001Okay, we got to get back over. >> All right, we are going to call our board of directors committee of the whole meeting for January 15, 2026 to order. Let us stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> All right, roll call. >> President Amanda Johnson, >> present. Vice President Beverly Harris, present via telephone. Treasurer Tasle Morales, >> Excused. Absent. Board member Thaddius Kirkland. Reverend Thaddius Kirkland, >> present. >> Board member Lawrence Ham, >> present. >> Board member Betty Mlen, >> absent. Board member Khalif Pope >> present. >> Board member Tequila Rice >> present. >> Board member secretary Lorraine Lavender Sams present. >> Thank you for the
002roll call. So at this time we're going to actually um take presentations. Um, if anybody has anything that's being presented on the agenda, I usually go over and ask. Do you [laughter] do you >> All right. Thank you. >> Greetings everybody. >> It's very short, but um I do have on the agenda uh some of our students and I mentioned this in my last presentation will be presenting at the Stronger Connections Conference in March. and uh myself and both of my staff will also be attending during that uh and it's all about climate culture, building connections, relationships, social emotional learning, mental health, and mental well-being. So, Chester School District students will be on the youth panel and um we're proud of them. So, we can't wait to hear what they have to say. Awesome. >>
003And that's pretty much it. And just a ratification in regards to the donation we received for our McKenna mentor students as well. So, those were my two items. Thank you. >> Questions? >> Oh, yeah. >> Make us proud. >> Any other presentations regarding the agenda items? Oh, y'all want y'all want y'all want to go home? That's what it is. They said it's cold outside. >> Thank you, Dr. Parker. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Good evening. So, there is one agenda item. Um, our prek counts coordinator is going to a conference. It's called Level Up. It's for early childhood educators and coordinators and administrators. Um, and we're excited about her this opportunity for her to go to this conference because we are trying to strengthen our early childhood programming here at Chester Upland School District and
004she's a very valuable asset in that process and so we're excited. That's the only one we have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Hey, >> good evening everyone. >> Good evening. >> Okay, so I got to use my my loud voice. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, welcome back everybody. Happy New Year. >> Hope everybody enjoyed the holiday break for all those that celebrated it. So, not a whole lot for my department. Um, we'll be growing a plus two. Um, coming next week. Um January 20th, we'll be adding two additional custodians. Like I said before, we add a former now. We're looking to do a reord uh we're meeting every Thursday to discuss some of the projects that we got coming up for. So we have some some grants and stuff that we're
005looking at um for the facilities department. So stay tuned and I'll be updating you with some of the changes that's coming my department. [clears throat] >> Yes. Yes. >> [snorts] >> Good evening everybody. >> Good evening. >> Happy to see you as well. So I just have a couple things that I have for this month. One of them is um I'm requesting the approval for the special ed admin team to attend the the special education conference um that is in the next month and Hershey. It's a three-day conference um that really focuses on special education and um learning and growing. And so it's really important for them to attend and to do some professional learning and to meet some other professional um some special educators across the Commonwealth. The other thing that we have is
006I'm requesting for the DCIU. They're going to do some job embedded coaching with a teacher over at Setzer um on behavior strategies. It is part of a grant through the DCIU um but requesting still approval from the receiver um for this job embedded coaching and so it will happen it will start January beginning of February through the rest of the year. >> Okay. So the job embedding coaching does specific grade. So this particular um so the criteria for the grant the teacher attended a two-day um emotional support session in the fall and part of that was um people were chosen to uh for the job embedded coaching and so she was one of the ones from the district um who we suggested for the job embedded coaching. >> Um is it public grade? >> So
007this this particular teacher is K to K to two. So, she teaches in one of our low incidence classes and she it's a K to2 classroom. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Thank you, Dr. >> Good evening. >> Um, I just have three agenda items. One is an update to the wellness policy. Uh, in accordance with a couple of regulations, we needed to make sure that it was updated. So, policy 246 um just update just was reviewed. It involves establishing a wellness committee and being able to meet regularly to discuss uh things related to wellness within the district specifically as it relates to food services, snacks and buildings, uh those sort of areas. Uh as well as just trying to promote uh healthy living on the part of our students and staff as well. Um
008the other two are related to an RFP for an evening school program. Uh so we one accepted the results from the RFP which was 2512 and then the second was a contract with transforming lives um in which is a organization to provide evening education to our students uh which would run from now through the end of the school year. At the end of the school year we would uh issue another RFP that would cover next school year so that we could have a competitive bidding process expanded. >> Is that for high school? >> Yes. That's grades 9 to 12. >> Question. Um, when you guys start the wellness community, can you let us know that someone from the board can be a part of that? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you
009so much. >> Good evening everyone. Happy new year. On behalf of the business office, we have our standard C1 through C4, which is the tax collector report, approvals, payroll, payments, and our treasury report. Our fifth item for this month's meeting is the not to exceed the um act one basic index. In other words, we're meeting we're putting a cap on what we can um put a limit on the amount that we can charge school district regards to our real estate property taxes. So last year the the not to exceed was 6.3%. This year it's 5.5% so it decreased by8. Um and I believe there's some board voting place in that regard. Uh but that's who we have [clears throat] any question that thank you. >> [snorts] >> I don't see anyone else popping up. So,
010thank you guys for your presentations and information. I am going to um share a note from Dr. Morales. She did submit her legislation report and has a lot of good information of different things that are um coming down the pike or that is that has been presented and I know that one of the topics that we always get asked is about the cell phones. So that was one of the items but we are we do have a cell phone policy. So, we'll be getting updated on what that is so that, you know, we can all be on the same page so we can know that we do have a cell phone policy. All right. So, um in Dr. Morales's Alice, um absence, she wanted me to stay um you're able to give the following statement
011on my behalf. Dear community, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am unable to be present tonight. If you have any questions regarding the legislative report, please feel free to email me. I will look forward to my first meeting with the business office next month and supporting and reporting out for the newly appointed treasurer. So, she has everybody to be safe, but she is our new um treasurer. So, she will definitely be reaching out and talking details and numbers with our finance team. So, um we hope that she is feeling better at this time. Do we have any other reports? I think we are good. We're getting everything up and running. So, we're going to have a lot of reports coming up um as we begin to um have our training session. So, I do
012want to report that we do have a training session at from 5 to 6 prior to the committee to hold because we're going to be putting a lot of different things um in place and learning a lot of different things. We have a retreat coming up. >> So, I'm excited about our first retreat. Um, as far as the school board, is there are there any other comments or concerns? Hearing none. Seeing none, speak now. Forever. Hold your peace. All right. Meeting is a journey.