001Call the committee of the whole meeting um to order. Everyone can join to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Is anyone um recording the meeting? Thank you. Um for roller >> Mrs. Sorenza >> here. >> Mr. Hers here. [clears throat] >> Mrs. >> here. >> Mrs. Phillips >> here. >> Ms. Mr. Rodriguez, >> Mr. Shippers >> here. >> Mrs. Taylor >> here. >> Mrs. Forest >> here. >> Mrs. Vincent >> here. >> I'm sorry. Before you start, I do just want to let you know Casey did reach out to me via text that she's unable to attend this evening. Um, sorry I didn't get to mention that. >> Thanks, Jerry. She did reach out
002to me, too. So, thank you. Okay, good. Sure. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. Uh just want to welcome anyone who's um watching online um visitors and um just mention the upcoming meeting dates. Uh there will be a finance and facilities workshop um Wednesday, January 21st at 5:00 p.m. in the community boardroom. There is a board of school directors meeting January 26 at 6 PM also in the community boardroom. Um the board did have a brief executive session regarding personnel prior to the start of this meeting this evening. Is there any public comment? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to the routine approvals. Um this is for the minutes and I believe we can do this by voice vote. So, it is recommended that the board of school directors approve the following minutes. The
003November 10th, 2025 board of school directors meeting minutes. We have the motion. >> Some moved. Second. >> Any discussion? Okay, I believe this is all those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed? Motion passes. Uh next up is board leaison updates um for curriculum facilities finance and policy. >> Um curriculum would be Mrs. Zinsky and myself. Um we had a meeting um unless you have anything else Mrs. We had a meeting on um December 5th prior to the holiday um and we will be um covering we will have another meeting um I believe it's in February curriculum so that will be forthcoming. All right. Um facilities Mrs. Phillips >> um our first meeting for the year is you just stated January 21st which is next Wednesday here on the board room at
0045. That's all I have to say. Thank you. um finance. >> Yeah, we had a meeting I think was November 12th in November 12th. So, it's been a bit but we uh budget preparations in full swing. We reviewed fund balance, anticipated tax revenues, the Tower Health pilot program, um which we're hoping to extend, talks are ongoing, um various projects in the pipeline and the 2026 cash flow projections. And just a shout out to Mr. Ber we had a successful bond offering which I can't remember if we covered in the committee of the whole but it went better than anticipated uh thanks to Mr. Bor and his great team. That's it. >> Thank you Mr. Shippers. Um and policies >> um some upcoming policies coming down. >> Thank you. Okay. Um and I think I'll be
005turning it over to Dr. ordered um for some data over >> and Mr. Arn, it's okay if I take over the screen. >> I'm going to disconnect. Go. All righty. So, I guess this could actually be considered curriculum committee as well. Well, um we we typically do cover this in a particular committee, but we wanted to incorporate it into today's um the whole meeting. Um and it's really an overview of some data um to really get us thinking and moving towards revamping our strategic plan goals uh for this year and beyond. Um so during this presentation I'm just going to briefly touch upon the miss the mission the vision statements and the strategic plan goals currently that we've been operating for the past uh several years now since 2022. Um and then I'm going to
006give you a little progress towards the student achievement um goals uh which was specific to math. However, I really do think we we need to take a look at adequate literacy and math as well. Um, I want to share with you some of our proficiency on state assessments. Um, some of our growth in a couple of different grade levels as well as some comparisons. If you recall, we looked at that last year. Um, how grade levels fared in our district compared to other grade levels in the county. Um uh in addition to that, another strategic plan goal is really looking at authentic learning experiences, trying to in increase the amount the types of offerings for our students. So just want to touch a little bit about on how we've been doing that over the past
007several years, a little bit about mental health, and then human resources. Ideally, um we're going to take that information and work together with the board to analyze current goals and identify areas of future priority. Um and then ultimately update strategic plan goals. Okay. So, this is kind of just getting us all on the same page and understanding of of how we've been doing over the past several years in a variety of different ways. Um inspiring excellence, one Spartan at a time, has been the mission statement here. And as you can see in the vision statement, our district asi aspires to offering rigorous academics and enriching extracurricular opportunities, providing innovative opportunities to support all learners, attracting and retaining educators of impact, and creating a culture that fosters strong relationships, dignity, and growth. Our goals again kind
008of um looking at them, you know, kind of from a thousand foot view is really looking at that student achievement and growth in in math. Um also looking at identifying how are we identifying student mental health needs? How are we reviewing and aligning our resources to address those needs? um how are we soliciting feedback from our stakeholders to set goals and then measure how effective we are in that area of mental health. Um the third again is that diversified program offerings for secondary students. when you think about internships, when you think about opportunities and encouraging students to attend BCTC programs, um you know, maybe just different things than what we would think of when we would go to school 8 to 30 daily, um eight periods a day. Nothing wrong with that, but for some
009students, getting them out into the real world, getting them out and and experiencing um more on the job or hands-on learning is important. Um strengthening human resources has been uh something that we know we've needed to do and um really over the past year we've made some headway in that. So share some of those pieces and then as always um that financial plan um certainly does guide us. Um you know as well as I do we start talking budget in September. we continue talking budget till we adopt or or really approve it in June um and starts again. So, uh I'm not going to spend really any time talking about finance and facil finance today um because they're going to have a separate meeting for that in a week. But you know the process and
010the drill and um you know how we can be fiscally responsible and good stewards of our taxpayer dollars. >> Okay. Um just so you can see just a brief review of our student enrollment and demographics. Um interestingly this information I've astered there is can be found on the 2025 future ready index. The index posts information. Um, some of the information and data is as new as it can be, others is lagging. Um, and so it gets a little confusing, but our economically disadvantaged numbers actually went down to 37 and a half%. We were um a little bit more than that in in previous year this previous year or two. Um, but you can see where we are with special education percentages gifted in our English language. [cough] People are very interested in attendance data. When
011I mention about a lagging indicator, this is one of them on the future ready index. So if you were to go on the future ready index right now, you would actually see this information from the 2324 school year. It's one of those pieces of data that takes an extra long time for them to publish it. Um, and so that's why I bolded these numbers. We were able to find these numbers for the 2425 school year, but they will be calculated and incorporated into the 2026 future ready index. Um, so we're grateful for the improvement that we know happened at the junior senior high school because we were frustrated with some of the low percentages that we were recording in daily attendance. Um, I will share that I think some of it was how we were
012attributing uh certain absences, how we were denoting things and so we worked with the staff to better account for how students are absent um you know medical excuses um those kind of pieces. So, we're fixing up our systems which showed showed a definite improvement from the past, you know, couple of years 223 and 2324 up to the 2425, but I had to remark that if you go into the future index, you're not going to see the 92. >> Okay. Um, you're going to see the 77.20. Um, >> is any change in the start timely? >> I don't I don't think it's any reporting. I think it's reality reporting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, unfortunately, I wish I could say that, but I think it's the reporting press. So, >> um, but attendance data is key, and
013you'll hear why in just a few few moments. So, moving on to student achievement progress. And I'm going to share with you, I'm not going to bore you to tears um with the state assessment data. I've gone over in the past grades three through eight literacy, math, um, and science were applicable. I will already tell you that grades four and eight science didn't exist really last year. Why? Because we field tested grade five science and field tested the new eighth grade test. So, we got scores for participating but not scores for how we performed, if that makes sense. Okay. Okay. So, we still were responsible for us administering the tests, but we didn't get, oh, you get this proficiency rating. Um, high school, we still had the keystones in algebra 1, biology, and literature, but
014I will be taking all 80 of these slides and posting them to the website, but I'm not going through 80 slides today. Um, I will include all 80 slides in the Friday update for everybody. I just hid a bunch of them. I just want to share with you kind of take two grade levels, use them asam examples and then you can look at the rest of them at your convenience. And like I said, they will be available on the public facing site as well. Um, but when we look at student achievement, again, the strategic planning goal is specific to math, but I think we have to look at a lot of different things. Um, people are always curious about how our students perform on the SAT. Um, and you can see here why missing is
015in this teal color. The state Pennsylvania is is in the red. And then we're in the Navy is the nation. So in both reading and writing and in math, we're close, you know, about 30 points above those scores from the state, which are then also 20 to 30 points above um the points nationally and then that same uh correlation really into the um total scores. Okay, so wanted to share that information. Also, we have a great deal of students taking the AP in uh exams. Um, and this I thought was really great. And by the way, these couple of slides are taken directly from our school profile. Our school profile is what is sent to colleges and universities when people are applying when student our students are applying. Um, our our school counseling office sends
016our school profile so they get a good sense of what are why Miss students like. Okay, gives you background. And so this these couple of graphs and charts come directly from that school profile. You'll see we've had a significant upswing over the past couple of years. Um, so 2025 is just about at uh, you know, as far as percentage of students having taken at least one AP exam. Um, and then over here by year, the percentage of students who scored a five, which is as high as you're going to get on an AP test, down to a one. Um, a three is considered passing an AP test. Not all colleges give college credit for a score of a three. Um, so you can see here we have more students taking exams. um you know um
017and we saw that decline happen after COVID. So it seems like we're getting back up to where we were precoid um and then we have you know a a good amount of of students scoring three scores and five. So you know sometimes if you see an increase like this and in this percentage of students taking them you want to also see that they're getting well when they're taking them. So that's a good sign in both those cases. But this was very interesting. Um when we ask our graduates, so ask the graduates class of 2025, what are you planning to do after graduation? 63% of 2025 graduates reported that they are attending a four-year college. So that's 99 students. 13% reported a two-year college um and onward. Um this particular uh piece of data is a
018newer piece of data that [snorts] our school counseling office now collects and that is how many of our students are first generation college students. So 30% of the class of 2025. So 47 students will be first generation college students. So that's a pretty significant number. Um, and that's something that I think probably has changed as the years um have have gone on over the past decade or so. So, thought that was interesting. We must always say that this is the data that self-reported by the graduates right prior to graduation. So, things could be changed a little bit, you know, given life um circumstances and things, but that was their plan. How much have you seen the um the career and technical interior college go up with the deemphasis on it's got to be a fouryear
019degree? >> Um I think we have more of a two-year college. We have that a little bit higher than what used to be. So maybe some of those folks were fouryear and now they're two-year or they're starting we have more students attending BCTC that you'll see in a moment. And so some of them are going to a two-year degree as opposed to a four-year or straight into the workforce, you know. So, um I do think that two-year college line is where we see um a larger increase. >> Ah so does this bring back memories? [laughter] Uh let me explain. So, if you recall last Novemberish, December, the Reading Eagle posted um in the in an article a graph very similar, a chart very similar to this that was colorcoded in the newspaper and it took
020each building in the county and their proficiency scores in reading and math compared to the state. So if a percentage was above the state average, you're green. If your percentage was below the state average, you were red for that particular area. If you recall why missing area school districts across the three buildings had several red areas. I think I got a few emails from people um in the community. You may have heard some things. What's going on? Why would be red and not green all over? Um, and you have heard me say before we have to look at apples to apples and junior senior high is difficult because we incorporate PSSAs and Keystones and there's no other high school that does that. And so not to, you know, make excuses, but we have to think
021about this. So, interestingly, that late November, the Red Eagle posted an article. They did not create a color-coded chart like this. Um, they simply just listed scores. So, I don't think it got quite the press because it wasn't this color-coded situation. So, but I felt like I talked to Mr. Arnst and in order to kind of continue sharing some information, he helped create, well, I shouldn't say he created. I just talked about what I needed and he created um a chart um of each of the buildings in the county by reading and math and whether they are red or green because all the information is available on the state website. You just have to take that information and then create this. Um as you can see, I'm pleased to say last year we were not
022five green spots and one red spot. Um, we actually had more red. Um, so that's a good thing. Um, but we're still not content, but I I wanted to at least visually share this because it was out there in the community last year and were able to replicate it with this year's figures. So, but there's a lot more to tell um than just these numbers here because um and so I I kind of wanted to dive in because when you look at West Ready, you have fifth and sixth grade, you know, whereas if you looked at um or if you look at the hills, you in essence have third and fourth grade because those are the state tested grade levels. Other schools who are elementary may have third, fourth, and fifth. And so again, you
023do have to look at that as being a little bit different. Um, you know, there are our our elementary schools who might not be listed here because they're K to2 and therefore they have no data, you know, uh, uh, affiliated with the um, state assessments. But just wanted to share in case somebody would say, whatever happened to that red green chart, we have it for you. >> And can you say one more time? Sure. I should know this. Why does our high school not line up with Why is it not a valid comparison? >> Because we are a 7 to 12 building, not a 9 to 12 building. So PSSAs are grades 3 through 8 and then Keystones are at the high school level. So every 9 to 12 building, well all 9 to 12
024buildings do not have any PSSAs in them. And you know from what we've looked at in the past and it kind of bodess the same. Seventh and eighth grade PSSA results are notoriously low. So they tend to bring things down. Um now [snorts] you could argue well they could bring other middle schools down. They could. Um I always say most people consider the flagship of the district the high school. and they want your high school to have [laughter] very strong scores. Um, our high school is getting, I think, misrepresented based on state assessments because it in anything includes the seventh and eighth grade PS. >> So, anybody else's high school would just be cheese. >> Correct. >> And those are what grades? It depends. >> It depends. But, so kids could take them in ninth
025grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. Um, but they bank them till like the junior year, so it skews it a little bit. So, >> and they don't report individual. I mean, can't we pull a number that shows our keystones compared to other keystones? Like, couldn't we break our own high school number out to take the PSSA number out? >> It gets tricky. It will never be reported by the state that way. >> Okay. >> So, that's what I would say. It would never be reported by the state that way. They just lump it all together, >> unfortunately. Yeah. Um, but this is one thing I believe I've never shared with with all of you and I think that it really um bodess mentioning especially this year uh for the 20 425 remember this data is mostly
02624.5. So, in addition to percents proficient and all this good stuff, each school building gets a rating on a 100 point scale. Okay? You'll see that it could be up to 107 because of our challenge multiplier, but when I looked, it's called the school building score. These scores are part of teacher evaluations. They're about 10% of each teacher's evaluation. I could be at the Hills and I could teach art, non-ested subject. 10% of my evaluation is based on this school building level score. I could be a fourth grade math teacher. What I teach is a tested subject. 10% of my evaluation is this building level score. I could be a first grade teacher, no state assessments, 10% building level score. So these now you'll say what's 10%. Okay, it's not going to make or break
027a teacher, but people do get worried about any part that goes towards an evaluation. Um these school building scores are really academic snapshots representing a school's overall performance or academic achievement. But when you look at that academic achievement, that's percent proficiency in ELA and math. Okay? and the science also when the science counts. In addition, it's student growth. So even if you didn't make that that that number that you wanted to, as long as your kids kiddos are improving at a better rate, growth is good. That's going to help your building level score. Attendance rates are also factored into building level scores. Remember I showed you that earlier and I thought we were getting hit pretty hard at the junior high. That factors into a building level score. So we want high attendance rates and
028then at high schools where you have graduates graduation rate feeds into building level scores. So it is testing proficiency, it is growth. So it's not just achievement, it's attendance and in some cases it's graduation require okay cohorts um or rates I should say. So a lot of this stuff and don't ask me how but the state has some statistical way of creating this number. So I I the state also does post and publish these building level scores on their website. You have to go digging to find it but it's a public facing site. I thought it's important to share um because we were wrapping up the teacher evaluations from last year very recently and you're like Missy it's November December why are we just wrapping up because we have to wait for the state to
029release the building scores and they weren't released until just about Thanksgiving. Okay, so everybody's always anxiously waiting. Um, I have to share with you that of all the elementary schools in the county, Why Missing Hills Elementary Center has the highest school building level score at 85.9. Impressive. So, kudos to the work that is being done at the Hills academically getting kids to school. Um, it's it's getting them to grow. It's showing it. It It has um a definite impact. The the work is there. The work is solid. It's really great. And so I wanted to publicly call out, you know, the 85.9 at the hills. >> Hi. >> A county number. >> This this is a number. This is a number one in the county of all elementaryaries. Okay. Um, when you look at what
030I consider a middle level, I'll consider that to be west reading 56. We have the number one middle level building score. In fact, if you see that's 86.7, they have the number one building level score in the county of all levels. There is not one school that has higher that has a higher building level score than West at 86.7. We have not I mean we've had good results in the past, not this good. Okay. Um this is fantastic. So what we're doing K to 6 is really starting to to really show a showcase. Um so we're excited about that. Um, so I I I wanted to specifically call that out. So when you really look and we put all the scores together, both schools, we have the top one and two in the county, which
031is fantastic. >> So not to get you off topic for another day, >> why don't we come up with a way to celebrate? >> Yeah. [laughter] >> When I share this really, not just teachers, it helps property values. I mean, it's a really important thing to celebrate, but been working hard on this. So like let's make a party like a big celebration somehow like out in the community like the community wants to hear about this. This helps giving it help. There's a million things this helps >> and and that's the thing like building level scores have usually been just re reserved for evaluations. But when you really look at it, it's the state's way of holistically trying to say this is an effective school. And so I yes I mean we and we have never
032been one and two like like this is we you know so that's that's fantastic. So um I definitely wanted to call this out in data because it kind of helps to summarize some of the work that we've been doing as far as the data. So but we do need to figure out some sort of recognition you know because I do think it's fantastic. >> Um we do have a building level school for the high school. Okay. Um, this is where we stand in the high school. Now, remember, we're 7 to 12. Everybody else is 9 to 12. This includes the NPSSA and Keystones. It also includes that not so great attendance rate that we've been battling. So, the thought would be as long as our testing scores, assessment scores keep continuing to improve our growth
033continues to to improve our attendance. we know was much better last year. That should help factor into an improved building level score at the high school. But can I please share we have I think it was I should know this. I'm going to say about five 5 point something points higher here as 7.9. We were in the mid60s last year. So we showed great gains in our building level score to get out of the 60s into the 70s. you know, I'm hoping we can climb a little higher, you know, in the 70s there. So, there is something to recognize and to celebrate that we're continuing to improve. So, um I remember Dr. Jones was going through this data so not that long ago and he was like, I think this is great news. We are
034in the 70s and we've improved and absolutely without a doubt. So, again, we're continuing to try to chip away at some things. So, And you said, did I remember that there could be a possibility that when we created the junior high that we might be able to separate out our data? >> Yes, we are. Um, actually, Mr. Arn [laughter] is is working with the power school, the CLIU, Carbon High Intermediate Unit. They have worked with other districts in Pennsylvania doing that same thing. like we would have the 78 be considered the middle level and the 9 to 12 be considered the high school. Um that is a a goal of mine. Um because I think again we know that maybe and we're aiming to improve seven um but we know that might not be that
035high but it won't detract from 9 to 12 and it gives us a real nice focus point on on how we can continue to improve that. So and I just think it's more transparent and more correct like it's more accurate you know the situation about to hockey >> so yeah take a look at this if I would not have predicted Tula Hawin to be the highest building level score in the county I knew Kutztown we've shared KZtown before they have [snorts] very high u keystone scores you know they have some great things going on I was shocked and this might be the first or it's the first or second year that they have split because they're the Topah Hawken area junior senior high school. Um they have split now into Topah Haken area middle school
036and high school and so they drastically went up the [laughter] um the levels here, you know, to be the first in the county. So I'm not saying that we automatically slit, we scaled to number one, but I think we have a more accurate measure of the good stuff that happens here. Um, and you know, I just it was amazing to me because that's not the way it always looked. >> So, yeah. >> Where was Sophia in the middle school? I think >> um I Oh, well, they're not in the top 10. >> I didn't think I saw something. >> Yeah. So, we only pulled our one stripping out their >> right >> middle school. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think we have spreadsheets probably with that information. >> We just pulled top 10. [laughter] We
037just did a 10 there, but they're definitely lower there. >> Yeah. So, um, so that was one, you know, piece that again trying to share different perspectives and different information with you. You've seen these charts for me before. Um, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but and I told you we're not going to go through each grade level. I'm going to go through fifth grade and seventh grade. Why I picked those, I don't know. I just did. represents two different um schools. And there's positives and there's areas of improvement that are necessary, you know, in some of these, but you also do realize when I showed you West Reading's building level score and how high they were, um you're going to see probably some of those reasons right here. So, we
038increased the proficiency on fifth grade ELA 15% from the year before. Okay. Now, I'm gonna say the math, you know, when you round sometimes things might be to 100% or 99%. Um, but that's pretty, you know, it's pretty impressive about 15% from one different kids. Um, if you look at fifth grade ELA, we have the percent proficient is the highest in the county by quite a range. And this is straight from the again the spreadsheets and websites. And >> how did you do this? >> How did we do this? Excellent question. [laughter] It's it's funny. Um we did increase the um some of the efforts towards our bubble kiddos. So our intervention kids and some of the supports from our reading specialists really being more targeted. Um our even our afterchool thing, you know, situations
039are being more targeted. Everything is more targeted. um the data is driving us to make some different decisions. Um so and then we also have incredibly solid uh ELA teachers who are determined to teach students how to write an appropriate text dependent analysis and really help them to be successful where it brings in points. So it's not always glorious, but it gets the job done and they're very successful at it. So that's I mean that was an incredible incredible increase there. Um when you look at the growth data I now I say you know but I guess I should have said also our highest kids are growing the most. So whatever they So remember this is this is a look back at what we introduced last year. This is a quintile, [snorts] the highest quintile
040of our population. That's the next highest all the way down to the lowest quintile of our fifth grade students. You can see we have 15 students in here. We have 28 students in here, 33 represented in here, 31 in here, and 41. I can see because there's my student count right there. Um, that bluish color means we have really pretty good moderate evidence that the group exceeded the growth standard, meaning they grew more than they should have. We're growing. Look at how the the zero is even flat. You expect to grow that much in a year. The farther away you are positively from that zero, the more our teachers grew our kids. So, everybody grew more than a year a year >> in this. Yes. You don't always see graphs like this. Okay. Um, I'll
041be honest. If I could have my [laughter] preference, I'd want to see number one be all the way up here because then you've grown them two and three times, so they should be continuing to improve even more. But often times teachers will say, "The hardest kids to grow are my highest flyers." We were very successful in growing those higher flyers, which is great. So, um, and I and I do like to see that, you know, some kids, what are we doing for the average kiddo? What are we doing for the middle kiddo? We're growing them really, really well. So, this is exciting to see. >> Did we have a specialist there, too, or No, >> we we added a math intervention. So, that's the next. >> Yeah, we've had uh Miss Spouse there as lit
042as a reading specialist there for a couple of years now. That came through extra money. >> So, so pretty cool to see. And can you see now all those that high achievement and the high growth is probably is contributing not probably is contributing to that impressive building level score math for fifth grade. So we'll stick with math. I'm going to stick with fifth grade and look at math. We went up 12% from the year before. So to say doubledigit increases in both ELA and math is impressive. And might I say look at the student number 164 kids. This is the largest class of kids we've had in a long, you know, in a while. Like, it's a large class, but they're they're doing really well. Um, as far as fifth grade math, um, oh, and
043by the way, I think I should say, too, we had several, um, English language learners that were non-speakers in fifth [snorts] grade last year, too. So, I mean, we we've had, you know, um great challenges there that are doing fantastic. Um so, grade grade five math all students, you'll see we fell at at fourth um in the county. That's about 61 and a half%ish. That number is a little different than what the state will tell us, which is I guess but it it's close. Oh, no. Actually, that's that's what the state will tell us. That's a little bit different than, you know, maybe where we are here, but this is the official state number. Um but and a much a much greater increase than we where we were before. And then when you look at
044um the the math growth data here, everybody grew these highest flyers. I'll be honest, too. I think one thing that's a little different here, we're utilizing LL a little differently. Um, and you know, we started to learn how to use that better and students are getting challenged. So, they're growing themselves. So, we have students in fifth and sixth grade who are doing more algebra at a younger level. Not 90 minutes of math, but 15 minutes three times a week. That system is growing where they need to be. And so, they're being challenged to a greater degree. I think maybe that also plays into um that I think the rigor has increased to some degree too. Um and our problem solving that's just part of the normal math series now is is impressive. So um here,
045you know, we we we grew our our highest learners the most, but we grew our lowest learners a fair amount, too. And you know, they're that in the double digits as far as growth. That's excellent, you know. So the middle level is green. That's what you'd like to see. because it it means that we have growth but growth is not huge but it's still better than going below the line right so >> can I ask a quick question about that >> is that is those are the math state required >> no >> um and if >> is it just recommended or not >> yeah yeah it's just it's it's not even really recommended I mean if you recall actually um a couple was it last year. Last year, the first time that we had 90
046minutes in math. Yeah. At five and six. We have more math in um previous to that we had 60 to 65 a day. >> And I was just over at West Reading last week and they were talking about they remember the time some of them remember when they had 45 minutes of math. Um, so they said it was a while ago, but you know, so we did do that shift in the schedule at West Reading to increase the number of math minutes for that also contributed to something. But then the ELA teachers will say, but we lost a little ELA instru instructional minutes some because we didn't extend the day, you know, so we had to, you know, try to figure out how to deal with that. But it's it's not required as to how
047many minutes you need. Um, but we also know, and that's part of the issue at seventh and eighth grade, we know that we are lower than, you know, at 41 minutes a day, we're lower than anybody in the county. Um, and that's why we're we're, you know, through the new schedule, seventh and eighth, trying to to help increase that. So, >> yeah, they say you have to have it, they don't tell you how much. [laughter] Yeah. So, took a look at fifth grade. That's fantastic. I figured we had to bring ourselves back down to reality a little bit. And so we we're looking at seventh grade, but there's some good stuff to look at in seventh grade, too. Um, in ELA, um, we did in improve percentage points from the year before. Okay. Strictly in
048achievement, so we need that proficiency bar. Uh, we're fifth in the county for seventh grade ELA, um, at 58.7%. And, you know, you can see the range. So, we're not that far from the top. Um, and the range doesn't end at 52. It actually goes down to 13.4. We just didn't include everybody on on the chart there. Um, here's some the growth data. Doesn't look as pretty as you can see. Um, the one thing that I'd like to see is that we are growing at least the the lowest quintile. They need to grow. I'd like to see them grow more than that, but they need to grow. This part concerns me that our average kiddos seem to be losing ground. Our highest quintile might be losing ground a little bit. They have a little bit
049of wiggle room to lose, but these guys don't, you know. So, that's the we want to continue to look at and that's why they're yellow. >> Okay. So, was there were there any sorry, were there any changes we had made to seventh and eighth grade like in the last that that aren't really that that the data is showing us really weren't terribly effective? We're in the midst of of changing stuff now. Like we're piloting materials and stuff right now. Um >> so there's not that much. >> So not that much change. Um in math, remember we for last year we got those extra two periods in in 11th period, but that that we already had that time in ELA. So um and we have had inconsistent staffing in seventh grade also in ELA just with
050new hires and maternities and all that kind of stuff. So that has played into it I believe too. Um so even though like these guys are green the highest and the lowest green is just you know can be a little above or a little below the zero line. It's just not yet that standard deviation kind of thing. So I'd still like to see us flip this like we flip the others. Um math in [clears throat] seventh grade we did improve. Uh we went up 10 percentage points um in achievement from the year before, but we also didn't start at a very high spot either to be perfectly honest. But we improvement is good obviously. Um and you'll see we we are sixth in the county based on last year's scores in seventh grade math. Um
051and the range being 58 to 2 and a half%. Um so there's obviously a place for improvement across the board everywhere. Um and then where do you see the growth here? One thing I like to see is that again our lowest level learners seem to be growing the best. Um our highest level learners are closest to pretty much staying even. Um but this is a concern here. So, um, we did add those, like I said, two extra periods across the six day cycle for some kids, not all kids. Um, but for next school year, all kids will have that. In seventh grade, 82 minutes a day. And in eighth grade, 82 minutes, 3 days a cycle, 41 minutes the other three days a cycle. So, it's an increase, but not as drastic. So in seven
052go from 41 to 82 next year. >> Well doubling for the kids who didn't have those extra two periods. But yeah. >> And do you have other things in the pipeline for next year for seventh and eighth grade math? >> Um math [sighs and gasps] not not as much. Well, we're doing a lot more right now and our current day-to-day data and our kind of benchmarking data that we're doing because we're looking so much at so closely at um what we're teaching, how we're pacing, what we're prioritizing based on what the state does, based on we're doing those professional learning communities. We're seeing some good testing data that look way better. it looks way better now than it did in the past. So, that's the kind of stuff we're doing. We're trying to bring our
053math teachers together to assess and look at their teaching practices and look at how they're teaching and sharing good good practices and um and that initially I think is is going to show improvement. So, I'm not changing resources per se, but the math, the actual teaching practices and the collaboration and the professional learning, that's what we're putting our emphasis in. So, I think we do have good resources now. We just have to fine-tune how we're teaching. So, I think that in of itself is really a math piece um in seventh and eighth grade. And then next year, we'll increase the time more. So, I think that'll be good. And then in ELA, we're looking at materials and resources and trying to bring those up to speed in seventh and eighth grade and fifth and sixth.
054Actually, of course, our fifth grader said, "Do we need to change?" [laughter] I was like, "So, um, all righty. So, again, that was a condensed version of a look at achievement and growth. really targeting like overall hitting some different things with SATs and high school stuff, but then also really looking more closely at two grade levels. You'll have all the other grade levels at your disposal. Then >> if you um if you summarize the stuff we didn't see, [snorts] but like what else would be your concerns? Like if you had to summarize >> eighth grade ELA, >> eighth grade math is our lowest without a doubt. So it's seventh and eighth grade >> um to be frank. Um, third grade, we'd like to continue to increase some things in third grade. Third grade's different, too,
055because it's the first time the kids are taking a test. And that there there's a different situation there, but in essence, seventh and eighth grade are areas that we really have to focus on. So, um, and Dr. Langel's here. She we um, so I don't know if she wants to join in here or um, mental health updates. So you want to talk to us or should I? >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Um so you all know we have our it was our mental health task force and the group decided to change the name to a behavioral health task force because we are focusing on uh behavioral health not just mental health. So it's a little broader. Um we started with a very large group and we've had some folks that have left for whatever reason.
056So we each year are adding um or taking away uh where necessary which is why I call a fluid group. Um we do review the pays data by annually. We just um administered the pays this fall. So we will come together at the end of the school year when we get our results. Um and this year if you recall last year it was a pilot for fourth grade. This year we will get um data back from that pilot uh because all schools now are are um participating in the fourth grade A's survey. Uh we held a community event that we are hoping to make an annual event. We partnered with the West Reading Police and we're at their national night out in West Reading. Um it was a great success. It was really fun. Um,
057and we got to talk to a lot of community members about mental health. We had um the water bottle stickers with positive sayings and the number of people that walked up and those allowed us to start a conversation um was pretty incredible. That was kind of the highlight. Uh we gave away free popcorn which was also fun. It brought people to our stand. Um so we are hoping to make that an annual event. We really felt like we were able to share with the community some of the things we're doing in our schools. Uh, we have 14 mental health first aid trainers. I should probably pause for a second and just say these are really some of the highlights. I could probably fill What did you have 80 slides? I could probably do 80 slides
058of um a lot of things that we've done related to mental and um behavioral health. Uh so we do have four of our own trainers and we are continuing to work through our district staff to have more um student or more staff trained in teen mental health first aid. So this is looking at you know boots on the ground folks. These are your math teachers and your paraprofessionals and your building secretaries um who are being trained to identify students who may uh be in crisis or may be exhibiting some symptoms of depression, anxiety um so that it's not just our counselors. They can't be everywhere. They're not everywhere. Um and they're seeing children, they're seeing students in a in a you know a small isolated setting. These are the folks that are seeing our kids
059every day. Um we are continuing to focus on social emotional learning within our K12 school counseling services. Um our school counselors K through 8 who provide inclass lessons have been tweaking some of their work to better align with the data that we're seeing come from our own kids. Um we are piloting social emotional resources in the middle level. That is um currently happening and will continue into next year. um to look at what we can use for all students. So that would become a tier one um intervention. >> Can you understand what that means? >> Tier one program. >> Well, like when you say resources in a tier one program, are they like books on mental health like an anxiety like is it like that? >> Yeah. So there's a number of um curriculums that
060are out there and um what we're looking at >> I think God bless you. I think as a um a district when you get introduced to one of the um like second step would be an example. So when you get introduced to second step sometimes it's um you you're thinking of your own students and you're thinking this lesson would not be appropriate for our group of kiddos. So what the high school is doing is or the junior senior high school is doing is looking at um do we need to pull some from this program, some from this program, some from this program um as opposed to adopting one curriculum that is then used with everybody. Does that answer your question? >> Yes. Thank you. So is the goal [snorts] ultimately to come up with a
061curriculum that is used for everybody or is the goal just to find curriculum for kids that are struggling? No, the goal is um moving forward at the middle level to have something this year. They called it advisory >> um and they did a number of different things within that advisory is going away and the schedule will look different um but they're looking for something that all students can have access to and it would be a direct instruction program. >> Great. Thank you. Um, and then improved focus on basic student needs with the expansion of our Spartan closets, which we have in all three of our buildings, and then the start of the Spartan station. You know, just recognizing that we can't just attend to symptoms related to mental health and behavioral health. We need to
062go backwards and make sure that kids have those basic needs being met. Questions on that? All right, authentic learning experiences. So again, this is just a really quick overview. [snorts] We had 56 students involved in an internal internship, 46 externally. Now, I should probably classify there could be a student who did an internal and an external. So perhaps one um semester was one and one was another or two were external or two were internal. But we had 102 oh internships. Okay. Um, which was a great deal improve uh increase over the year before, which was an increase over the year before that. So, we are getting more kids out and about. That's exciting. Uh, 79 students at BCTC last school year. I'm going to show you a chart um in the next slide. Um, just
063kind of I think historically BCTC over the past couple of years um and the different programs that students are a part of. And then last year we did have two students in ROC. One was a level four and the other was a level one. So that level four meant that in 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade, you know, she was a part of that ROTC program the whole way through. Um, so again, something different. We can't offer that on our own. We're just not large enough. Um, but it's a neat opportunity for students who may be interested. So something different. Um, and then here is just a BCTC student participation by cluster. So you'll see I I I did include I cheated and I included the 2526 numbers too just so you
064can see um so we held steady this year at 79 [snorts] same as last year that was noted in that previous slide and you can see the clusters um and how many students from WSD are enrolled in each. Okay. So, the healthc care cluster, just so you're aware, includes several different pieces and does include the medical health professionals, that MHP program where the students go to Penn State Burks for four of the days and then the hospital the other day. Um, they don't separate that out any longer. They include that in healthcare. So, just see where there um so I'm excited that we continue to show um again meet meeting students interests and needs and then uh human resources progress. Um so do you want to talk? [snorts] >> Sure. Uh so as you know
065we embraced structure to have an HR director position. Um we have implemented a new application system to allow us to better track applicants and vacancies. It's also allowing us to track um what types of applicants that were coming are coming into us so that we can um you know hopefully work to broaden um who is applying to work here. Uh we've rebranded our YO well-being committee to improve our focus on staff well-being. Um that has been really fun. We have representatives now from all of our buildings. We're not doing it historically. It's been a volunteer um committee where we worked after school which was difficult to get folks here. Um we're now doing it during our workday um and there's some really great work coming out of that. We developed a survey that went out
066to our staff on their occupational wellness um and just their overall views and we're going to do that survey annually. We do it in May. Uh actually I think last year it might have been the end of April, but around that time when staff are burnt out, everybody's ready for um the summer break. Uh it would be very easy to survey our staff when they first arrive in the fall when they are energized and ready to go. But last year we did it at the end of the year and we'll do it again this year. We're using that data to decide what do we need to add, what do we need to subtract. Um, and really uh having some hard conversations with our administrative team on some of that feedback that we've gotten. Um, we
067have partnered with the Cook Center to implement staff guidance that has been a real highlight. I know I'm think I'm coming in with you all at the end of the month to train you because we have a license now for all of you as well. um it is allowing our staff to receive um confidential and um support on their own time. So if it's 3:00 a.m. and that's when they need support, that is available to them. And we'll get more into that when I come in and train you all and show you what is available to everybody. But I've really gotten some great feedback. Personally, I've used it. I was my own son at home was giving me a hard time like our teens do and I was able to say you know what ask
068somebody else. Um I've used it for a number of work um activities as well to provide myself some language to use some ideas to use. So the interaction that you get from it is is pretty phenomenal for being a free resource to our our staff. Uh we've increased our attendance at job fairs. Um hoping to get some folks from our local colleges or even a little bit further away to see if we can get um again broaden our our application process or broaden our applicants. And then we've implemented formal exit interviews which um has been very insightful. Again, it supports those kind of hard conversations with our administrative team. Um we have considered and are continuing to look into stay interviews as well um so that we're getting some of that feedback while our staff
069is still here. Um and then something that's not up there that I thought about is we are really focusing on um performance management I would call it. Um, so really helping some of our staff to set goals, um, better understand the expectations of their work, um, and providing that level of supervision and support to staff in a nondisciplinary manner to avoid discipline down the road. Thank you, Dr. And then okay so um the last portion of this is really taking a look at the survey results that we received from um administering the strategic plan survey in December. Um so we had 153 responses. You'll see 80% of them really from parents and guardians. Okay. Um which priorities do you believe we should really focus on moving forward? uh the recruitment and retention of highly qualified
070staff comes out on top. Um closely followed by providing diverse secondary program offerings that prepare students. Um one one trend I noted from from these questions is you know a a little bit um more emphasis by the community on preparing students to be successful after they leave us um in the real world. Um financial literacy. Those kinds of things you're going to see a little bit more about. Mental health is still strongly represented here as well. Uh areas of the curriculum that you'd like most uh you'd most like to see strengthened. Uh here we're consumer and financial skills. Um the good news is the state has required us to put in a half of a credit of financial literacy. Um we've had the quarter credit of the personal resource management. We are revamping that with
071the new financial literacy standards and our course will be different next year. Um and again half of a a credit. So um that will be required. Many of our 10th graders will take it. If they don't fit it in, they'll take it in 11th grade. Um but we are addressing those pieces there. But you'll see relevance just like again connecting it to real world. Um making school, you know, not something that you do when you're a kid and it has nothing to do with what you can do when you leave here. Um, math comes across that's really interesting to me that parent >> only because I I know we're aware of where our rappers are, but I don't know if the average parent is. So, I'm wondering if they're like from their own experience with
072their child are coming up with that as an area of improvement. That's that I wouldn't have expected that one. >> Yeah. know that I I'm like I don't think that many people have been listening to our board meetings and they've heard us talk about math so much but yet came ac across pretty pretty strong >> or is that an area that their students struggle with more and they're looking to strengthen maybe the >> you know the teaching styles around that I don't know maybe right >> is world language beyond French and Spanish people are looking for >> more diverse language out there >> they didn't Oh go ahead m >> just one for Italian Italian. Okay. One for Italian. >> That was a Yeah. And that's getting harder and harder. I mean, Spanish, French, um,
073a lot of places have, you know, renewing German. Um, we have Latin. I'm not really sure once Armaga retires how we're going to continue with Latin. That's, you know, it's it's just we're not bearing fruitful teachers who want to be teaching, you know, those courses. So yeah, some common methods that school districts use to measure student success. So we have a lot here up towards the top. Attendance uh absenteeism or you know attendance um rates of proficiency on state assessments and graduation rate graduation rate kind of tied with the absenteeism. So interestingly kind of the state looks for those too. So, our community is looking for, you know, making sure that we get kids to school and making sure that they successfully graduate. Maybe not, you know, again, not as much here on SATs, ACTs.
074We have to remember we could have had parents of elementary students participate in too that could skew a little bit of the results as well. So, uh, financial priorities B. You go, Mr. Ber. So, we want to ensure students have quality educational resources in the classroom, be good stewards of taxpayer monies. Um, not as concerned about security and facility improvements. Um, you could take that as they feel like our facilities are are good and, you know, we're pretty secure like, you know, so because I think security is always very heavily, you know, um, prioritized, but if they feel comfortable, maybe that's why, you know, >> you have a question. I mean just for this in general like I know when I filled out surveys like this like even more with the last one like choose
075one >> like I always think there's got to be better way to draw out because I'm like well all these are important so I don't know it just seems like some like >> rating them or ranking them or I don't know see a way like a better way to imply that just I'm choosing this one or these two doesn't necessarily mean that I don't >> care about the other ones either you know. >> Right. Right. But if you had to, you know, which ones are you going to? So, >> yeah, without a doubt. Um, which two items from the list below do you believe are most important? Um, caring, nurturing environment for all students, transparent communications. So, those came out on top. Um, ensuring each student achieves, I think, you know, I'm really taking a
076look at that and making sure that students of all types of learners are successful. Um and so um as we move forward what are three you know important areas for our district to focus on improving. Um so you can see here attracting and retaining talent comes out again readiness for employment making sure they're going to be successful safe and orderly learning environment. Um those are more than than these here. We did ask, you know, allow some open-ended responses as well. Um, so a lot of times you get a lot of a lot of well, I say very few, a lot of different responses, I guess you could say. Um, but what we could request the district to do one thing, you know, really focus on teaching and learning. That one is I think that's good.
077That's why we're here, right? That is our mission. Um, but you can see, you know, other people aren't quite sure, but there's there's a lot different situations here. Human resources. So that idea of ret retention, attracting and retaining good teachers and good staff comes up multiple times. Strengths, our staff, that's in yellow. Um our community is in this teal color here. Um our school environment, our academics, those are your big pieces of the puzzle there. >> You've probably told us in the past and I forget. What is our turnover rate compared to other school districts? >> Staff. >> Yeah. >> Um, our turnover. >> What's our turnover rate? >> Yeah, I don't have a percentage per se. Um, >> is there some place we can find that in a future meeting? Just look at our
078turnover rate compared to the other. >> Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I would imagine at HR we'd probably be able to reach out to the IU and try to get comparisons >> just so we know what our bogey is. I mean since it is a concern and it's a concern of ours too. We should know what our baseline >> Mr. Wars that's not in any of your >> figure out what ours is. I'm assuming you're looking for the professional staff >> not professional. Yeah, >> we probably have to survey >> I don't want to put extra work focus on. >> We average probably about four retirements and probably about two um to three teachers because of multiple things whether they um they're moving to a different state. They're it's not necessarily there or they're just on
079this dumb teaching. >> Good. >> I mean, it's tough because the question said attract and retain. So, >> yeah, >> somebody could have checked that as an important thing and what they're really saying is make sure you attract good. It doesn't necessarily imply a retention problem although we could have one >> or maybe on average how long our retention is like how long have >> I think challenges um student supports, student motivation, academics, you know, not sure there um but school cultural and culture and environment. So it >> MRS really helped out here. It's again a whole variety of different things. We we're trying to look for trends that we're trying to say, okay, this sounds like this. Everybody says it in a different way, but you still could get kind of the base basis
080of what they were referring to or what they really need. um their staff retention did show up specifically with staff retention >> um you know but >> yeah equity's interest >> specifically are they because with equity you could be looking at you know um demographic data as far as you know you know social emotal Oh, I'm sorry, socioeconomic pieces, but also you could be looking at, you know, students with disabilities or you language learners. Are they getting what they need? So, >> um, what do we hope for our students? We hope they're going to be very wellrounded and prepared. This is kind of you can see these bigger trends that kind of, you know, that they're safe and supported here. you know, college and career less than, you know, for life, >> which is very
081interesting, >> you know. So, >> but yeah, I I mean, I look at college and career, you know, because whether students go to four-year college, they're going to hopefully have a career that they are able to live a sustaining wage and and be successful. So, that to me is that piece So data can tell many stories. [laughter] I said before we've got much work to do. This data will hopefully help guide our focus areas. We're going to work together with you to analyze our current goals, continue to identify areas of future priority, and then create those updated strategic planning goals. Um, if you have got get a chance to just have some informal conversations using that affinity protocol, gather, you know, with people that may not have answered this for a variety of reasons. They
082don't have kids in the system. they didn't see the thing on the website. You know, um put their constituents, their their community members, or you know, just speak to some of your uh friends and and neighbors just to get some other kind of information that we can kind of bring back to help guide some of our discussions and as we as we really look to where we want to go with our strategic planning goals. So, anybody have any thoughts, questions, or anything? Did we actually Did we ask staff those books? Did we >> We sent them the [laughter] We did not get a huge I mean we sent it out to everybody. >> Oh, so they're staff. What are they included in? >> They're included in there. We I just we just didn't get a
083lot of staff responses. So >> interesting. >> Yeah, we could try again. I mean, just send it out if you haven't answered. Um we could we kept it open longer than expected but the majority >> extra weeks >> was a hard time I mean diffult time to just staff. >> Yeah we can try to just send it out to staff again >> just I think that would be a helpful piece to >> to have >> Thank you very much. So hopefully that was helpful. >> Very helpful. >> And then it'll be sent out in the Friday updates. >> Yes. We're going to put that in the slides to peruse. >> That's right. >> Yes. >> Well, I don't know when you have time to do that. You're welcome. >> Yes. Good. Good to have. >>
084But it's there. It's there. >> Yep. >> All righty. Thank you very much. >> And then unless there's other questions, moving [snorts] on to the calendar draft there. >> All righty. So, calendar, I wanted to just draw your attention to two drafts. Um, one begins school on August 24th. that is a Monday and they both end school on June 4th, a Friday. The other version is uh starting school on Wednesday, August 26th. Um so you can see those denoted by the stars on your calendar in August. Um the major differences in the two um calendars would be the spring break. If I fast forward all the way to March, um the spring break for the calendar that begins on the 24th would be the entire week prior to the Easter holiday weekend and then Easter
085Monday. the calendar um draft two that starts on the 26th of August. That one we would need to bring staff in on the 22nd to do a professional learning day. Um that that means that students would have no school. >> So they would have the entire week off, but the staff would come in from a professional learning day. Um you might say um I will tell you that we are finding the need to do more professional learning. There's just a lot of stuff that's required by the state. There's a lot of stuff that we need to do and want to do to help grow our teachers. Um so the worry is on that day Monday of that holiday that people are not allowed um they're not they could take a personal day. That is an
086option in there in the collective bargaining agreement. Um they could call in sick, call out sick. Um we may not have the numbers that we wish to have. Um talk to the association and talk to the administration. I think I mentioned in the Friday update, both the administration and the association prefer the August 24th start date. um they get then that full spring break week. We also would be able to put a professional learning day in April. If you take a look, April is a long month with the early spring holiday. >> Um April is a long month. May is a long month. Testing starts I think April 26 from the state. So, um, we would be able to utilize that 9th of April to really kind of fine-tune and do some different things. Um,
087and also that gives us a little time to maybe do some professional learning for things that might be upcoming in the following year. So, we haven't had a day there in a long time and so I think that would be very well utilized um by our administrative team with our teachers. Um the other I guess main difference is I I think the winter holiday is about the same except we would have a full day off on the 23rd of December with the start date of the Monday. Whereas if we started on the Wednesday, we would have a half day of school on the 23rd. So I know people don't love that um either. Um so other than that, I you have to understand that this is as late as Labor Day will ever be, September
0887th. So we to my knowledge haven't had nine days of school before the Labor Day holiday, but Labor Day is very rarely September 7th. Um, so I, you know, I I'm just curious. I will share that the at least half of the districts, only one has been board approved and that was Danny Boon and they are starting on the 25th. They're playing it right in the middle. Um, the half the districts are looking to start um, that's half the districts that send to BCTC are looking to start on the 24th. There are a couple of districts who are looking to potentially start on the 19th or 20th, >> but that's really early, >> but they also get out. >> They're going to get out before Memorial Day, >> right? >> Um, so >> does BCTC
089have a start date? >> They wait until the districts. Um, but they know that most of them are looking Yeah. They usually, if we would approve in January, I think they like districts to approve January, February, so they could approve March, you know, April. But they're they would like to start on the 24th. Um if at least you know half more than half are starting on the 24th. >> What does that mean for transportation if that's the case? Our students who go to BCTC do transportation for those two days or is that going to be something that parents need? >> I think it would be transportation >> from here. That's what I was going to say. It's not doortodoor they get themselves to junior senior high school. That's normal like >> like a conflict and
090that's typically what what happens. So >> if you went the 25th would you still get a full day on the 23rd and the 9th of April >> or that would >> I have to find something. Yeah, that's one day that I got to find. >> Yeah, that's probably why I didn't look to go on that. Is it most preferable for teachers to start on the 26th? know it's a slow start to year and that's what has generally been accepted in the past and our students are used to and starting for the full week is a rough >> that long week for kids and for teachers if I remember our conversation before >> that's what I thought >> um and then the association selected the 24th uh so I think the secondary I think the junior
091senior high school has no issue starting the 24th When you think about it, high school sports have started. Things are everybody's in. Um, they also don't seem I mean, they liked easing in as well. Um, because initially I was my my first draft was the 26. I'll be honest. Um, but the issue that we have with the winter break, the issue that we have with the spring break, it and I'm saying that we could go to June 8th, but nobody wants to go to the next week. So, >> but if you look at it from a to your point, if you look [clears throat] at it from a kids perspective, >> which I know I'll be lobbied in my household, >> uh, [laughter] I mean, the reality is, yeah, you get two days extra of
092summer, but you get a full extra Christmas day and a day in April, so it makes up for it. >> Otherwise, April is a long stretch. >> Yeah. So it's a net push in terms of >> right >> in terms by the time you get to December nobody wants to go to school in the winter. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> And August is long and the rear group year and you're like why are we here? Like >> it might suck the first week but once you get through it you're like I don't have the off. >> And as much as I heard complaints in my household for this calendar year that Christmas break was pretty well appreciated. >> Yeah. And it's [snorts] like one of these things where half the people are satisfied no matter
093what you're doing. >> Right. I feel like if the staff and the administration prefer the 24 I think that makes sense. >> I I will say for elementary students and teachers for the teachers it's nice to ease in for the students. I think um you kind of have to rip off that band-aid and get them used to the routine and the structure. Um, and I know my [clears throat] experience this year was we had a three-day week, a 4 day week, a 4 day week, and it took a little longer to get kids adjusted. So, >> yeah. >> And this kindergarten doesn't go official the first day. >> Oh, they do now. >> Oh, they've been doing that. Yep. Everybody starts >> Everybody starts the first day. >> Yeah. You're looking at me, aren't you?
094>> I'm doing No, I'm just curious what your input is. >> So, um I got hammered last year because the 21st and I know that I'm a vocal person about starting earlier every year. Um they did appreciate that you did give them an extended Christmas break, but I can tell you I'm going to get parents yelling at me again about the starting of the 24th. I know that they would appreciate the 26 start because it's the it's it's like Rachel and I have both said this before in the past. Every time we start earlier that 86 basically the entire month of August. So kids are now required to come to school and start sports earlier. So as a result, >> they don't start any earlier. There's a PIAA start date, >> but practices and stuff
095like that. It just seems like it's that's set. >> So, I don't I don't know if >> I agree with that, but I also think this is sort of a flaky year because of Labor Day being so late. Like, I don't know that that's going to set I I don't think it would set a precedence for I mean, I know what you're saying, though. I don't like to start very early for the kids in August either, but >> I don't know. I think like because of Labor Day being where it is, it generally isn't that late. No, but I I know we had this conversation last year like because it is going to be later the following year we should be starting later as opposed to like so the ear the 21st last year was
096the earliest >> the year like a few years before that I think it was your first term. We did start in the 24th and we heard from a lot of parents even then. So that's my only concern is since we are not having that mentally padded middle of the week Christmas vacation or holiday vacation. Um, I don't know. It just it just seems like we're >> It's still a I mean, you still have two weekends of the if you look at winter break. >> Um, which made it makes it a fairly long. It's not as long as this year, but it's still a it is two weekends since it was a Friday the first, but >> and um I just looked at at April being April and May being like, wow, there's nothing to break
097that up. >> Weekend's day. Um, and we do not have I mean I don't think we're going to have a major snowstorm or or [clears throat] you know like to even break that up that's not something you typically see in April. So >> the day that gets me here but I guess this community is just so used to it that it never gets questioned is after getting a full week of spring break you take another Monday. I know >> right there. But for me with my own kids, regardless of my holiday celebration or preferences, religiously speaking, I'd be like, >> I'd rather have that day in April and I'd rather have the Monday the 24th than the Monday after Easter. >> But that's just something that >> a lot of other states do it where
098you have off from the 28th to April 5th. Like they have off the entire week after Easter. >> Some do that too. >> Yeah. It's just >> Burks County is notorious for Yeah. >> Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Thursday, Friday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday or Thursday, Friday, Monday of the holiday. Many schools don't have the full week. We're one of the only to to have that. And I do know that we did hear loud and clearly that people like and appreciate that full week. >> Um, >> do we have to do the move day though? >> Is that just what people [snorts] generally expected? I think that's generally rocked to vote that much. >> Well, my answer to anyone in the community that asks me why they have to start on August 24th is going to
099be because you in this community want [laughter] [snorts] if you do not care about that Monday, start lobbying their board, your administrative team and maybe you can start a day later in summer. >> Yeah. >> So, would it be possible? Probably not this year. And this could open the can of worms in theory, but like in October sending out like a survey and see would you prefer the Monday after Easter all versus and just get and with no promises we're necessarily going to like you know >> right >> do it democratically in that way but at least you know because we all hear different things from people. We can all have our anecdotal evidence but it might be nice to know what people actually think. you know, you're gonna just guess start as late as
100possible and get as many vacation days as possible and that'll be >> out the first round >> and still get out as early as possible. >> Whatever happens to all of the schools in the county starting the Wednesday after Labor Day and going until the second Friday in June. Like that would just be so much easier across the board. >> Yeah, that's never going to happen. Do we need a a determination on this tonight or we we ideally will get it approved in January? If not, we wait till February. Um we've done both in the past. Um we you know we've done January, we've done February, the sooner we can. Um I'll be with the superintendents tomorrow. I can see if anybody is any closer. The majority of them, like I said, were the 24th.
101There were 19th 20th thrown in there. I don't know if they're still sticking with that or not. Um, I think that's too early. Um, I believe the two districts, um, potentially already in Bloomberg were looking at the 31st. They service together with their RMCTC, so they kind of stick together. Um, but no other districts were looking at the 31st. So, um, >> is it something where you could check with the superintendent and then maybe put it in a Friday, can we vote on it January 26? >> If we could vote on it that day, that would be great. Yeah. Um because this is just a discussion. >> No, no. The vote was going to be the 26th. If we could do it, that would be wonderful. Today's just kind of informational and discussion. So, >>
102well, if you want to throw it out in your affinity protocol question, you certainly could. >> Yeah. And people will say Easter Monday or what about the Monday after Thanksgiving? >> Right. >> And the issue with the Monday after Thanksgiving, >> even more of a degree, I think, than Easter Monday is that >> no other schools in the county have school the Monday after Thanksgiving. We might have a couple. I can check tomorrow how many actually may have school on the Monday after Easter. >> Well, I think statistically when you look at it, Thanksgiving is the heaviest traveled holiday out of any other holiday. So, that's probably why. But I think we could possibly look at and and I don't know how you guys will feel about this is our spring break >> and could
103we actually do it after like what why why is Burks County so beholden to the week before Easter the Easter they're they're beholden to Wednesday Thursday they're not beholden to the whole week. So I think >> so we're are we pretty much the only school that does the whole entire >> one of maybe a couple or two or three. >> Yeah. >> And I think we typically have had the week before Easter off because it coincides with Passover. That way um >> our students who celebrate that faith have days off as well. >> Yeah. >> Good point. >> And years ago it was kind of like snow makeup day one, snow makeup day two. So you on paper it looks like you have off the whole week and then when you do the snow days
104now you're coming to school Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday now you're down to 2 or 3 days. So >> although for what it's worth Passover in 2027 is April 21st to the 29th. >> It's not even close. >> But I mean in in fairness like I would also be in favor of going the 29th and having a day off. I mean that kind of throws off the testing maybe I guess. But >> yeah, right testing so we can do that. Yeah. Well, thank you for >> Yeah, those are two. That's the discussion. That's why I, you know, come to you with with just a couple. Um, I'll play around with it, see what we can do and, um, if you want to get some input and I'll get some more input from the superintendent tomorrow.
105Um, and let >> Okay, that would be great. Thank you. >> All righty. So, that that concludes everything I have. >> Anything else for the in the order? >> Thank you. Um if not I can entertain a motion to adjourn. [snorts] >> All those in favor? I I opposed. Okay. Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned. Um, I did