded with this swiss nation award thank you for all you have done and for who you are thank you janice i have to say that janice hesitated about one nanosecond before agreeing to come up and say a few words um and i appreciate that very much something else i appreciated was uh principal benicio who's
015here today was in on this as well because i asked her what about we think about a student there one student maybe yes we snuck him in you didn't see him either miss dearborn who could maybe say a few words about miss dearborn from a personal perspective and obviously the most important person to speak tonight so it's without further ado that i am very happy to welcome to his first board meeting maybe max joseph max [Music] from the simplest stomach aches to broken parts you care about everyone and love them in your heart every day when i walk in you have a smile on your face thank you for working so many long hard hours to keep us safe and i and i will miss you and your smile next year when i go into
016middle school okay thank you max that was really well said no one can say it better and now mr and now miss dearborn you may come up and save your free words if you like and also have a picture with these really awesome speakers i'm never prepared i'm always inappropriate not always but sometimes i am um so let's see um i don't really have anything prepared i am i'm just i'm like well i'm rarely speechless but um i can't even believe this like i had no i didn't even know that this was an award like i didn't even know so um i am honored i am so honored but i am truly accepting this for the entire nursing department like nurses and in the in the school systems like we tend to just kind of
017fly under the radar everybody assumes we're there knows we're there we work hard every day we do everything you know we just we take care of what we need to take care of but we kind of stay out of all of the testing stuff and then this stuff and that stuff like i don't know anything about that stuff dibbles and whatever i don't know what any of that stuff means so we kind of just and so kobit has really really brought us to the forefront which has been great in a lot of ways because now you all know there are nurses in all of the buildings and guess what we we do stuff all day long you know what i mean so we are um but our nursing department at wishin is an exceptional group
018of people um who work hard every day for your kids who you know it's 5 30 a.m somebody's called out i got to move people around and everybody just does whatever the team needs to do to keep the buildings covered so that i can get a nurse in every building for you in case anything happens so um while i am so honored i really really we need to all recognize all of our nurses because they they're just phenomenal and um dr mccluskey is not here tonight but i do need to throw a shout out to her because she's technically my supervisor but um she she's really given me the opportunity to be very you know kind of manage the nursing department and handle things but with always her back up and her support and dr
019cristfield you were i really didn't even know you before covered so and now i know so you know i mean we we used to text each other he was like my friend so um but i really got to know him he's he's been you've been you've been wonderful through this all of this as well really really great to work with and um the board as well i didn't really get to work with you guys but that's okay because chris and dr crisfield was my uh my liaison and um i don't know i didn't notice i got to know all the principals so kobit was so has been so awful in so many ways but it was a kind of a cool thing for me too because i got to meet a lot of people that
020i probably wouldn't have met so that was kind of neat so but i don't even that's it i don't know what to say max you're adorable i'm coming to your rescue this is the superintendent rescuing somebody you guys are so bad i did not know anything about this card thank [Applause] you thank you okay thank you everybody here okay so now we're going to move to the agenda item which is one of our favorite parts of the year we've done this for a number of years now and i'm going to introduce somebody who've helped spearhead this stacy anderson who is our high school's college and career counselor she has herded some cats here and they're really fun awesome impressive cats and she'll take it from here good evening everyone it is my honor tonight to
021introduce you to nine members of our senior class these students are our national merit finalists for the class of 2022 the students were first notified of their semi-finalist standing back in the fall as a result of their stellar performance on the preliminary sat taken during during their junior year in fact these students scored among the top 1 of all testers in the state of pennsylvania after an application process this year that involved the submission of academic records extracurricular involvement and an essay they were named finalists this past winter with several already receiving notification that they have earned a scholarship tonight we recognize their accomplishments but also give them a chance to make a recognition of their own each of our national merit finalists has chosen one educator from their time within the district to honor
022tonight these staff members have made a clear impact on these students the students will be gifting a book to their chosen teacher inscribed with a brief note of thanks tonight we will hear from each student about who they will be honoring the book they have chosen and the inscription written inside so we're going in alphabetical order so first i'd like to recognize ella chang ella will be attending boston college in the fall and will be honoring dan meyer from stoney creek elementary so if ella and dan want to come up oh i will be presenting mr meyer with the essential calvin and hogs dear mr meyer it's been a long time since elementary school but if there's one thing i do remember very clearly it's my fifth grade obsession with calvin and hogs i loved
023calvin and hogs so when our independent reading project rolled around i decided to ask you if it would be an acceptable book for me to present on i don't think i actually expected you to say yes but you did and that was awesome it was one of the few times in my education that a teacher gave me full autonomy and trusted me enough as a student to know that no matter how unconventional my idea seemed i would still deliver so long story short i got you a copy of calvin and hobbes because i'm convinced that it has something for everyone maybe you can read it with your students or your family or just by yourself however you choose to use this book i hope you get as much laughter and fun from it as i
024got from you next is sophia furman sophia will be attending haverford college in the fall and will be honoring heidi but from the high school so i got this but a book called i wish my teacher knew how in question can change everything for our kids [Music] you're miss butt i'm so grateful to have the opportunity to honor you and recognize your hard work for hard work that far too often goes unnoticed and unacknowledged by those who helped the most i know you don't hear it enough so i wanted to say thank you you've taught me so much about biology running and what it means to be an altruistic person from my time as your class in your classroom freshman year to watching you teach the same class as your senior assistant i have grown
025so much and i have learned thanks to your guidance you push me to improve my skills and my mindset with nothing but respect and love every day i watch you teach i'm impressed by the compassion with which you treat your students even when they prove troublesome as a coach you manage our team with an optimistic determined mindset that permeates the minds of your runners and creates a tight-knit community far superior than that of any other wassaikan team story although it may be a bit biased towards cross-country and track it is apparent from the way that wizard runners interact with other schools that we are well taught by a coach who knows her stuff i genuinely don't think i'd be the person i am today without you you're one of the most important people in my
026life and one of my biggest role models and you taught me the good ways to share hugs run my line and find the independent variable i also know your five rules by heart and i know when you're always right you're never wrong um so although this gift marks the beginning of the end of my time with you i'm so grateful for our relationship and i know it won't be the end i'll continue to live by your example and i hope okay next we have adam grossberg adam will be attending georgia tech in the fall and we'll be honoring frank derussi from bell elementary so i will be presenting mr derussi with the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy dear mr derussi when i was in fifth grade you once wrote me a note on my independent
027reading log i had chosen to read javascript for kids an introduction to programming it was an absolutely thrilling read you wrote when you're the next bill gates remember to slide me some cash unfortunately i'm not a multi-billionaire yet so the best i can do is this book and lucky for you it's not about computer programming the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy is another book that i read while i was in your class and its wittiness humor and overall energy remind me of what made your classroom so special i can't think of another teacher as impactful to my education as you my friends and i still look back fondly at the time we had in your class and i can say with certainty that you have impacted us all you made us excited to learn which
028is no small feat considering we were a group of fifth graders who were far too cool for elementary school i'll always remember how you encouraged me to explore topics beyond the lesson plan and work on independent projects you supported my growth as a student and as a person and i can't thank you enough next is ali jung ali will be attending the university of california at berkeley in the fall and we'll be honoring jen castro from the high school i will be presenting mrs caster with the book hell of a book replace the word book in the title with a teacher that's the kind of person you are at the start of my sophomore year i walked into your room completely intimidated i was surrounded by kids one or two years older than me and
029a few who were younger that seemed like prodigies but you always took the time to joke with me rationalize with me when i thought i would never understand math and go through problems upon problems until i understand the hows and whys of each step all the while you made every kid in our classes laugh i've had the privilege of knowing you since my freshman year and having you as a teacher for two years in a row at the close of both years you attributed the fun we had to your students us i never thought we deserved that attribution though of course it's funny to have people draw octopi on every page of a test and a kid who sticks a dollar bill on his papers everything every time he thinks he won't do well but
030it was you who made us comfortable enough and confident enough to do so every moment spent in your classroom except that one day i felt the straight line motion test was a fun one from clubs to classes to office hours there is only one common factor and if i did my math right that common factor was you it made seemingly impossible tasks feel doable you are the reason i can stand here today and move thousands of miles away from home to pursue something i am passionate about thank you so much mrs caster and don't worry i will continue to send baked goods all the way from california next is young lee so young will be attending the university of southern california in the fall and will be honoring meredith valatech from the high school i'll
031be presenting mrs faltek with serious scientific answers for absurd hypothetical questions or what if dear mrs valtec out of the many courses i took throughout high school none really caught me blindsided like ap candidate coming out of essentially a year and a half of self-made vacation vacation and starting ap without anything retained from honors two years before i found myself in quite the predicament the first few weeks i would laugh to myself in agony as the lectures flew by and questioned my future in stem yet as i sat to study for my first test of the year i was surprised at how much i had learned in such a short amount of time and became confident in my own ability i look back now and i know that that was only possible because of you
032and the balance that you created in class in both ap chem and biochem a balance between curiosity and structure between urgency and leniency between fun and seriousness mrs faltek i like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me overcome my self doubt not just in the subject of chemistry but more import importantly in the perception of myself thank you [Music] okay next is katie lou kitty will be attending harvard university in the fall and will be honoring chad for nicki from the middle school who i don't believe is here me so i will be presenting mr taranicki my favorite book severance filing ma so dear mr t when you're watching this given that my eighth grade year was five years ago and an entire pandemic ago memories from that time are
033a little fuzzy but i've got quite a few being captivated by photos of your super cool bees experiencing my first ever heartbreak as you read aloud the ending of of mice and men and the whirlwind that was our mid-summer performance i look back on with the same nostalgia excitement and embarrassment that is just the perfect representation of eighth grade but the most vivid moments i remember are not necessarily flashes from the fleeting past but how all the tremendous things you did propelled me to my present and terrifying future you let me borrow from your collection the very first play i've ever read the crucible which opened the door to the wonderful world of dramatic script and without it i probably would not have been able to step through and write a life-changing play of my
034own in high school you introduced me to literary magazines the highs of oh my god that's something i wrote that people are reading and the low lows of a dozen rejections in a row and i wouldn't have it any other way you are truly instrumental in inspiring me to not only pursue creative writing in literature but to advocate through storytelling for the issues i care about like cultural visibility so now i hope to give you back a small sliver of what you have gifted me by returning the favor of a book severance by ling ma reminds me of the incredible experience of learning from you it has moments of absolute hilarity deep relevance to the world around us and so many lessons and passions that stay with you long after the book is finished i
035hope you enjoy it thank you next is christine o'farrell christina will be attending the university of pennsylvania in the fall and will be honoring maureen kroner from lower gwinnett elementary i will be presenting miss kroner with the man who mistook his wife for a hat dear ms kroner as my elementary school enrichment teacher you instilled a deep sense of curiosity and a love of learning within me our time together wasn't so much about following a timeline and finishing projects but rather it was about developing the process of thinking creatively and critically when i was in fourth grade you posed an invention project to us asking us to pinpoint what problem we wanted to solve i sat with you for class periods trying to develop an alternative to the plastic water bottle cap under your guidance
036no possible solution was left unexamined nor deemed too weird even my idea for nestle and deer park to start using caps made out of jolly ranchers it is because of you and your encouragement to investigate anything and everything that piqued my interest i am drawn to books with odd titles like this one the man who mistook his wife for a hat while my interests have switched from water bottle engineering to the brain sciences i have and will continue to use reading as a tool to further my intellectual interests just as i learned from you so thank you miss kroner for making for molding me into a lifelong learner next we have alex shin alex will be attending boston university in the fall and will be honoring ryan perlman from the high school i'll be presenting
037this with a book called korean bbq [Music] hi mr perlman i think to realize i won't be the same building as you in a few weeks but i'm glad to have made so many memories and gifted however it's not the eating raw pasta or sitting let it go in front of the whole class we're hearing about rp super hype that will stick with me forever it's the small moment of encouragement and life advice you've given me not only as a teacher but as a mentor for beyond simply my school life thank you for everything you have done and will do and to end i've edited a short poem with a lot of help from katie you may recognize so much depends upon mr perlman bearded with wisdom [Music] besides this little chicken you're probably favorite
038student alex and i hope you will make many good recipes with this book [Music] our last student for tonight but not least is richard wang richard will be attending also the university of california at berkeley and will be honoring kirk mcmahon from the high school all right so i will be giving the book uh everything i know from life i learned from powerpoint to mr macron dear mr mackman first and foremost i want to thank you for teaching me physics a subject that i may choose to pursue in the future however the most memorable part of your class was not necessarily the physics that you taught me but instead how your powerpoint would crash every single class period this daily occurrence was probably not one of your not one of your favorite parts of class
039on microsoft teams yet for some reason it was always the funniest part of my day as it always managed to make me laugh i know these technical difficulties were frustrating so i hope that this book can help minimize your frustrations at powerpoint and your computer instead show meaning in the daily difficulties that we have with powerpoint your student richard wang okay you so much for that presentation stacy and congratulations to all of our students and the educators that were honored here this evening it makes me so proud to be a member of the wissa hicken family thank you all for being here this evening and i think we should give everyone another round of applause and you're now welcome to leave if you'd like to or you're welcome to stay for the rest of our
040meetings thank you oh my goodness i got like double-sided all right guys uh all right we'll continue we next have our social emotional learning presentation so good evening everyone thank you for affording us the opportunity to provide a social emotional learning update i'm kaziah letour the director of equity and cultural responsiveness i'm lynne blair the principal at the high school i just want to take one second to go off script morgan and alex i'm going to miss you so much very proud of you so this evening we're proud to present our steering committee we have a cell steering committee comprised of various members from our staff of k-12 along with our principals directors district coordinator for safe schools committee and our district assistant superintendent and superintendent are all members the committee was created at the
041start of the 2019-2020 school year so it's been an exciting committee that's kind of seen its way through a pandemic and we are very proud and honored to work with all the members that have shown a really strong commitment throughout the years so our belief statement along with our district's vision mission mission and shared values centers our social emotional learning work as we look at this statement to ensure that whiskey and school district students experience a culture of belonging and dignity the district continues to create equitable learning environments and outcomes focus on all students social emotional mental behavioral and academic wellness and as we know the equitable learning environments and outcomes we're speaking specifically to the school's goals that should apply to all students while the means to these goals will vary of course as
042those students themselves vary so every student has access to the educational resources and rigor they need at the right moment in their education we wanted to establish a social and emotional definition just to have that common language noted and so as we look at social emotional learning we know that it is an integral part of education and human development it is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals feel and show empathy for others establish and maintain supportive relationships and make responsible and caring decisions i've noted here that we're using a castle definition and by castle we mean the collaborative for academic social emotional learning which is an organization that advances the development of
043academic social and emotional competence using evidence-based practices looking at our castle wheel and cell competencies these are important social emotional learning helps us to understand ourselves connect with others achieve goals and support communities the pennsylvania career ready skills are all social emotional learning progressions that support the development of student competence so as we're looking at these competencies that we see noted here they align clearly with our pennsylvania career ready skills we're looking at how these reflect priorities to ensure youth are career ready and prepared to meet the demands of the 21st century workforce as we look at the various aspects of the competencies we see that with self-awareness we're looking at developing and having students recognize their strengths their self-confidence which we saw this evening as the students spoke about their experiences with their classroom
044teachers with social awareness at ability and level to develop that empathy respect for others and the ability to have perspective taking with responsible decision-making we're looking at their ability to identify and solve problems self-management management we're looking at self-motivation goal setting organizational skills and with the relationship skills the ability to have that social engagement develop relationships and teamwork again which was evident tonight when we heard our teacher our students really recognize our teachers and what they gleaned from them what are some of those benefits of social emotional learning when schools consistently implement a strong social emotional learning curriculum they foster supportive and healthy environment that will bolster the entire community researchers have documented the importance of caring teacher-student and student-to-student relationships and fostering students commitment to school and in promoting academic success as we heard
045from our students this evening as they were presenting these wonderful books to their classroom teachers they also commented on that social and emotional connection that they had with that teacher the experiences that they gleaned in that classroom environment students who are more self-aware and confident about their learning capacities according to research try harder and persist in facing challenges and in terms of long-term benefits there are several studies out there that explore the long-term benefits of social emotional learning and they discovered a strong correlation to adult outcomes such as higher educational attainment stronger employment and better mental health in an effort to show that sel is part of the culture at wis and integrated into what we do in the classroom and outside of the classroom all the time we collected a few quotes here to
046share from staff across the district emphasizing the priority that sel has for all of us i don't expect that you're going to read all those quotes at this time but just some themes that you'll see and all the quotes from the teachers throughout the district k-12 they focus on connections relationships kindness helping others citizenship and belonging so what does social and emotional learning look like in action in the elementary schools if we're observing social emotional learning in action one may see morning meetings discussions team building exercises or activities occurring along with storytelling and critical thinking skills i think one thing that was so powerful this evening was the the testimonies from the students in terms of what they were experiencing and as we look through this slide we can see that they highlighted how their
047teacher emphasized the critical thinking skills and the storytelling and the ability to have voice and choice and project-based learning all of those things are social and emotional learning in action and so we're looking at this taking place in elementary schools that's what we're seeing at the secondary level we may see of course social and emotional learning in action where there's opportunity again for voice and choice perspective taking occurring project-based learning student live meetings and conferences and problem solving you know as we go through the learning experiences of our students we want all our students to develop that level and ability to leverage literature and to engage in conversations to reflect on what they're learning to have very intentional feedback that will help them to grow and many of those comments i heard this evening from
048the students that they were coached they had a good relationship they walked into a community where they felt they belonged they were problem solving going through things again the embracing of productive struggles so those things are essential in terms of skills that we're teaching our students and imparting to them so that would be what we would see at the secondary level when we're speaking of social emotional learning in action so for the next couple of slides we thought one way to help sort of organize all of this information was to take the five competencies from castle debt because i already shared and highlight some things that each building at the elementary secondary middle and high school are doing that focus on those competencies so you'd probably not be able to remember this but the high
049school all the things in red are for the high school all the things in purple are the middle school blue bell is blue which is easy shady grove is green lower granite is gold and stoney creek is black um so these are examples of things that were taking place in our schools to foster the sel competencies i won't explain all of them in detail but at whs for example we have our shared second chance learning philosophy which helps students foster self-awareness at the middle school students are learning about self-awareness through lessons about the impact of our words and at the elementary level students are building their relationship skills and learning about self-awareness through their leap program for social awareness it's the same color coding system we foster the development of social awareness at the high
050school through a variety of community service projects at the middle school we foster development of social awareness through mentoring programs and at the elementary level they're fostering development of social awareness through pbis which is positive behavior interventions and support programs responsible decision making we foster the development of that at the high school through phone hotels in a lot of our classrooms and at the elementary level through a variety of procedures and routines that are part of a student's day our self-management and relationship skills competencies we foster the development of self-management at the high school through goal-setting and classrooms at the middle school through resource counselor meetings at the elementary school through brain breaks and dancing which i would love to see the relationship skills we foster at the high school through group work and collaboration
051at the middle school through community building activities at the elementary school through monthly celebration days sel days so what are we doing in terms of our response to the pandemic we focused on first ensuring that we have a social emotional learning comprehensive plan in place to guide our practices and our action steps going forward we then generated a list of shared cell resources to build our internal capacity in terms of implementing restorative practice training we made sure that we develop a plan to focus on our leadership team acquiring that knowledge and understanding followed by our secondary cohort we've generated a schedule to continue on with that restorative practice training again the heart of that in the core of that will be our development of restorative practices in connection to relationships and how we approach our
052responses to concerns that arise being proactive and preventative in january we focus on some internal cell training that we did with our coaches and counselors in february we dived into trauma-informed training and made sure that not only were we focusing on building the capacity for our teachers our staff to go into the classroom and continue to focus on social emotional learning with their students but also to ensure that we are creating a community of care for their wellness and so that became something that was the heart of our february in service we moved forward with developing and implementing a secondary mentorship program with our partnership with the guy leaders through that program we're focusing on building and sustaining healthy relationships and trust for our students harnessing communication skills developing leadership skills cultivating effective decision making
053skills and again these are with our students who are currently 7th graders at the middle school and some of our students through the high school grades 9 through 12. the students who are in the current mentorship program will turn around and be peer mentors for students at that incoming grade so our 9th graders or 10th graders at the high school level and for our incoming sixth graders at the middle school level we've administered a belonging climate survey to our staff and students with again hopes next year of also bringing in the partnership with our families our parents and guardians the belonging climate survey in itself again is just that piece for us to ascertain to what extent do our students and our staff feel a sense of belonging in our school community we'll continue our
054efforts and and focusing on social emotional learning as we address those specific needs so those examples of the activities in the various schools that i highlighted before were things that we were doing prior to the pandemic when march 2020 hit we obviously had to adjust things and make some positive changes to support all of our students so as a response to the pandemic at all levels we did design new programs opportunities and supports to address the unique needs that surfaced as a result of virtual learning and the impacts of the pandemic some examples of things that we added were intentional relationship builder opportunities at all levels when our students were virtual office hours available to students to have both academic and social connection scholastic coach which was a district-wide position to support students and families
055with access we have food insecurity support for families across the district as you know and we did increase our summer programming opportunities for students to adjust learning gaps post pandemic as a response to our needs that we're now seeing in this year we're continuing to brainstorm and design new programs opportunities and supports to address both the academic and social emotional needs that we see now this focus and work is continuing and will continue to be ongoing with the committee some examples of things that we're looking to do is the social emotional learning committee is currently looking at district-wide theme months and activities k-12 to build common language and a sense of community we're also looking at working on some sort of community-wide service project and we're also looking to explore what we can do to
056address the inappropriate use of social media that is affecting all of our students we're considering and brainstorming ideas such as community-wide disconnect to connect days these things are still a work in progress and things that we're working on specifically at the high school we have a few things on the horizon next year beginning at the start of the school year we're going to have morning and afternoon check-in and checkouts to foster relationships and a sense of community for our students every day and coming soon we are creating a freshman seminar course which will have four units of study including character development and social emotional learning financial literacy study skills and um branch literacy sorry i'm forgetting the fourth one um college and career readiness so those four units of study will be for our freshmen
057moving forward and specifically at the middle school things that they're planning are community building activities for the first week of school and follow-up activities planned throughout the year that complement that work so with the work that we're embracing um within our school community we also look to our larger community to see the extensions of social emotional learning that can take place at home we know that our families parents and guardians are already doing this wonderful work at home we just wanted to rein other ways and ways that you can continue to support the work that we're doing in school so modeling those pro-social behaviors being a good listener building your child's agency and voice which is so critical so that they have that agency coming into the classroom looking at and highlighting their strengths is
058critical participating in community events and service practicing perspective taking teaching problem solving strategies and just modeling for them you know what it is to kind of go through that productive struggle when faced with different things but these are elements that we know you're doing currently to build the capacity of our learners in our school community we wanted to highlight them because these are things that parallel the work that we're doing in the classroom and that's our presentation for this evening do you guys have any questions that we can answer thank you so much for that presentation where's that you wanna start us i have a really quick question that was a great presentation and i just i'm wondering um is the belonging survey the only metric that you're using to look at the effectiveness of
059the training that you have in place or are there other metrics so for the sense of belonging that's the metric that we're using but in terms of other elements of what we're looking at we're still focusing on the formative feedback that we get in the classroom um those qualitative and quantitative data that we already have as existing points we're accessing them the belongings are in itself is an additional piece that we use to really ascertain that measurement of a sense of belonging i have a question actually about the belonging survey my understanding is we're going to be redoing that survey in the fall is that correct that is correct so were there any takeaways from the one we just did conduct absolutely there were um valuable takeaways from it um what we found and noted
060were some limitations with it we needed to ensure that going forward that we had our coding in terms of demographics aligned with our state coding and it was not at that time we also noted that in terms of the work that we needed to do looking at the process in terms of the implementation of it like how was it administered how did we ensure that in terms of the framing of it that it was consistent across k-12 and so those are some things in terms of the process of the administration of it that we're going to continue to work on in terms of the feedback that we receive that gives data points right now based on some of the limitations of the survey we can at least look at we had the respondents you said
061they feel that sense of belonging but we need a more reliable survey tool going forward and so that's something that we're looking at we're exploring and searching for a more effective tool that we can employ that will capture the information that we need in terms of that demographic breakdown that we can then apply and our our building leaders and our staff can actually use um in the cla in the classroom so we need more usable understandable concrete information to translate and this information that we gathered just the way it came out did not provide us with that translation and a application that we wanted right away so that's something that we learned and so in october we're going to administer that new survey tool with a second round in the spring great um and i
062really like the idea of the disconnect to connect i'm really concerned about the impact of social media on our students and how much time they spend on social media how they interact with one another so i really love that idea how do you envision doing that do you have any ideas yet still still kind of being fleshed out but we actually did a disconnect to connect theme at the high school a few years back um so the high school we have a theme every year and then sort of adopt various activities around that so i guess it was three or four years ago that we did disconnect to connect and we picked one day a month where we encouraged students to put their cell phone away um and like talk to each other and study
063all some of the study hall teachers put board games out and they played board games um and we also encouraged teachers to disconnect to connect um since that time and it was very successful not i mean not everyone participated it wasn't something we required but just encouraged uh we also had a speaker at the start of that school year who shared her own personal experiences she had a very horrible thing happen to her daughter over social media that ended up costing her her life so um it was a sort of a theme throughout the year of just the dangers of it and a lot of educational things about what you post sometimes doesn't go away and it can affect college applications job applications things like that um since then with the over the last couple
064of years social media has sort of taken on a stronger influence i think um and i think the pandemic played a role in that in the fact that students were at home and had um you know more constant access to it and for some some ways that was the only way they were connecting with people um so i think there's a stronger need k-12 and to to get parent and family support and sort of do more of a global scope um to look at it and then but i think it would have to come with an educational component um we've the sel committee has briefly talked about um like cell phone contracts that families can have with students at various grade levels that are relevant for that student so still exploring and if we considered
065having maybe a community conversation including parents in that conversation to really help parents understand the impact of what their students are doing on social media yes um we have we briefly started talking about the social emotional learning committee having some kind of educational presentation that would be both student and parent friendly perhaps a different program for parents and students i know the one that we had at the high school years ago there was a parent program at night and a student program during the day that had the same themes but it was delivered in a different way great thank you sure who else has questions or comments actually i going off of what amy said you know i love that idea of including parents but i think it's starting earlier and earlier could we gear
066one toward like elementary school as well as like middle school high school because i think these kids are getting involved in you know social media earlier and they don't understand at all the repercussions of that yes no we agree 100 um yeah the the work that the social martial learning committee is doing now would extend and it would be a k-12 initiative i have a few questions sure go ahead great presentation thank you fully appreciate that it's the first year we're learning we're optimizing but anecdotally do we have a sense of what both teachers and students are feeling from a belonging perspective are we seeing positive you know uptake or uptick on how they're feeling about that from our community so in terms of the belonging climate survey that we implemented it did provide us
067with some information or insight into a percentage of our staff and students and how they felt i don't have access to the climate survey results here to highlight that but what we did see a note was that we did have a percentage of students and staff who identified with a three or higher indicated that they felt a sense of belonging in staff and for our staff in school and for our students in the classroom which is good however there's a lot of work to be done so we're still looking at the percentage of students and staff that did not complete the survey um who did not indicate that they felt a sense of belonging or who were in that midway like that three that never like did not choose to say i belong or i
068did not belong so those are things that we did glean from the survey um and so that's where we are currently okay that's fair and then um a couple of more questions um are we doing both push and pull kind of activities across the board for the kids for the students like i love the whole check-in that was mentioned is that something that all students know that that's an option or do we have to pull them into something like that do they feel like they have that as a resource really cleared a room i don't know was talking about was a change that we're doing at the high school um so the what we're building into our schedule is like a five-minute morning check-in that all students will do in all classes it's just part
069of the day and then a five minute checkout um so it's part of the day so it's just routine for all students that's awesome yeah thank you and then for that freshman concept that you're thinking about would love to throw out some two ideas one to kind of build on social and you know what that means and you know not just the do's and the dots and the like the repercussions but given them really concrete examples of how things could go really sideways and then um perhaps a slightly more controversial topic but the whole concept of consent and what that means would probably be something we should be thinking about as well that that so the course that the freshman seminar class that we're designing um we'll be working on writing that next school year
070so it would start in the 2023-2024 school year uh regarding the your point about consent um that is currently in our ninth grade health classes but we're working to keep that up more um and that would begin immediately thank you sure any other comments or questions no well thank you so much again for that presentation thank you all right we'll now be moving into our first public comment period and as indicated in our agenda we allow maximum of five speakers on any particular topic you must limit your comments to three minutes and it's not the board's practice to engage in dialogue with speakers when appropriate we will follow up with responses on our district website our first speaker this evening is katie wanger from with payne when you approach please restate your name and your
071municipality in residence and what topic you'll be speaking on my name is katie wenger and i reside in whit payne township and i will be speaking on seo so i think it's important for the parents and the community members listening and those present tonight to really do the research for yourself on this topic they'd like you to believe that everyone supports it and believes in it and it's certainly not the case when you look at the really the actual foundation of it there are strong concerns especially for our youngest children but going all the way up through the grades they make it sound very innocuous very positive um they're creating a you know a learning environment where everyone can get feel comfortable talking about their feelings and their issues between each other and i really
072wish that were the case for all of our students but it just doesn't play out that way on many occasions it was changed over time originally the goal of seo was to promote morally neutral soft skills including self-awareness self-management empathy and goal setting in 2020 everything changed like many things in our world and we now have transformative sel the concerns with transformative sel have to do with changing self-awareness into largely encompassing identity with identity now defined through the lens of intersectionality self-management encompasses agency defined through resistance and transformative justice-oriented citizenship to really know about scl you have to look into castle which is the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning it's the single most important entity in the field of sel and by 2020 they had fully informed transformative sel and really now we're
073at the point where they call it activism so it's no longer a neutral or partisan process or you know organization it really does have a lot of roots and what i'm concerned is enforcing an agenda school surveys have become central to sel implementation they ask students highly sensitive questions about their mood their beliefs their family and even their sexuality the survey that the sixth graders walked into one morning the first three questions were what is your gender identity what is your sexual identity and what is your family situation are your parents married or divorced this is not comfortable for all children to answer and when you put them in an environment where they're sitting in a classroom in front of teachers that are authority figures they're going to feel compelled to fill it out and
074parents weren't really given the opportunity to have these conversations with the children beforehand or prepare them for this so really taking the time to look into this is important we're also identifying the teachers are not therapists they are trained in a one-day seminar they don't have the extensive training that therapists have and they're being asked to act as therapists for our children in the classroom again starting at age five thank you so much and if you have any additional comments please feel free to email the board katie is there anyone registered online there are no hands raised don't zoom at this time okay okay we'll then move on to our board president report didn't listen agenda item what it just says contracts which agenda item is that there's okay and carmina taylor so i was
075looking at your annual report you have total you have a total number of staff of 690 people but the four positions in the district that are contracts um i remember the day where it was transparent and you could see the superintendent the assistant superintendent the business manager and the hr director and so my question is when did that change that the contracts were not accessible and transparent and why and that becomes really important because i was here for the work session last week and you had that upcoming contract on there but the community didn't get to see what you guys were going to approve this week so it doesn't kind of make sense that you don't have it last week you don't have it this week and then we have to ultimately ask for a
076right to know request to find out the contract years ago i had to google dr chris phil's contract why why why because these are very critical roles in the district and if you have four of those people out of 690 what's the big deal why make that transparent for the community did you hear my question again when did it stop and why and why it should be transparent because you shouldn't be voting on something that people didn't see before this week or yeah before this week or last week thank you that's what i meant by contracts amy all right thank you all right now we'll move on to the board president report this evening i have no informational items and as far as action items we have two this evening and these were reviewed in
077last week's work session the first is the approval of resolution number w522 for the appointment of wayne g coleman as business administrator as per document 6-1 and the approval of timothy p matthews is board treasurer for the 2022 2023 school year can i have a motion thank you second all right the motion's been made and seconded are there any comments or questions seeing none all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed motion passes thank you we'll now move on to our superintendent's report jim thank you um before i get to my action one action item here there's a important shout out to what has come to be known as woof which is wissa hicken ultimate frisbee and it's a club at the high school i have seen a lot of ultimate in my day and
078this team is it can't find any competition at the high school level anywhere near us they can they can match that what they're doing out there it's an amazing group of athletes their skill level is incredible and they go on to have national rankings and they go on to have regional tournaments and i just wanted to say that it's not unnoticed and thank you to the staff and the students out there really representing incredible athleticism my one action item is what exactly what we reviewed last monday which is the school calendar and we're going to have um the last day of school one day earlier and everything else just gets moved back i mean earlier one day uh so to that uh effect please a motion to approve action item 7b 0.1 so moved second
079the motion has been made and seconded are there any comments or questions all right seeing none all those in favor all right anyone opposed the motion passes thank you all right um we're going to be skipping the assistant superintendent's report and we'll move on to the board solicitor report michelle hi good evening everyone i do not have any informational items and no action items tonight either thank you michelle well now move on to our board secretary report wait thank you very much there's no informational item and no change to the action item so um i am requesting approval of action items 10 b 1 through 6. so moved the motion has been made and seconded are there any comments or questions all right seeing none all those in favor all right and you want to
080post all right motion passes thank you and we'll move right on to our board treasurer report right thank you very much there is again no informational item and the action item hasn't changed so i'm requesting approval of action item 11b one are there any comments or questions seeing none all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed right motion passes thank you thank you we'll now move on to our director of human resistance report dania good evening for tonight's hr report there are no informational items changes from the work session last week are represented in bold on the agenda and are found in document 12b1 these include additional appointments resignations and a leave of absence this evening i'm seeking approval for action items 12 b1 through 12 b9 so moved second all right the motion has
081been made and seconded are there any comments or questions all right seeing none all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed all right promotion passes thank you we'll now move on to our communications committee report staffie hi one informational item last week on april 26 the advisory committee who meets about the school start end times met for the month of april there was three agenda type topics one was the review of districts that have made this change and what those changes entailed a review from an athletic perspective and how that would impact um the school day for athletes and then we did hear from a couple of students of day in the life so a walk through of the day in the life of a middle school as well as high school i thought the
082session was very informative there was a lot of q a shockingly i had a lot of questions but it was really well presented i think there's still a lot of questions about how this will impact the overall school in the overall community this is one part of many sessions that we're having um so this is still the informational gathering piece of it next month we're also going to have a presentation about how this impacts our staff and our teachers and i'm forgetting the other thing but it was really really interesting the school districts that have made the change seem from an anecdotal perspective that they're happy with the change there's definitely pros and cons there was a lot of questions around athletes and especially high school athletes and how that impacts things for those athletes
083because they would be missing potentially even more time we are the only school districted suburban one that is looking at this right now but that's not true there's other schools but no other suburban one school has changed their start times to date that we as of today we don't know if that will change in the future but definitely would have another impact on our students um next month like i said we'll continue to have these conversations over the summer the committee will be taking all this information and kind of coming up with a couple of scenarios so i think we'll have a much more robust presentation in the fall on all of these topics and where we we've landed or what we've learned in this discovery phase i think jim i got it all ronnie's
084not here to be my like second person yes thank you make sure i didn't miss anything excellent uh summary the other topic uh in may's advisory committee is the transportation act so it's really a topic a very big important topic sorry for for missing that lead is going to be probably in the center of that conversation i have no other items unless others have questions stephanie i have a question um of the districts that you looked at that have moved to later school start times have any um move their high school start times to 8 30 or later i don't have my notes in front of me but i believe yes because we looked at quakertown royersford and one more and jim helped me out redner yeah in phoenixville quakertown was the one who moved
085back but i believe at least at least radnor has that late jim did you say one one of them had later school start times and then they moved back to the old start times quakertown did did try it and and um decided that the bussing impact was cost was too much but to be clear quaker town had moved it like a whole like hour back and then they moved it back a half an hour so it was almost like they had changed their start time a little too much so they they adjusted it but it was still different from their original original start time got it thank you any other comments or questions for zeppy all right well thank you so much for that report sephie and we'll now move on to our curriculum and
086technology committee report and ronnie is not here since zappi has offered to cover so ronnie asked me to cover um so i cannot answer questions probably there's no informational items but there are action items that we would like to vote on this week we reviewed them at our previous workshop meeting on april 25th and we're seeking a motion to approve action items 14 b 1 through 14 b 14. so moved second there's been a motion it's been seconded leaves no questions any questions or comments i think jim is prepared to answer questions if they come up does anyone have any questions or comments none all right well then all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed all right motions passed thank you all right well now move on to our facilities and transportation committee report
087joe thank you so uh in terms of informational items we have um listed here preferred solution for bluebell elementary expansion and alteration project i think wade are you going to uh kind of run through on the preferred approach for the building yes thank you um so based on uh feedback uh received from the board and then also various other folk who have been commenting on this educationally internally we developed this option which we're actually referring to as 4a and this is our preferred option at this point so the advantage of this compared to options 1 and 3 which we'd previously discussed with the board and had some lags compared to option two which i don't think anybody liked based on the feedback we received this option does allow that the playground and the um black
088top area below the playground are able to remain we are able to separate the bus traffic from the parent traffic from the front and to the back uh area so the new traffic pattern for the bus goes through the bus front lot comes around into a small loop drops off towards the back construction area and then goes back out onto a school lane so the advantage of that again is that we're able to leave the playground and the blacktop area alone we are able to separate uh but we are able to accomplish what we wanted to which is the configuration which allows that the bigger loop which has been discussed is probably just not developable based on the contours uh in the back of that area so this is the one that would sort of
089be able to be built we still believe although we're frankly going to continue to request consideration of the other options as we develop these the other difference that you see in this is the connection to the actual building in the back there's a small hallway instead of if you looked at the old option 3 the entire surface area of the back was connecting to the building so from a constructability this will be able to be done in pretty much any option where we're building in the back this is the way we would have to do it so the small individual columns will allow us to connect to the building while allowing the building to continue so there'll be less disruption into the into the existing old classrooms older classrooms um so that's that's pretty much
090the bigger changes again some of the positives are um that we have increased the q for car line parent drop-off off so that the double line on the right hand side and the green still continues and traffic would go back out onto symphony so that has not changed and the rest of the advantages of the construction being in the back or provided the multi-purpose uh kitchen cafeteria gym facility is pretty much the same as we had seen it it's just uh located slightly differently with this the mechanical and the serving slightly changed so that's it i could add thank you also that this option 4a is kind of like a cousin of option 3 that we shared with the bluebell community in our last zoom presentation of these and we're going to do we'll share
091this one also tomorrow we have another presentation with blue bell's community to include staff and families to get feedback on this idea it's essentially that the option three was essentially everything in the back which is what this is it's just slid over slightly so we can get that bus loop freestanding and not commingle with the with the uh vehicle traffic which is going to be really awesome and while dr chris field was talking i didn't fail to mention one other thing that we are developing is in the green loop there is now a new connection to the blacktop area which did not currently exist so that will serve as an excess lot for night functions and will help us so that we don't have to create additional impervious uh based on the township regulations that
092allows us in the upper right hand side to leave more of the trees and the canopy in that area so under the old tree version that goes all the way up to the top whereas now we're able to keep more of that green area so that parking lot that's over here that's just going to be overflow that'll remain a blacktop area for the students it's going to be much like it is it's stony which is it's going to um allow for it but during the day it's going to function the same way it does currently there'll be a gate it's probably drawn there it's probably just very very small but during the day there'll be a gate which would prevent anybody from entering it i know some board members had questions at the at the
093prior facilities meeting about the walking trails those won't be touched by this either um so i think they'll be touched but i think this option is going to have the least amount of uh impact to the walking trails any other questions or comments um mrs farlow likes this one that's a strong yes she had the same impression that you did about the existing playground and it's not just its functionality but it's it's beauty so she's good with that and very much in favor of separating vehicles from the buses i like that this one preserves a little more of the woods to the side there that's that's nice so as long as the bus can make that turn it seems a little sharp this is tight but we have people's much smarter than way than me
094to figure that out and also it retains that uh element of connecting the whole school uh the back even though it's slightly detailed it's not detached but it's maybe 10 feet away from the regular building it'll be connected so the whole school has a flow that doesn't have now yeah i'm most excited about this one so far so thank you so much that's great yeah wait i think um this modification to the previous one we looked at is definitely an improvement and i think it takes into consideration some of the misgivings or concerns people have with some of the earlier ones in particular the preservation of that playground i think the walking trail that surrounds it while still separating bus and um parent traffic um yeah so good job too to you and the architects
095on coming up with this approach really quickly real quick question you couldn't extend the other parking lot back i know there's a softball field there now but you couldn't extend it back to avoid i mean i guess the impact to parking in the playground on off hours would it be great to the students correct that would be okay is it working at stoney amy they won't even they won't even notice that they won't be there it'll never be used for parking when school's in session so thank you for your feedback i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off um so thank you very much for your feedback continued feedback and if you have additional comments after you've had a chance to look at it that's great um you know again the feedback is what
096has helped make this a better plan this is again the least vetted engineering wise and traffic study wise and all the otherwise because it's our newest one we just haven't had enough time to beat it up as much as we have the other ones so we are going to continue to want to have the option of keeping the other options on the table as we continue to beat this up and try to make it better and develop it so thank you yeah thanks wade and uh jim and wait i'd be curious to hear the feedback from the blue bell community once you have a chance to present this approach to them thanks um beyond the informational item we do have a few action items which we touched on last week and they're unchanged from last
097week so i'm going to ask for approval of action items 15b one through four so moved i'll say again all right the motion's been made and seconded are there any further comments or questions all right seeing none all those in favor all right anyone opposed all right motion passes thank you thank you all right we'll move on next to our finance committee report david thanks amy we have no new informational items this week we have six action items that were reviewed last week and we'll be seeking approval of action items 16b1 through 16b6 should note that item number 2 is approval of the proposed final budget it's not in its final form yet or it may be but it's still subject to change i should say and at this point it includes a 3.37 tax
098increase to the current school tax millage rate which would still keep us very near the lowest tax rate in montgomery county and that's all i have to say can we have a motion to approve those action items so moved second okay thank you the mission's been made and seconded do we have any comments or questions did we not have the fireworks in here last time or did we already approve that we approved the fireworks was that the last okay okay waiving the fees for the fireworks right just want to make sure that didn't go away if these were waved we will have fireworks not on tonight's agenda any other questions or comments all right seeing none all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed all right motion passes thank you we'll now move on to
099our policy committee report marshall thank you amy uh we have no informational items tonight uh we do have action items uh 17b one through eight which were previously reviewed at our last workshop work session following our policy committee meeting and therefore tonight uh we are asking for the vote and approval of action items 17b one through eight so moved the motion's been made and seconded are there any questions or comments all right seeing none all those in favor all right anyone opposed all right motion passes thank you we'll now move on to our racial equity oversight committee report paul thank you amy uh we have no items for this evening i did want to note as was mentioned earlier that we do have a next upcoming meeting on may 16th at 7 pm and all
100are welcome to attend uh virtually thank you paul does anyone have any questions or comments all right thank you all right we'll now move on to our report of board representatives extracurricular marshall there was no extracurricular meeting uh this month uh i should say in april so i have nothing to okay thank you we did not have an mciu legislative committee meeting uh we did have a board of directors meeting but unfortunately i was unable to attend but i'm going to get some notes from that meeting to share at our upcoming meeting um all have some highlights to share next time uh next we have our north monco technical career center david there hasn't been a meeting in the last week thanks nothing new okay thank you and deann anything for psbi no nothing new
101but i think katie posted the slides i was talking about last week for everyone to see on the website and it's really cool to look at if you're interested great thank you all right well that then brings us to our second public comment period again i'll remind everyone that we allow a maximum of five speakers on any particular topic we also uh require you to limit your comments to three minutes and as noted before it's not our practice to engage in a dialogue with speakers but when appropriate we will post a response on our website so i will begin with our first one here which is carmina taylor so i'm definitely coming here tonight um as a representative of the wizarding alumni association i'm coming from the heels of the second black hall of fame
102ceremony that we had saturday night i'm going to send you guys the links to both of the facebook live um video of the ceremonies and i want to remind you that i came here in october asking for you to consider putting um our inductees into the digital board we have new leadership now so amy i'm going to send you a follow-up email um to ask you to reconsider or take a vote to have our stuff included in the 10 000 video digital board that you have for the hall of fame i realized you know initially when i started talking about this that i just wanted you guys to write the wrongs of merging the two hall of fames but i realized this weekend that there's no possible way that you can tell our story there's
103no possible way that you can tell what it feels like to be a black alum and honor the people that we honored so i'm not here to ask you to include us in your hall of fame i'm asking you to add our hall of fame to your board i received so much positive feedback but i want you to hear the stories of other alumni that had traumatic experiences as athletes or as students and the feedback that i got and what was my original intention is that we wanted to honor the contributions of black alumni from penland and ambler and i'm here to tell you that i'm going to give this a last chance to talk to you guys to ask you to be reasonable i think you take a lot of your personal feelings for
104me and tuning me out when i speak or ignoring what i say i'm doing this because i'm telling you that i'm not going to bring 50 people here next time i'm going to bring a hundred and i want you to hear their voices and i want you to hear why that ceremony is significant to them you need to stop ignoring me i am the voice of the people of pentland and ambler because i'm bold and courageous enough to tell you the truth some people don't so again amy i'm asking you to consider putting our hall of fame inductees and honorees record breakers trailblazers on are on your board because it's the right thing to do you guys didn't cause systemic racism at wizard higgin but you can solve and and affirm the things that need
105to be affirmed you can make a difference you can change what has happened to people that have lived through being traumatized at wissa hicken um thank you for your comments all right i'll work with you no problem if you have anything further please you can send us an email all right uh katie is there anyone registered online we have katie oh hey katie oh you can go ahead and amuse yourself okay can you hear me yes okay um my name is katie oh and i'm a resident of whitpain township i'm speaking tonight as a representative of the large and strong group of asian and asian american parents in the district and we want to raise awareness of the lack of asian american and pacific islander representation in our district's curriculum it has been difficult to
106see the rise in hate and bias incidents against asians nationally since the pandemic started two years later these hate incidents continue to occur asians in this country are still seen as the perpetual foreigner and i wonder how many of our students have been impacted and feel the anxiety and fear that is pervasive in asian communities across the country i believe that one large contributor to anti-asian hate is the lack of visibility in media leadership positions in school curriculum so as parents we want to advocate for our pa our students and stand with them we believe that there needs to be greater awareness and understanding which will lead to a culture of belonging and dignity a goal set by our district as part of their equity work we are grateful for the newly created senior position
107held by casaio de tour and the work that she is doing but we want to see more change and hope that wiss can work to become a leader in equity and inclusive education in pa as shared on the district website almost 16 percent of our students identify as asian so we're wondering in what ways can we ensure that these students feel like they belong are there dedicated safe spaces for them to discuss topics it's clear to us as parents that our students don't feel seen in literature and history books and classroom walls we would like to ask for more children's literature and inclusion of aapi history in u.s history asians in this country have made great contributions in labor activism school integration and citizenship rights but their stories are often ignored or forgotten in the
108classroom of course we also want to advocate for stories and perspectives of black indigenous and people of color in humanities courses since the social studies curriculum is under review before the board approves we ask that there is a sound pedagogical approach that is culturally responsible and historically representative and accurate we would like the school to engage with the community and be transparent about the process and that materials be made public for parents to review lastly i would like to emphasize that this needs to be a collective effort as a school system to support our teachers administrators parents and students we believe that institutional issues can only be addressed by institutional change and it will require sustained collaboration and engagement with communities education is transformative when it comes to combating hatred racism and stereotypes thank you
109thank you katie all right our next in-person speaker is colleen semprollo [Music] i want to address some comments and discussion that took place at the april 25th work session meeting um the board member joe antonio mentioned a study that indicated one of the reasons for the disparity between black and white students included in the gifted program is that white teachers tend to recommend white students more frequently than black and latino students i'm assuming the implication is that this is a factor contributing to the gap in the gifted program in our district so in corresponding with joe he gave me some data about the district that shows that black and latino students represent fifteen percent of our student population and two percent of the gifted population asian students represent 15 of the student population and 35
110of the gifted population and just doing the math i'm assuming white students make up the remaining 70 of the general population and 63 percent of the gifted population and i might be off by a percent or two i'm not really sure um well the gap in the number of black and latino students in the gifted program is alarming considering the asian population is statistically overrepresented it does not seem the issue in our district is that white teachers disproportionately recommend white students in fact white students are not represented in the gifted program at a rate that is higher than that of the general population i object to the insinuation that was made about our district by citing this study if we truly want to get to the reasons for the gap in the gifted program as
111well as the ap and honors programs why are we not looking at the data that we have we know predictors of academic success include certain factors such as grades homework completion rates assignment completion rates rates of attendance and tardiness participation in school sponsored events including music and athletic programs as well as clubs just as we looked at rates of participation in academic programs by wraith and race and ethnicity why are we not looking at this data by race and ethnicity the grades in the assignment and homework completion data are all in schoology for each student in grade six plus this data is so important in terms of give us giving us an idea of where to start in terms of closing certain gaps if the data shows us no differences in certain contrib certain contributing
112factors then we can eliminate and determine what else needs to be examined and next if we do see gaps we can develop strategies and programs to address specific differences and every board meeting i have attended in person and virtually there has been discussion about closing academic gaps instead of looking at data i have heard much best guess at best yes explanations but wouldn't we be better able to develop more effective strategies by using the data that is at our fingertips my fear is that we will end up eliminating some of our gifted honors and ap programs in order to eliminate the problem all of the students in the district will be negatively impacted by doing this thank you thank you colleen katie is there anyone registered online we have ginger on zoom ginger you can
113go ahead and unmute yourself hi um i'm ginger leong ginger pulliat um i have two kids at blue bell elementary that are mixed race half chinese um half white my comments uh follow on from kdos are about the social studies curriculum review but are at the elementary school level uh the past year my second grade daughter has been asking why she looks different than her classmates i've also seen comments she has made in her school writing exercises where she is trying to understand her asian identity i'm concerned as a parent that the sense of belonging is bothering her at such a young age i think what would help her is for her to see her asian identity reflected in the social studies curriculum through posts through projects posted on classroom or hallway wars in books
114and classrooms or in the school library the material that's currently taught about the asian american culture tends to be limited to the lunar year and it's typically an art project creating a lantern or a um or a dragon and sometimes watching a video i've also noticed that um the cultural material that's taught about the asian american pacific islanders tends to be teacher specific or reliant on a parent or a student as an example there was a fourth grade teacher at bbe that did a phenomenal presentation on diwali day this teacher is not of indian heritage however she leveraged the resources of another bbe teacher who is indian and also one of her students in her class to teach about the holiday and its traditions i feel that this was a missed opportunity to share this
115cultural lesson across all the fourth grade classes at wasahiken i think technology such as microsoft teams could have been used to share it with the other classrooms i do have two ideas um as it relates to the curriculum things you know the school district could do during the month of may during the asian american pacific island heritage month i know during the black history month the kids typically do a project on a famous black person could we also do during the month of may a project on a famous um asian american maybe someone of the younger generation that they could more easily identify with such as chloe kim maybe nathan chen michel chan or an author such as grace lynn another thing the kids could do as a class project on an asian or pacific
116island country it could be at a specific grade level the class could showcase uh showcase their study of people people culture and food fear say a travel expo and have other classes visit that country get their passport stamped and have the students say right three interesting facts i learned about that country thank you so much for those comments ginger all right our next person registered in person is kirk mcmahon good evening my name is kirk mcmin i am a science teacher at the high school where i have worked for the last 16 years i am one of 151 employees that came here tonight i enjoy teaching at wizahickin and have met very many very interesting and talented students throughout the years i love teaching physics and seeing my students develop an interest in science i
117am very committed to this job i frequently miss my lunch or my prep to help students i do this because i believe this job is important and i work hard to do it well the last two years have been intense it took a considerable considerable amount of work to modify lessons instructional techniques and assessments to accommodate the virtual and hybrid instructional models our entire staff has worked hard to deliver quality instruction during the pandemic and this contract is an opportunity for you to show them that you value that commitment as you can imagine it is frustrating to hear from your chief negotiator that our hard work is only worth a 0.5 percent raise or that the effect inflation has on this staff is irrelevant imagine how effective i would be as a teacher if this
118were the level of support i showed my students during the finance committee meeting two weeks ago i watched a presentation about a construction project i understand that investment is required to maintain and improve the buildings your staff is here tonight to remind you to invest in what happens inside those buildings invest in the dedicated staff that works hard for the children of this community thank you for your time tonight and thank you for your service to the community thank you so much for those comments katie is there anyone registered online we have michelle walker michelle you can go ahead and mute yourself hi my name is michelle walker mcewen i live in whitpain township and i have three children in elementary school in this district i'm commenting on reducing class sizes and making the decision
119to reduce some of those class sizes sooner rather than later the current class sizes in second grade at stoney creek will project classes of over 26 students next year as there are currently only four sections of third grade according to a board budget slide from the planning meeting this grade level group as well as others at stoney creek and other elementary schools have been highlighted as ones to watch on the school district's radar for adding another section to reduce class sizes it is my understanding that a decision will not be made on that until this summer it is my request that the board consider making a decision to add the sections as soon as possible waiting to make this decision in the summer will only prolong the inevitable and leave the district looking last minute
120for our teachers any person can drive through the streets around stoney creek or anywhere in whit payne township and see the dozens plus homes that are being sold and no families are moving in and enrollment is increasing with the loss of instruction from the shutdown and some kids participating in virtual school there are children still struggling to close the academic gaps from the last two years large class sizes will only let those gaps grow my son has been in second grade class with 21 students he has flourished and it has made huge academic gains his phenomenal teacher has assisted in that a huge part of that but it is also because he gets the attention he needs from being in that smaller class stoney creek will be welcoming the autistic support program in the fall
121the students and their families the students and their families at stoney creek are excited to learn alongside these children participating in these classes through inclusive learning opportunities if these children will be pushing into classes that are already on the larger side it will lessen the impact of the benefit of inclusion students over the past two years have also displayed the need for more social emotional support an overcrowded classroom will not support this development at the elementary level there's an enormous amount of research around the benefits of reducing class sizes continuing to do so will lessen the burden on our phenomenal and amazing classroom teachers that we appreciate go above and beyond for their students every day and reduce the needs for extra reading specialists counselors and everything that's needed to make up the lost round
122please make this decision to keep the class sizes low and make it now this will give our schools the highest chances to bring in qualified and experienced teachers for the fall of 22. thank you thank you michelle our next in-person speaker is matt pepe good evening my name is matt heppy i'm a resident of whit payne township a father of a graduating wissakin high school senior and a wissaican teacher of over 25 years experience my wife's three siblings all graduated from wesekin high school prior to teaching i served as a united states army officer serving in germany in the middle east i chose both the military and my teaching career out of a sense of service i chose both because i wanted to make the world a better place at wisning high school my schedule
123usually consists of teaching four sections of advanced placement economics and one section of world religions both courses enrich students lives and help make them better citizens one of the most important equations we learn in ap economics is real equals nominal minus inflation as in the real pay raise you receive is your nominal pay raise minus the rate of inflation the district's offer of a paltry nominal pay raise leaves us with a significant pay cut in real terms once we account for historic inflation rates of over eight percent for two years we've received tremendous praise as we've stepped up for our students while facing unimaginable challenges now we are simply asking to be recognized for those efforts by keeping pace with inflation teaching has never been harder than it is today and i say this with
124over a quarter century of teaching experience the number of students with ieps and five or four agreements in our classrooms has never been higher our students especially given the traumatic events of the past two years have more social and emotional needs than they've ever had before never in my career and i had so many students one-on-one in my classroom during prep time or after school for remediation and second chance learning leaving me with little time to craft new lessons or to give students the in-depth feedback that they deserve to add to this the current obsession with testing is putting greater and greater pressure on our actual in-class teaching and preparation time i've had a good career i've committed myself to educating young people and setting them on a better path for the future over half
125my life's been dedicated to the wissican school district and i'm proud of what i've accomplished i chose the military and public education knowing full well that neither occupation would make me rich having said that i haven't had a real pay raise in a decade and this year i'm facing a significant pay cut in real terms i conclude by asking you to consider all that we have done for whistling students both during the pandemic and before and to invest in the staff that makes washington school district great thank you so much for those comments katie is there anyone registered online you have no more speakers registered on zoom okay then we'll move on to our next in person which is ryan perlman good evening my name is ryan perlman i'm an english teacher department chairman school
126newspaper advisor wizard in high school i've dedicated the last 24 years to the betterment of the way sleeping community in addition to my responsibilities to my students in the classroom voluntarily helped raise thousands of dollars for hope gardens car loads of supplies for maddie dixon's community cupboard money to fight pediatric cancer i volunteered my time to chaperones student trips and overnight stays at the high schools voluntarily attended conferences at the national council of teachers of english workshops for gifted education at the montgomery county iu meetings of the delaware valley consortium for excellence and equity i do these things because i honor my students and i respect my students this makes me a better teacher and a better member of the wasting community because i love my job more than half of my life i've served
127the wizarding community on a daily basis i've served as a teacher of reading and writing as a mentor for young adults who need academic advice the counselor for children who have more effective needs than ever before as an emotional support for students who simply need love and kindness i can say confidently without hesitation that my job today is harder than has ever been my father was a teacher i learned from a young age that there's nothing more noble and more important to society than to serve others i consider my service to wissa hicken as one of my core responsibilities the same way that i'm responsible to my family to my friends and to myself yet the district that i've served has not reciprocated its responsibility to me i've seen on average a one percent pay
128raise each of the past five years that fails to come close to keeping up with the cost of living increases health care costs have increased my coverage has decreased each year the district has asked more of me and of my colleagues many of you know service to others is rewarding can be exhausting too the more exhausting the failure of the wissicon school district to recognize the hard work and dedication of its fine teachers we deserve a fair contract that honors and respects our service to this community thank you for those comments katie is there anyone online okay then we'll go to our next in-person speaker which is frank jersey [Music] uh good evening my name is frank derussi i am a teacher at blue bell elementary and i'm also a resident of ambler borough uh
129the past two years in education have been nothing short of a dumpster fire we've been asked time and again by this board and this administration to go beyond what we recognized as a typical school year we were thrust into a world of virtual teaching and expected to deliver engaging rigorous instruction via teams elementary teachers were asked to abandon all we know about in-person instruction and come up with ways to assist students without pulling small groups or working one-on-one to assist students i'm sorry because of social distancing requirements we taught from behind plexiglass and to blank computer screens because that's what was asked of us and we did it we kept the wizarding school district up and running when the rest of america shut down these past two years we have adapted with little notice to
130a myriad of instructional models that were improved by the approved by this board in the height of the pandemic with covet cases raging this board sent elementary teachers back into the classroom for in-person instruction at a time when this board would not even hold in-person meetings we were in the classroom every day risking our own health and that of our families to help kids and we did it through all of this through the uncertainty through the stress through the burnout our workload kept increasing this district marched on as if the past two school years were business as usual placing more and more requirements on the staff with little time or training to accomplish all that was asked yet we did it and we continue to do it every single day because we the staff we
131are wissa hicken we are the ones who deliver the accolades this district so happily embraces we are the ones who raise these students up and help them to achieve their fullest potential we are the ones who develop the relationships that help build their self-esteems we are the ones who over the past two years have counseled them have consoled them have calmed them have made them laugh have attended to their social emotional needs and have shielded them as best we could from the anxiety born from these last two years we did that and we did it wonderfully we have done our jobs in spite of everything these past two years have thrown at us we have done our jobs remarkably well we are simply asking for a fair contract a contract that is well within the
132means of this district not because we're owed something but because it's the right thing to do and you know what they say about doing the right thing it isn't always easy but it is always right thank you tonight for your time thank you so much katie is there anyone else registered okay we have no more in-person speakers either so that concludes our second public comment period and we'll now move on to board comments um and i'll just start off this evening before the teachers leave i do want to thank you for coming this evening it's teacher appreciation week so happy teacher appreciation week um and also you know as a board we do look forward to continued conversations and working to reach a resolution so thank you for coming out this evening any other comments
133from my fellow board members i are we in charge of the hall of fame for the school is that are we in charge of that gym like the hall of fame the athletic hall of fame we have a hall of fame yes like do we make decisions about it yes a joint committee of people receive nominations and review the nominations each year okay any other comments from board members i have another one sorry sure comment dm what are i assume this but i just want to ensure our librarians are making efforts to increase um like represent all representations of all races and ethnicities into our books that we're requiring correct uh correct in fact we actually just added a flat dollar amount to all librarians budgets for that explicit purpose this school year it's important
134and we we all of our librarians agree with the comments made and and are working to make sure that happens do we do special things for um asian american pacific islander month like as we do for black history month the answer is yes not as as many as was noted and so that's also something we can work on okay and the last thing i wanted to just comment on was one of the speakers talked about class size and i i too feel it's really important to keep especially the lower grades at a smaller size for uh for learning i think that's so important so thanks for that comment and i would agree as well i would like to see lower class sizes and i believe we did discuss that at our budget meeting and looking
135at hiring additional teachers for those yellow highlighted classes yes we keep an extremely close eye on enrollment and remember there's two phases of this there's the registration piece which is now which is kindergarten and then as the last day of school we roll everybody up a grade and we uh also include all known new registrations at each grade level not just kindergarten and also all know own new move outs and was noted the uh the difference this year or the unique part about this year will be there will be a about 25 or so students who will move from shady to stoney as part of the autistic support program relocation so all of those get included in the new grade levels all of those are counted in homerooms and all of those will be used
136when we when we take a look at our class size guidelines and make the decisions it's unfortunately it's very difficult to do this before summer there's advantages doing before summer a it gets people what they want and also b we have a leg up on hiring the disadvantage is um it's extremely expensive to create more class sizes so we have to we have to go by the guidelines otherwise there's no point having the guidelines okay thank you jim any other comments yeah i mean i just wanted to acknowledge the the comments of uh several of the speakers of asian american parents in our community and um their their request and their emphasis on trying to have more asian-american representation and inclusion in our curriculum i think that's a great goal not just for asians but
137i think of all students to represent the diversity and the richness of the mistaken community uh is an important goal and i know that we go through a regular curriculum review uh this year we're reviewing the social studies curriculum and i know that uh kaziah and renee have talked about infusing our curriculum review process with an equity lens to take into consideration um the degree of inclusiveness of representation that's in the materials and i would like to encourage the administration to uh in the pursuit of that goal to try to pull in feedback and input from actual parents and students to see how that how that can actually be done effectively and do that as we're doing the review not just at the very end when we've already made adjustments to the curriculum which i
138think tends to be the mode of operation so um i'd like to acknowledge and think that the parents uh the asian parents who spoke out tonight i mean they represent a large and uh i think a growing part of our uh community i think 15 in total um and they were they deserve to be reflected and represented in our curriculum materials as well so thank you any other comments just to build on that and you know i'm a really big believer of diversity and inclusion i grew up in new york city where you know everybody was different and that was the norm and when we moved here um i i was even shocked with the lack of diversity and inclusion so i i think it's something that we all strive for and i definitely strive
139for that so i really would like to see more of that movement thank you for bringing this up think everybody who brings this up i do think it's an important issue but i think the other thing we should think about is diversity is a positive thing diversity allows us to broaden perspectives diversity allows us to see things in a different light diversity is beautiful so i want that to be the message not that you know one is and one is in i think it all should be we should be all learning from each other and i hope that we get there i really really do but thank you everybody for bringing that forward anyone else any additional comments i'd just like to make one more comment too to our graduating seniors um alex and and
140morgan i think what you've experienced over the last two years and certainly what you've seen tonight is a microcosm of what you're going to deal with as you move forward you know being a leader whether it's by volunteering or as part of your profession is about learning it's about hearing people it's about hearing positive and negative it's about things that people like and people don't like and taking that and understanding it and realizing it that you can make a difference you may not realize it on a particular day a particular time but if you put forth the effort if you take a stand if you sit there in front of everybody and said i'm willing to listen to you i'm willing to try and make tough decisions and whether you like them all or not
141whether i can do my best or not i will simply show up and try that's what you've done for the last two years that's what you see what this is all about everybody who spoke tonight everybody who received an award everybody who had an issue of concern a problem or something positive to say you're going to see that and you two have handled it well over the last two years and i hope you take this and you build on it and realize that as you go through your academic career into your professional careers you will make a difference and it starts with exercises like this to learn what's important which is everybody is important we all have to learn that we all have to take that into account and we all have to make ourselves
142better by making our com our communities better so to you i applaud you to everybody else this is what it's all about gentlemen go to it and congratulations you guys want to make a quick comment i would love to thank you guys so much for the opportunity to serve on this board it was truly amazing and i thank each and every one of you for the opportunity i would also like to thank the teachers for just being a part of my life wishicon school district is so special to me and the reason why it's so special because of each and every one of you guys you guys have all impacted me so much and i'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to be your student i'm going to echo some of morgan's words
143that he said but i wanted to give a huge head out to all the board members it's been an honor to be able to sit up here and to serve along with you and to represent the high school i know for me it's been a great learning opportunity for me just public speaking or just be able to be a leader and be able to represent something and then also to the teachers thank you all each one of you guys throughout the years since third grade i've been in this district each year i've been able to learn and improve myself so it's been an amazing time being here in the district and i want to miss it so thank you all thank you guys any other comments or questions no all right well then can i
144have a motion to adjourn so moved all right all those in favor aye aye anyone pass all right we're adjourned