001I hereby call the April 21st, 2025 regular board meeting of the Ligonier Valley School District to order with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Secretary, can we have a roll call, please? Here, here. Here. Here. Mr. Secretary, can we have an executive session report, please? session held on April 4th, 12:17 p.m. to 12:57 p.m. regarding school safety. And there was another one on April 24th, 2025 regarding school safety potential litigation. Thank you. Does anyone have any motions that require amendment or any additions? We'll now move into public comment. This will be for the agenda items only. We have first Sabrina Boyd regarding wellness. Hi everyone.
002Mr. FaZe went over a lot of things that I wanted to go over that was held at the committee meeting. Um, my name is Sabrina Boyd and I have two children currently attending RK Melon with the third starting soon. And I'm here tonight because I have concerns about the meals being served to our students, especially breakfast. Um each morning kids are being served items like cinnamon rolls, pop-tarts, cereal bars, sugary cereals, muffins, followed by juice or chocolate milk. These are loaded with sugar and lack real nutritional value. Um breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It sets children up for how their day is going to go. Um these are loaded with sugar. Oh, I said that. Sorry. Can you tell I'm nervous? Children's. After breakfast, children are expected to sit, focus, and
003learn for hours on end after eating what is essentially dessert. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day for children. If our children are easily exceeding that before lunchtime, that kind of diet diet not only affects behavior and focus, but it also contributes to long-term health issues. I brought this up at the wellness committee meeting a few weeks ago and I was told kids prefer these kinds of choices. That was actually a sad response and it was upsetting because my kids go there. Um, my kids look up to a lot of staff at the school and to hear someone say that kids prefer junk food over nutritious foods that and that's what sells that staff should care about that too. I'm lucky that I can make breakfast at
004home and pack my kids lunches. Would my kids love to buy? Yes. But I don't agree with what these children are fed amongst other parents. Not all families have that option though. Many rely on school meals out of the necessity and those children deserve nourishing meals that fuel their bodies and minds, not processed junk every day. An occasional treat is fine, but this has become the normal. We have talked about this last year and nothing has been done about it. I know you just said about this summer, but I'm hoping you actually mean it because we've tried to change it pre previously and nothing has happened at all. When kids spend most of their day in school, we share responsibility of their care, including what they eat. Healthier food could mean fewer behavioral problems, better
005attention in class, less reliance on medications, and better academic performance. Mr. said about how many children are beyond the obesity level at the RK Melon. That's actually very sad and we should be caring about that. Um I know the school wellness committee meeting meets once a year, but this isn't this is something that deserves more frequent attention, especially now during PSSA testing when we expect our children to focus for hours. How are they supposed to do that after a sugar-filled breakfast? I've researched the food program guidelines. I own a health and wellness store locally and I know there are better food options that still meet requirements. There are ways to make improvements. There just needs to be the will to do so. I'd also like to ask um does our food service manager have background
006in nutrition? Having someone with nutritional training could really help guide better food choices. Lastly, um Mr. they said about the food um farm to table. I feel like that would be so ideal. There's so many local farms around that would be on board with that and there's grants. You just have to try to reach out to people. So, I'm not sure what the issue is that's taking forever for us to make a change at the school for the children. Um, everyone cares about the education, but if we would be feeding them better, I'm sure you would see a difference in performance, everything. So, um, I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just asking that we prioritize the health of our students. Nutrition is part of education and it's time we start treating it that way. Thank you
007for your time. Thank you very much. and Sabrina, thank you for attending the wellness committee. We're we're we're glad that we got more input this year. It was very important. Oh, absolutely. And the the farm-totable idea is is fabulous. And um just in the last couple weeks, we've had the uh opportunity to talk with the watershed association to look to see whether or not there's any sort of grants available to help work with our community farms to to bring that into our own district. So it it's being looked at. Yeah. Hopefully soon. Hopefully soon. We're trying. Thank you. uh Tabitha Liry. So, um I also wanted to comment about the food and I feel like a lot of great points have been made so far, but I just wanted to say kind of in addition,
008I urge you guys to go into the school and eat lunch with the kids. Surprise, we're here. We're eating lunch. Because I did. One day I had the pleasure of helping out at the holiday shop and my husband and I were there and I was like, "Oh, let's just pop down in the cafeteria and grab a stromboli." Strombolies are great, right? I'm sorry to say it was horrific. My husband actually wouldn't let me eat it. Took it back to the cafeteria and asked for something else. And on his way through, he looked at what the kids were eating and it was worse than what he wouldn't let me eat. Um, I don't think prepackaged food is the way to go. And I don't know, I know, uh, Cindy Brown mentioned in the meeting about, you
009know, what do we have to do to fix this? I know they mentioned like we don't have enough manpower. You know, I know Laurel Valley doesn't have a kitchen. Um, if we don't have the money to hire, you know, adequate staff, you know, you're going to have to hire probably more people at a certain point, but there's a lot of stay-at-home parents. There's a lot of retirees. there's a lot of people in the community that would probably love to come in and serve our children a nutritious meal. So maybe, you know, we can hire a couple people and supplement with volunteers if that's what it takes to feed our kids well. Um, also Hempfield Township I know just implemented a farm to table. So maybe somebody could reach out to them, ask them how they
010did it, what their plans were, how they went about it, and just Yeah. I just urge you guys go in the school one day and just eat. Surprise, we're here. We're eating lunch and see what you think. See what our children are being fed and talk to our kids. See what they think about it and just whatever else. They're a great source of information. They'll they'll tell it to you straight, too. Thank you. Thank you. And I don't know how many people are in the room that uh remember having Stromboli and pepperoni rolls approximately 40 years ago when they were all being handmade in our kitchens. But uh yeah, that was um those it' be nice to bring those days back. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. I'm with you. Thank you very much for your
011comments. Do we have anything to discuss regarding any old business previous meetings? I hereby ask for a motion then to approve the given minutes of the March 17, 2025 committee of the whole meeting. the minutes of the March 17th, 2025 regular board meeting and the minutes of the April 8th, 2025 special board meeting. Second. Having a motion and a second. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Are there any opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Secretary, do you have any correspondence for us this evening? Dr. D, do you have a superintendence report? I do want to say a few words, please. Uh, yes. My name is Dr. Darcangelo and I'm the interim superintendent for the Ligonier Valley School District. I've been here for approximately six weeks. My background is I was a teacher and a
012coach for 14 years in the Windber Area School District. I was uh about every position you could think of for 11 years in the Somerset Area School District and I was a superintendent of schools for 10 years in the Franklin Regional School District and since then I've had 10 different school districts I've served as a consultant for. Um so if this is not my first rodeo, I'm very proud and honored to be your interim superintendent and hopefully we can keep the tip the ship steering in in the right direction. and uh if you ever need to reach out to me, I'm I'm available at any time. Thank you very much and thanks for the honor of being here. Thank you very much, Dr. D. Mr. Mata. Solicitor's report, please. Uh yes. Um this evening, I
013wanted to report uh on the investigation that has been going on for the last several months um that the board um had myself and the administration look into. Um, as you know, I've said earlier, I met with um various members of the faculty, with the union, with the um people from the public, some retirees um to try to gather some information about some of the things that happened uh here about a year ago um and try to find out how we could uh do better than what we were doing. Um during that process it was clear that some of the systems some of the procedures that we were uh using were um not uh in full scope and uh not being addressed properly. Um because of that uh there were uh some changes made. The
014board gave some direction. We hired a new director of uh special education that's going to uh speak here after I'm done over a few things um during my report and um uh as Dr. Dark Angelo became the acting superintendent uh Mr. Zahorch and I met with him to uh talk about some of these um procedures and and processes that needed to be implemented with uh not just in the special ed department but throughout the district. Um, I've been lucky enough uh early in my career to work with Dr. Dark Angelo. And maybe some of those processes that I now use are probably ones that I stole from him um when I first started to practice uh law and work with him as the uh superintendent in Franklin Regional. So, it was a very good fit
015when he came because he knew some of the things that I thought needed to be done. Um and uh the three of us sat down and started to implement those processes. Um, we're going to continue to do that. Some have already uh taken place. Um, and some will continue throughout the the the few months here till the end of the school year and then next year we'll be also implementing new things before the start of the school year. But um, if I could introduce uh, Mr. Zahorch, I think he has some things that already have been addressed in the special ed department that I think will be of an interest to uh, the community. Mr. Mata, thank you. Um, so just want to start by uh thanking all of you for allowing me to to
016to take a moment with you tonight. I know uh at our Mar March board meeting, I shared a report from the special education perspective. So, what I was able to do just in my first couple months here as the new director of pupil services was I I was able to meet with teachers across all of all four of our buildings and um some things just, you know, just stand out to me. one and just starting with the strengths. U we have some really unbelievable people. Um we have some really great special education teachers uh on our staff. Uh I've noticed just in my time here, not just special education teachers, regular education teachers, our principles are solid. Um so just want to start with that we have good people. Um and that's not it's not
017like that everywhere else. And I think that's um you know a real shining star for us is our people. Uh secondly, I I'd say that um the people that we have here, not only are they good people, they're committed. They're they're definitely committed to this district. Our special ed staff uh collaborates. I think our regular education teachers collaborate better than anywhere else I've seen. I'd say that um we have good strong collaboration with outside partners. Our IU um the folks from Patan uh the Department of Education, our staff reach out to them. they talk with them pretty regularly. I'm impressed by that. Some other things that stand out to me, um, we have some real capacity in house. We have some knowledge. We have some people with some real expertise across all of our buildings.
018Uh, and just in talking with staff, the the few things that that stand out to me, if I can summarize, is just um process uh the usage of data to drive decisions is something that really stands out to me that we need to get a whole lot better at quickly. Um, I would say that we need to build out processes for how we select curriculum. Um, I think, um, when we're selecting curriculum, I I've heard this from staff, I've heard this from principles, I I think when we're selecting curriculum, I think we have to be thoughtful and have a plan for how we roll that out. I think um, you know, just some other things, just our academic and behavioral support systems for students. How do we intervene? So, if we have good solid core
019reading, math programs, how do we intervene when students aren't quite there yet? I think those are some areas that we we really need to improve on. So, just as far as and I know we talked about this at our Mar March board meeting, but just kind of to summarize um four big points, four big ta takeaways that I've learned from the staff here in the district. Um one being organization. I think we can improve an organization. I think uh one of the things that I'd like to do is establish a district operational plan for special ed services. Another thing I'd like to do is uh expand on the types of services and interventions that we put in place for kids. I think another one is I'm sure that everyone has heard of multi-tiered systems of
020support where you we're using data to drive the decisions we make for students. And I think lastly with organization I think is uh improving our core programs. So our core reading, math, science, social studies programs and developing a a cycle where we are revisiting that those curriculum on a on a regular basis. Secondly, I think professional development is is something that's definitely going to help. I've heard from teachers on things that they're looking for. I've uh looked at our data to determine like where are our needs, where do we need to grow. I think some of the things that stand out there are um focus on evidence-based practices, a focus in on those again those core programs, reading, writing, uh mathematics and and also behavior. Uh if you I've you know asked two teachers what
021are the two biggest barriers that you experience. Um one is a lack of time and the other is you know behavior. So I think those are two things we need to address. And then um um uh lastly with professional development I would say that uh we need to create highly effective IEPs and legally compliant IEPs. Um thirdly and I have four points. Third is just building out that multi-tiered system of support where we're using data to drive our decisions for as a whole um for schoolwide and also at the individual level where we're using data to drive decisions on individual kids and individual IEP meetings. I think that um if we have good solid evidence-based interventions for reading, for math, for academics and behaviors, I think that puts us in a good place. And I
022also think that um number four is just using data to drive decisions. I think we use PSSA data. We use our local assessment data. Uh we'll be talking a lot more at the next acade or education committee meeting about how we are how the what what the plan is to use data to drive decisions moving forward. Um, but I also think we can look at more individualized IEP type decisions like um completion rates, um, progress monitoring reports for kids. How are they making progress towards their IEP goals? Um, we also have uh walkthroughs and we have compliance measures that I look at, you know, on a regular basis with our IEP writing system. And then uh lastly with uh using data to drive decisions, I think we need to use the data to drive decisions
023that make our buildings consistent with one another. And the practices and processes that we use as a district should be consistent throughout the the district. That's those were some of the things that I found. I know I've only been here for two months so far. I'm sure that I'll learn a heck of a lot more within the next uh few months, few years. U but that's what I have for you right now, respectfully. Thank you. Thank you. If I may add, during the time that I got to speak with uh more individuals than I think that uh um most of the community would uh have expected to happen. It it was very surprising to me how many teachers reached out to me. um how many people from the public uh called me that uh had
024various um information that they wanted to add from experiences that they had with the district. Um and and clearly with the the one individual that uh provided the the initial catalyst for us to look into this um the the board wanted to make everyone aware that this was a concern. This was not something that was going to be swept under the rug. This was something that was going to be addressed and it clearly has. Um I think when we look at the overview um it appeared at at least conceptually and maybe more than conceptually that um things were not being handled consistent from student to student, from employee to employee. And that is one of the things that uh I can assure you um has been addressed already. Um with the the board's assistance, with
025Mr. um Zahorek's assistance and Dr. D's assistance, um we'll make certain that everything is consistent, that we have a reason for the decisions we make um for every student and for every faculty member within the district. Um so hopefully uh the the things that happened in the past will not happen moving into the future. Um clearly we've made some mistakes in the past. Um I don't think any of those were intentional mistakes. I don't think any of them um were something that were uh breaking any type of uh law to do that. I think people were doing what they thought was the best at the time but maybe did not have all the information that uh we have today. Um and most of that is because of the community and the faculty um reaching out
026and providing us the ability to hear their voice and to make certain that we address that and address the concerns uh that we heard. So, I wanted to thank uh everybody for um providing us that information because it was uh very needed and something that uh without input we can't go and really make the changes that are necessary. Thank you, Mr. President. That's the end of my report. Thank you. Uh working off of the information that Mr. Zahorch just mentioned, uh obviously he mentioned only being here for a very short amount of time. Dr. D has only been here for about six weeks or so. And in that amount of time, uh, we've had discussions and we've already started to develop a rotational curriculum calendar and had some other ideas come up. And that's why
027uh, this evening I have appointed uh, Mr. Ella from educational programs and Josie Bennett from personnel to come up with our Ligonier Valley School District strategic plan committee. Uh it'll be starting out with Mr. Vela taking the lead and then Miss Bennett will be reaching out to people to bring onto the uh committee. So I'm going to ask Mr. Vela to give us a brief description of the strategic plan committee so that as Mr. A horack said we want to try to keep things consistent across our district and buildings. Mr. Vela, please talk instead of the microphone that I want to get out the sun. The lights up. It's hot. Um I am really excited about this. I want to thank you um Mr. President on this. This is something a lot of you probably
028know I talked about before I even got elected the need for a real strategic plan. Um, I know we've talked about it quite a bit as board. It came up a lot in the last uh committee meeting that I had, the educational committee meeting. I think everybody's pretty excited about uh about doing this. And I know even uh in the community as well, if you remember last month, last schoolboard meeting, somebody from the community uh community came up and mentioned uh the need for the strategic plan. I wholeheartedly agree with it. Um and so the purpose of this is now I have a draft happy to share with anybody. I wrote it There is a typo, so please don't mail me on that. The last second I wrote this up. Uh, this is going to
029evolve. U, I have a few copies. I'm happy to share with anybody. Everybody here has it. But ultimately, I want to come up with a strategic plan to make the Valley School District the number one school district in Western. I don't think there's any reason and particularly from the feedback that I'm hearing from the new folks that have come on with the administration changing over a little bit. They're telling me that we can be at least the number one close to it in West County. Uh and what and some of that's coming from somebody who ran as superintendent the number one school district in West M County. U what they're seeing, we've got the ability to do it. Um we have the The teachers are amazing. Our kids are amazing, which is a testimony to
030the adults, the parents that we have. Um, so I think and we were at one point one of the best school districts around and we've we've kind of slid down. We're out of 17 school districts in West M County, we are 17, right? The only reason why we're 18 because there's only 17 school districts, right? So we need to change that. We need to go back up. There's no reason why we can't. So that's the the purpose statement that I just I drafted. Um I want to involve administr the board of course administration, teachers, students, parents. I'd like to bring people in from industry their kids are going into EWC in particular colleges that our kids are going to. Are we are we preparing them for what what those needs are instead of just kind
031of looking in this little uh bubble? Um, I wanted to cover not just academics, but finance, sports, safety, uh, community and industry support moving forward. And Sabrina, I added to my list. I don't know how nervous you really were, but you're an excellent, by the way. You're fantastic. All right. I added to my list nutrition because you're right. It not only drives academics, but it also drives sports and also drives behaviors. Right. We're talking we move forward, we'll be voting up tonight plan. We, you know, we've got that whole other side of what we do working with kids that they have some additional challenges. Well, nutrition is a part of that, right? Whether they're not eating at all or they're getting garbage. And so, they certainly shouldn't be getting garbage here. So, we should have
032the best meals for these kids in Western Pennsylvania. And I think some of the things you put forward, sorry, that person put forward are phenomenal ideas. I need to be a part of our bigger picture, bigger plan, part of our strategic plan. That's how we're going to get some of these other things. So, we defined what is number one and then how do we get there? And if how we get there, part of that is nutrition and that needs to be a part of the plan, right? And so, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about what you brought up. Whatever reason I didn't um where we'll be holding uh public meetings in the administration building if they get too big, hopefully they do. Really hope they do. Maybe we can hold them here. Um we're
033going to do town halls gather information the um the comprehensive quoteunquote comprehensive plan we've had in place prior my understanding created by the administration and administrations you know are not going to create anything to hold themselves accountable. I want this to be created by the community and and everybody that that works our school system not just administration. Um, and so that's and so we we'll have like said town halls. Uh, we'll augment with Zoom anywhere we can for people to participate and and as well as public meetings. I'm really excited to be working with Josie uh to help you with this. And uh she's going to keep me in line, keep me straight and organized um and uh and help with help with a lot of the moving parts of this and and as uh
034Gilbert said, reaching out to the community. So, anybody that wants to be involved, please let me know or uh Josie know. Uh I'm looking for support and help from the board as well. I know you kind of kind of threw this on you. It's something we have been talking about for a while, but I Mr. Gilbert asked me to to write something up tonight and I did it last second before we came out and uh so I gave it to you, but particularly MJ, you'd be awesome if you'd be like a special adviser maybe and because you're you're the the man when it comes to uh the ad hoc committees and all the success you had. So, I'd love to learn what worked, what didn't. Um, so as much as you would like to be
035involved, any of anybody else on the board. Um, and I'm going to close with this. We, and this is kind of a why statement, we're at a crossroads in Liar Valley School District. We um, you know, we came from a particular place and we're here now. A lot of things have changed since this board was put together. Um, and with those changes, I think that this board thinks, hopefully you do, there's a tremendous amount of opportunity for this district. Sometimes it just takes some bumping things around and and kind of resetting a little bit to kind of see everything as you get caught up in the the minutia of everything. And I think we're everybody's been able to take a step back. We have an incredible opportunity as a board, as an administration, and as
036a community to put back together a Ligonier Valley school district that we're all proud of that works, that people want to move into the area, right? More people move into the area, more taxpayers, spreads out the cost, we don't have to raise taxes. A lot of people now, like, well, your school system's terrible. I'm not moving near my kids. I'm moving somewhere else, you know. So, I think we have an opportunity to change all that and really build that we're proud of and I think we have the board right now to do it. Believe it or not, we actually work pretty well together right now. Um, and so I think with that and your support and this new new parts of our administration, I think we can do it. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Mr.
037Bella. Do we have any news from the education association? Thank you very much. information from EWCTC. Cindy, you already have a good report. I do. Yeah. And so I don't normally talk about the student of the month, but this last year's student was one of our students. So I want to read you his bio because even if you saw the article in the LRA bulletin, it was it's not as impressive as his bio is. So I'm just going to read this off of Mr. Wymer's report. So Derek Street is a senior from Ligon Valley High School enrolled in EWTC's digital media technology program where he has earned a certified Adobe Photoshop professional certification. Last year he filmed and edited the video for EWTC's senior recognition ceremony. This year Derek is a cooperative education student employed
038as a textile production worker with level one graphics. He also works at West Morton mechanical testing and research and thermouple production. As Leonard Valley's soccer team captain, he has volunteered his time to teach young players the game at Rams Camp. He is also a member of the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society. After graduation, Derek intends to incorporate his interest in photography and videography with drone technology. He has completed a course in drone education with a private industry council and has earned the FFA part 107 license to fly. He has acquired a drone and wants to start a business working as a drone pilot photographer videographer for real estate companies in industry. It is a growing field with multiple applications. So the sky's is the limit and I was so excited about
039that and with the amount of real estate agents that we have in town but unfortunately whenever I asked him if he was staying local his reply was no. But um this guy's he's he's done a lot of good work. Just kudos to him. Um of course the big thing coming up this week is car show on Saturday. Uh so make sure you stop over to EWCTC, take your money, basket raffle, 50/50 door prizes, all that kind of stuff. Um I didn't check the weather. Don, did you check the weather? I'm hope it's going to be a good day. It's teetering on rain or cloudy. They haven't made up their mind yet. All right. And then the last thing that I have is the senior recognition ceremony coming up. Um, so mark your calendar. On Tuesday,
040May 20th, EWCTC will be hosting our senior recognition ceremony. It will be held at 7 PM at the Great Lake Trobe Senior High School Auditorium. Mark your calendar for this very important date. Thank you very much. Mr. Vel has already had a nice speech for us today, but let's see if he has anything from the IU. Oh, we had some fireworks at the IU. Always fun. uh the the the ongoing thing up there is is this policy committee thing that they don't want and they came up with this way of trying to do it and of course I uh I took issue with it because it's not transparent. Uh I think it probably violates the Sunshine Act. Um, and so that got shot down, but um, Representative Rossy's daughter was there, uh, at at the
041at the meeting and she was filming the meeting and, uh, Representative Rossi has taken some interest in what's going on up there as well, which is good. Um, so other than that, uh, it's business as usual. We have a meeting tomorrow night if anybody wants to come. Um, and that's probably it. We didn't get a whole lot else done. That took up quite a bit. Director Bennett, you have public relations and you also have uh our uh student council representative, right? Yes. He can go ahead and read first our student council representative. So, probably something new that you haven't seen at any of our meetings is uh we haven't had any representation from the students. So, uh, we're looking forward to having student council give a presentation at each meeting when possible. So, please introduce
042yourself so everybody knows who you are. Hi everyone. I'm Dante Paige, the student representative from the high school, and I'll be over or excuse me, going over some of what the students have been up to at LBHS. So to begin, 25 members of the future business leaders of America participated in the annual state championship held in Hershey. This year was the highest amount of Ligonier Valley High School students participating and one student Casia McFersonson took sixth place in the state accounting two competition. In addition, FBA is holding the annual blood drive this year. And last year we helped to save 120 lives and we're trying to aim for similar numbers this year. Then the Ligoner Valley High School prom is going to be held at Dalvo station in Lrobe on Friday, May 9th. Ligoner Valley
043High School's Interact Club partnered up with Lrobe School District's Interact Club in a fundraising event to benefit disabled American veterans. The group held a reverse basketball game where the boys were the cheerleaders and the basketball players were the girls. And overall, this event raised $2,000 this year. The a Ligonier Valley Ram senior Aiden Maul has been selected to the 2025 Pennsylvania Wrestling Coaches Association third team all academic wrestling team. In order to qualify, student athletes must maintain at least a 3.0 0 GPA and achieve a winning percentage over 60% from grades 10 through 12. Sydney F and Hunter Wright, two seniors, have recently been recognized as recipients of the West Morland County Scholar Athlete Award. Service occupations at EWCTC have been working on bluebird houses with a game commission recently. Some of the completed Bluebird
044houses were placed on the school grounds. Then for the past three years, students in Mr. Greg's anatomy and physiology classes have elected to be trained in CPR. Recently, nine students completed the training that included adult, child, and infant CPR, AED training, and first aid. The CPR instructor was LBMS teacher, Mr. Podlucky. Then 26 LER Valley JRTC cadets recently traveled to Los Angeles, California. In addition to the normal sights and sounds LA has to offer, they were able to experience additional activities as well. They had an early morning workout on the beach and ended the night at the Griffith Observatory. They were able to experience the behind the scenes of what it takes to make and produce a TV show. They were studio audience guests for the Jennifer Hudson show and were able to meet her
045in person and interact with her after the taping. They made their way to March ARB to learn about their mission using the KC 135 aircraft and learned about career pathways for Air Force such as enlisting and officers and all that and how they can use their high school experience in classes as the foundations for their future in the Air Force. They capped off the trip with another TV production experience on America's Got Talent. One cadet was even chosen out of the entire group, everyone there, to motivate everyone in the theater and press the golden buzzer as a warm-up for the actual show. Then the neworns VFW gave the Spanish Honor Society a gener generous donation a few weeks back. the SHs officers decided to support a local business who's been supporting our local Spanish classes
046for over a decade now. And we'd like to say thank you to Senora Hernandez and to the staff at Elvarero Mexico for a delicious meal. Then student council also recently held its annual senior citizen lunchon. We had a record high number of attendees at 80 all from the local community. And I would like to thank you all for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for that very detailed report. We look forward to very many more. Miss Bennett, do you have anything to add to that? I do. We have some really fun stuff this month. At Ligonier Valley Middle School, the Ligonier Valley Writers Association informed the Ligonier Valley Middle School sixth grade class that there are several winners in their annual poetry contest. The students won six out of nine prizes
047in the grades four through six category. The students will read their poems and receive cash prizes at a ceremony at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, April 26th at 4 p.m. and the public is welcome to attend. The category winners include for rhymed verse category, first place winner, Madigan Smith for writing shadows to talk to, second place winner, Ella Hus for writing my canvas. For unrimed verse category, Ella Hus took third place for writing my style. And in the haiku category, first place went to Cadence Stephie for writing Secret Identity. Second place went to Tanner Zulko for writing Paige Turner. And third place went to Mila Ramsey for writing Nature Reading. And our very own Ligonier and EWCTC graduate Logan Snyder. He has started his own mobile mechanic business. You can find him on Facebook at
048Snyider's Mobile Mechanic or by phone at 724-708-4157. We are very, very proud of him and his accomplishments. Thank you. Excellent reports. Thank you very much, Director Crumbl. There's nothing for building and grounds tonight. Do you have any reporter meetings to announce? No, no report other than we um finalized our bids for the ERU project and they're going to begin right at the end of the school year. So, that's good news. Absolutely. And if you haven't heard the details on that, Mr. Kos has gone over that a couple different times. We actually ended up getting more ERUS paid for than what we anticipated in the in the very beginning. So, it worked out very well. And they found out that they're not going to have to ruin as much of the school getting the old ones
049out. So, good news all around there. Director Stafy, the finance committee, you've got quite a list today. It's a big list, but uh is there any motions that need pulled for discussion? Okay. Well, I'd like to have a motion to approve F2325 through F3825. Mr. Secretary, using MJS for that. Okay. Motion and a second for the finance committee report. All those in favor of approving the motion say I. I. Are there any opposed? Those motions carry. Director Vela. Moving on to educational programs, please. Yeah, it's all right. Great. Um, two twoformational things. Once on April 5th, we had a committee public committee meeting and in there uh Nicole did a longer presentation of the HMH uh that she gave here and we're we're all pretty excited about it. So I asked her to do a
050presentation here and uh just wanted to call thank you very much for putting that together and coming out. That was awesome. Um curriculum cycle was something we also talked about and that came up a couple times. If you're not sure what that means, we actually have a five-year plan now for curriculum. Didn't have one before. Uh but what that'll help us do is not have the scenario we had with the science program coming up with an absolute last second. We'll know way ahead of time. I think we can still leverage a lot of what MJ did um to in terms of the decision process and and selection but it won't be this last second thing. So that came out of that meeting and then data data data which I think is going to is huge
051and exciting. That's something else that Justin's real big on. Just want to throw all that out there. Uh the second point Luke um Stner student at St. Vincent College will observe Clint Mullen at Ligonier Valley Middle School during the spring semester of 2025. Are there any motions that need to be pulled for discussion? Okay. Like to make a motion to approve E1025 through E1825. Having a motion and a second for the educational programs motions. I ask all of those that are in favor indicate by saying I. I. Are there any opposed? said motions carry. Personnel committee director Bennett, please. I would like to make a motion to approve. Oh, first, are there any motions any poll for discussion? I would like to make a motion. Oh, you do. Okay. Please do. Not allotted. It's on.
052Okay. I have to um abstain from motion P2725. 27. Okay. Yeah, it's listed. Okay. All righty. I'd like to make a motion to approve motions P25 through P2625. Excuse me. 2525. P2525. Second. Having a motion and a second for P21 through P25. All those indicate or in favor indicate by saying I. I. Are there any opposed? Those motions carry. That approval will be given to the hiring of the following substitutes for the 2025 2026 school year. Zachary Faze as custodian. Having a motion and a second for P26. All those indicate by in favor by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries to approve motion P2725. We're going to have a roll call vote. Second with Cindy Brown. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Secretary, please roll call. Yes. Abstain. Yes. Thank you. The
053athletic committee director Hutchinson, please. Are there any motions that need pulled for discussion? Hearing none, I'd like to make a motion for A0925 through A1225. Second. Having a motion and a second, all those in favor indicate by saying I. Any opposed? Those motions carry. Director Gamble, supplemental contracts, please. I make a motion for S0825 with the names Dante Porter, head varsity boys basketball coach. Christy Hayar, head varsity girls basketball coach. Leonard Molharren, head varsity wrestling coach. Adam Faust, head junior high football coach. Lindseay Neerhiser, head varsity volleyball coach. Tyler Koshas, head girls golf coach. Brandon Rensco, assistant varsity football coach. And Corey Turk, assistant varsity football coach. Second. There's a motion and a second. One note, the head varsity volleyball coach is a new hire. All the others were renewals. All those in favor of
054the hirings indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Transportation and attendance. Director Nut, please. Are there any motions to need pulled for discussion? Hearing none, I make a motion to approve TA625 through TAO825. Second. Having a motion and a second for the three motions. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed? Those motions carry. Director Brown, nothing on your motions for this evening. Any announcements? No announcements. Second hearing of citizens for items that were not related to the agenda. We have uh Helen Sitler, please. I had a a how question for you last month. So, tonight I have a who question. Um, and I'd like to begin by um recognizing some who's since we're doing some recognitions tonight for good things they've done. Um, MJ for showing the board how
055an ad hoc committee can actually work and be successful. Um Sarah Rodati who brought up the question a month or so ago about a strategic plan. So now we're actually hearing about a strategic plan. That's good. Um and Christy Boyd for pushing over and over again for the trauma-informed plan that was passed tonight too. Um and so I'll turn now to Jen Croml who raised the question um last time about a code of ethics for the board about criminal clearances for members of the board. So my question my who question tonight is who would be responsible for ensuring that schoolboard directors are in compliance with federal state local laws, district policies and ethical guidelines? Who's the who that follows up on such things? If I may, Mr. President, absolutely. I would think that ultimately if
056I'm made aware of, you know, sometimes I would not be made aware of certain issues, but if I'm made aware of a concern that anyone on this board or any employee of this school district would be doing something that was uh against a state uh local or federal law, that I would uh review that and make the appropriate recommendation mattering what what was occurring. Um, as far as a um as uh getting um clearances by the board, um you know, to become a a school board member, it it's a state law of the process. It is a state law. Clearly, you're saying that right now everybody who sits on this board has criminal clearances. No, no, no, no. You're not to be elected to a school board. There's a process that is state law. we
057cannot require additional items to become a board member here. So, as getting a um background checks, uh clearances, those type of things are not mandated um here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to run for this office. So, we could not add additional items um to become a board member here. So, the board can't institute a code of ethics then either. We can have a code of ethics. We can't require would a code of ethics not expect that there would be such a procedure in place. There's no I I know of no board in the Commonwealth um at this point. There may be somewhere, but there is not a reason um or a requirement of the law to have school board members um get background clearances. and we could have a code of ethics, but to
058require somebody to get um a background clearance to be a board member, it would be uh illeible to do so. If I may just add something to that, we do have a code of ethics. It's very general in our policy. Um I still would like to see us I did not realize we could not require that like I had suggested. What I still would like to request is that we add it to our local policy. I feel it's very important. I know it's not a requirement, but as our speaker stated, go into our schools and have lunch. You can't do that without a clearance. You shouldn't be able to do that without a clearance in my opinion. So, I'm still hoping that we can come to some kind of an agreement on a local policy.
059It literally takes five minutes to go on your computer on those two sites and get a clearance and print a copy. There's other things we're supposed to be providing as well, such as your financial statement, all those things. And I'm not sure why some of those things are such a hot topic to not provide those, but I personally would like to see the clearances. The public would like to see the clearances. Excuse me. So there you have the opinions. So the so the answer to the who is the solicitor then is is the monitor for filing financial forms for completing mandated training for attending meetings here and on related boards etc. Yes I I I think some of those items at this point the uh board secretary uh handles when there's a problem he clearly
060speaks with me. For example, um it was mentioned the ethics forms. Those are the the board secretary on a yearly basis um asked for the uh ethics forms to be submitted to his office. Um if there was either one was not submitted and he couldn't convince because it's not just board members. I personally have to submit my the state ethics form as well. um he would talk to me about it to make sure that we got that the appropriate individuals to to turn those in. Um if there was something on there that was a concern, he would bring that to my attention as well. Okay. Mr. Coaches, did everybody submit their form for the financial and ethics that we had to fill out? Board members. Yeah, there's employees. I meant board members only because we
061didn't have that on the beginning. Thank you. And since it was brought up about uh clearances, if anybody's wondering, there's mine. Here's mine. Mine are dated 321 and 327. I just updated them for everybody. I got mine, too. That would have really been nice to know you were going to hold them up because that we could have all done the same thing. could have brought them. I didn't realize you and I I do want to address that we do have code of ethics statements in our membership policy. I think it's I'm not sure which I don't know if it's 004 or whatever it is. There's actually two different policies and I'm working on getting them together. So, I don't know that it's necessary um to rehash that. We may need to specif if you want
062to specify them. This is the thing. Policies that came down from PSBA are so very subjective and so very broad that to know anybody under code of ethics I don't I don't even know how you would do that. I don't even know if we would want to do that. Um but there are some in our in our policies um that are I mean they have a good they have a good outline for them but it's it's there's nothing like really dogmatic black and white in there. Um, so you know, if you want to talk about that, we can talk about it, but I think we just need to be careful in setting a precedent that may end up backfiring on us. Mr. Bouer, you would like to talk about the uh path? You're good. Okay,
063thank you. uh Cara Boyd talking about real estate and I'm sure the comments that Mr. Vela made about our district kind of hit home there in the strategic plan information as well. I have um some data if you guys all want to flip through while I'm speaking so you understand what I'm talking about. Okay. Good evening. My name is Cara Boyd and I'm a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, the preferred realy and I'm one half of the Don Kramer and Cara Boyd team. We assist people in the district of buying and selling their homes. In the last two meetings, I've heard real estate being touched on. So, I'm here to provide a market update to the board and our community based on the data available to me through our multiple listing service. This data
064does not include private transfer transfers or leased properties. Um on the first page you will see that we have 35 active, 14 contingent and four under contract listings from January 1st until today. Um the 35 active just means that they have not received an offer. The 14 contingent meaning that they're working through their due diligence process which could be financing and inspections. the homes can still be toured and backup offers can be still can still be submitted um if per the seller's instruction for under contract means that the contingenc contingency period has has been completed and the property is no allow no longer allowing tours and anticipate settlement soon. I've also brought the data for homes sold in 2024. In 2024, 148 homes were sold within the district. Um, with those homes sold, we the
065district received approximately $2.35 million in transfer tax. At closing, the buyer pays 1% of transfer tax and the seller pays 1% of the sale price in of transfer tax. A half of that percent from the combined 2% goes to the school district. And that's how I generated the 2.35 million. Um, I was able to speak to 109 buyers agents out of the 148 that were sold in 2024. 19 homes have children that could be enrolled in our district. 17 are second homes. 61 are primary residents without children, um, mostly retirees. Seven are income generating properties, meaning they're short or long-term rentals. And there are two flips, meaning that the property is being renovated and will be listed again. There's also four tearowns, which means the property is in disrepair and the buyer has decided to
066tear the property down instead of rehabilitate. I wanted to present this data to you and the community so we can work together to be more desirable to families. I've worked with several buyers last year that ultimate ultimately purchased in another school district. Buyers and sellers are more educated in real estate today than in years past. They compare and contra contrast update costs, utility costs, yearly maintenance costs, neighborhoods, return on their investment, and the school district. My colleagues from local brokerages offices such as Berkshire Hathway Home Services, Loyal Hannah Realy, Howard Hannah, and Davies Real Estate have compiled the following list of pros and cons for our hometown. I'm going to start with the bad stuff first. our facilities baseball. Um, ironically, the other evening we were at a baseball game and the sanitation company arrived
067to pump the portagon out during the game while the away team and parents were sitting there. It was very embarrassing, but also the safety of players and spectators. Football, there's no changing table and the bathrooms at Wellerfield. And even though that Wellerfield, we did kind of make it handicap accessible, I've had several people tell me that their wheelchair on the ramp is very difficult to maneuver and once you get to a seating area, you feel like you're in the way and people step over you. The signs at Springier and West Main Street are faded and over gosh decades old. I think it's time to revamp those. Also, the end the sign at the entrance of the um high school also faded. you can't even read entrance anymore or see the arrow there. Um, somebody had
068mentioned coming from a late trope school said that um, a sign for the AR for RKM and LVMS at the bottom of the hill before you go up to the schools would be nice to show be more inviting to know that they're there. Um, middle school sports offerings. We've lost so many kids for middle for middle school aged because we do not have enough sports. We've lose so many kids to swimming in Mount Pleasant, um baseball, softball, soccer, track and field, cross country, um and swimming. But we lose so many of those to dair um Greensburg Salem, Lake Trobe, and Mount Pleasant. Those are our big rivals. Activities for middle school age kids. that's more geared toward the community. We don't have enough for middle school age kids to do except for play on an
069Xbox or be on their phone. Our test scores, obviously, we've mentioned that um we do not have an A program like Dair does. That would also be very beneficial for our district. And last but not least, affordability and that would be home prices and taxes. Our pros are small classroom sizes, safety, friendship park, the Y, being close to family, the Ligonier Valley Library, and educator, the educators in the districts once somebody has an experience with them. Um, I also have some items to consider, and this is more focused on marketing stuff just because that's pretty much my job. Um, highlight the typical day-to-day at school as well as special occasions. We need to add more on the district website. We need to highlight educator and student accomplishments. We need to um update our curriculum offerings
070at all levels. You have to understand that a buyer their first tour of any property is the internet and they're looking at the school district website and social media. When they physically walk through the property, that's their second showing and usually decision day. Our social media needs to be more consistent and include information like PSSA prep, student educated, educator accomplishments, and information from administrators, um, such as the ones that are emailed or sent through via text message. And honestly, the most simple things go the long go a long way. So, if we would post building menus every week or a reminder that, hey, there's a two-hour delay, instead of just getting an email or a text message and we put it on social media, other people, not just the district families, see that and they're
071going to think, oh, wow, we really care about our community and our kids and our families. We're reminding them like, hey, we know that this is a little crazy of a schedule, but here's a reminder. [Music] Um, so if we could use those tools to inform our current families and hopefully attract new families to move here, that would be very beneficial. And Don and I definitely do everything we can to get new families here because we love our hometown. Thank you. Thank you. Have a question? Yes. Would you like to be a part of the new committee? Sure. Oh, I also have other handouts if anyone else wants my real estate data. Thank you. Emma Bats, you'd like to talk about the prom. [Music] Good evening. My name is Emma Betts and I'm currently serving
072as this year's junior class president. I am here tonight before you, excuse me. Um, be on behalf of the junior class prom committee since the beginning of the prom planning process. We have not been heard by our advisor. The venue that has been selected was not picked by us but our advisor and there was no vote by our committee for it. This vid v menu venue has been used for the past two years and is not a favorite by our classmates. During several meetings, our ideas were told that they weren't very good and that they were passed over for something different. Most of our committee wanted a grand march, but we were told that that would not happen. Some of our parents even wrote emails to our adviser and the principal as well. I reached
073out to Christy Boyd from the Boyd Foundation for help in possibly having a grand march somewhere else. Approval was granted for the grand march to be held at the town hall um sorry sponsored by the Boyd Foundation. At this point, this school did decide to have a grand march but less than a month before prom. While we as a committee are grateful for this concession, the whole experience has just been very frustrating. Prom is a major high school experience and we were very excited to plan it. However, our ideas, the ideas of the students were not heard. As a result, we believe that not many of our classmates want to attend prom or grand march. Former junior class committees have also experienced the similar issues that we are dealing with, especially with our advisor. This
074problem is not new. I feel this situation needs to be brought before you tonight so that next year's committee of students can be heard and that prom can continue to be an exciting milestone. Thank you. Thank you very much, Emma. I would ask that uh since Emma has some valid concerns, Dr. D, would you please look into that situation um and give us a report whenever you have an opportunity? Thank you. Please forgive me if I say this incorrectly incor incorrectly. Zamariah, is that correct? Zamayra. All right. Good evening. You can also call me Zi. Uh my name is Demi Robertson and I currently am serving as a junior class secretary. I'm here tonight with my fellow officers to discuss the issues we've had with our class adviser when it when it comes to planning
075prom. As you know by now, the issues we have been facing have been ongoing throughout the school year. However, the um issues are starting to interfere with classwork. On multiple occasions, I along with other officers have been held after class for altercations centered around prom decisions. These altercations have resulted in us officers missing both his class and others teachers classes. These altercations have also not been held in private, but set in front of fellow classmates. In front of these classmates, these disagreements have escalated and turned belittling. I have experienced issues of being called lazy and told I do not do enough for this event in front of my peers. Beyond these altercations, our adviser has turned to further further belittle myself and other advis or other officers outside of our presence and again in front
076of our peers. These own issues stem from a place of disagreement when it comes to the decision of prom planning that us officers have experienced for a majority of the school year. As Emma stated, we are not the first class to have issues with this advisor and the prom planning process. We ask not to fix this situation for us, but for future junior classes to have the ability to plan their own prom and not his. Thank you. Thank you, Haley Nolan. Good evening. I am Haley Ross and this is Nolan Huba and we are currently serving as the junior class treasurer and vice president for the 2024 2025 school year. We wanted to thank you for letting us speak today and we would also like to add on to our prom advisor. Prom is a
077big deal to students. It's something we look forward to for years, but planning takes a lot of hard work and right now we are having some issues. As they have mentioned before, our focus this evening is about the money issue. Since we have been elected as officers, we have asked for a budget to start our planning process. We were told that he did not have one, which may have been true at the time due to the overwhelming start to the school year. But as time went on, we still haven't received one, which raised some questions. After many times asking again and again, I went to see our secretary. She told me that he has had a budget for a while and I'm wondering why it has been so secretive. We received a budget almost two
078weeks ago and as we were a month out from prom, I'm just wondering like why was it so secretive? All right, I'm here to talk about the effort of our adviser. Um the position of the junior class adviser is um is a paid position and I don't he can't control his contract but he can control the amount of effort he puts in. It is very minimal. It's mostly our fundraisers. We either get shot down or he just doesn't put enough effort into it to make it fun and exciting. Um, promise is about the kids, not the adviser. That's another big part because he picks the decisions based on their thoughts rather than our thoughts and our input, which is a big issue. Um, yeah, that's about it. Thank you for hearing us out this evening.
079Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any director comments for this evening? I have one. Oh, actually two. Um, first off, I wanted to shout out the musical. I don't know if anyone got to see the Wizard of Oz. It was fantastic. So, wanted to shout them out. Um, and my second comment was it's great to see the students getting involved. I know it's hard to get up there and speak in front of the board. We may look scary. I promise you we're not. Um, but hopefully Dr. D will get to the bottom of this situation and we can get something sorted out for you guys. Yeah. I'm just going to piggyback on what he said you guys because if you don't tell us, we don't know, right? So tell if there's if there's
080issues and you're not getting in and with it in the school locally, please come speak. That's the only way we're going to find out is if you come and speak. So thank you all for coming. I just want to piggy back off one thing. So the student representative that we have speaking now, that's something that I've been asking for for quite a while and we we never really got to incorporate that. So, I think that's a great way, a segue for you to tell us what's going on. Like Cindy and MJ said, please let us know, but I'm thrilled about the student representative meeting because you are 100% right. We're here for you. So, just come to us anytime, but I'm loving the speaker part. Keep up the good job. I would like to acknowledge
081the boys high school baseball team for graciously volunteering to help mentor the Rams challenger little league team during their first game on April 12th. Each high school player was paired up with a challenger player and the fun began. These young men on our high school team were naturals with interacting and helping the challenger members understand the game of baseball. Thank you to all the high school baseball players for doing a wonderful job. [Applause] I just want to I appreciate the who stuff that you did. I do um with the trauma plan and the uh strategic plan. Um and you're right. the certain things just take a process and I probably wasn't very I guess maybe transparent enough about it but like the tra trauma plan came up quite a while ago and um I recommended
082it to go for vote um but as you know these processes sometimes you know there's some board members may have some issues with certain things and that was the case originally with the trauma plan so it went through some cycles before it could get back onto the agenda the other thing is we you know that when I received that originally the person this the administration was different with particularly Justin coming in. Um I wanted the new administration to have the ability to to play into that as well. Um so that did, you know, maybe take a little bit longer, but again, it wasn't that we didn't already have a plan. That was simply codifying it for the purpose of getting grants. We've already had one. Um but I'm glad we did. It was important and
083I'm glad you kept pushing it and bringing it up because I want we need that. Um and uh and in terms of the strategic plan, similarly again was something I've been talking about since before I got elected. Um and the the timing now I think is is really where we can be effective. I don't know that we could have been affected much sooner than this in trying to do something like that. Um, but again, I uh you know, I appreciate the push Sarah last last month, you know, bringing it up was great and um and you know, the timing is working out that you know, you brought it up and I'm glad you did and I agreed with you 100%. We need one. Um and at the same time, it's it's something I've been you
084know, talking about, thinking about for a long time and I think the timing finally came together. So, um, again, and I sincer sincerely appreciate the, um, push on that stuff and my, uh, whatever it was, the board stuff kept pushing me on, got that done. Um, so anyway, I just want to thank you for that and just appreciate any anything like that from the community. It helps us out a lot. Thank you. Cara, could I ask you a question? Excuse me. I agree with you about the middle school sports, but my question is, did you happen to ask the families that have kids in middle school? Are they involved in um oh my goodness, travel teams? Because that's what I found was a big problem is the transition from elementary to middle school is everyone
085has their kids in travel ball or travel whatever. Um, I know when I was on the board with LBSA, that was a huge organization and now I know the numbers are smaller and smaller because just because the kids are traveling more. So, I didn't know if you happened to ask that question or not. I did not ask that because I didn't want to get too personal because I have some I didn't want to violate. But I will say that I think the reason travel ball or even any travel sports is so popular right now and increasing in size is because we're not coaching the fundamentals. So when they're getting to a higher level, they they don't know what how to what to play, like what they're supposed to do. So I think and also in
086Ligonier, I can just say this from experience. My son plays Legion ball and he plays high school ball now. um going to a teener league or even legion playing against other Legion teams, you can tell that our kids are lacking in ability and knowledge because they have they don't have middle school sports. I know that Greensburg Salem um and uh Lake Trobe, their J or their middle school teams are huge. So, it would be nice to just have that for middle school kids so they don't have to look somewhere else because then they're going to start going to a high another district to go to high school. I was just curious. Thank you. Um, I would just like to give a shout out to Nicole for the work that she did on the HMH3. Um,
087just to let you know, our reading contract was up. our HMH1 reading contract was up and she had jumped on this ahead of time and spent months actually uh working with the teachers, talking to them, talking to the reading teachers, working how that worked in with the letters program, talking to Justin. Um she's just done a magnificent job. She is priceless to our school systems. I I thank Nicole. That was just wonderful. And uh I do want to give a shout out to Justin and Dr. D. It is so refreshing to have administration who care and listen and do their job. And I just want to say that. Okay. Um just an announcement that there's a gosh can't talk. Athletic committee meeting on May the 2nd 9:00 a.m. at the administration building. The agenda will
088be posted on the 25th. What time? 9:00 a.m. I'm sorry. Jersey hearing anything. I just want to say thank you to everybody. It's a season to be thankful. So, thanks for everybody showing up. Thanks for all the input from the students, from the teachers that we've been getting and all the community members and parents and everybody that's been involved in talking to all of us and helping us to direct as you've heard tonight the data which is what everything gets driven by. and for the leadership team that's developing. Second that and thanks for all your commitment and work and please keep it up. Thank you. During our executive session, uh we were talking about some data and Dr. D brought up that some research that he had done shows that we were 17th out of
08917th in West Morland County, which is distressing because only a short seven years ago whenever my daughter came to Ligonier as a third grader, we were sixth. So we've dropped 11 spots in short seven years. And I certainly not only hope, but I definitely believe that um with our new hire and having Mr. Zahorch come on and looking at some of the data and having Dr. D start to re-evaluate what we have going on within the district. I think we're going to see a massive improvement in a short amount of time. And I thank both of them and I of course thank our staff and administrators and of course our teachers for everything that they put into this system because the Ligonier Valley deserves to be the best again. Absolutely. Let me just testing one
090two testing. Uh things aren't as dismal as we uh communicated 17 out of 17. The key is this and this has been six weeks of being here. You have all the resources you need. You have wonderful wonderful students and teachers and I think you have a potential um to to be one of the best school districts in in the state of Pennsylvania. uh you have some buildings performing other better than other buildings. I think the bottom line is some systems need to put it put in place. Uh I've taken a lot of pride in my years at Franklin Regional. um because we we did out have an outstanding school district and so does Norwin and Penn Trafford and a few others that are really on top of the heap as far as the academics um
091and the overall status of their school districts. Do I think Ligonier can get there? You're darn right I do. Uh I didn't come into this job for a short time just to sit on my laurels. I believe in in the school district. I believe in this student group. who believe in our teachers. I had an opportunity to meet with all the staffs in every building. Had the opportunity to now schedule bimonthly administrative meetings. And uh we're going to get this on the road. We're going to work together as a team. And I'm a big believer in treating everyone with respect and dignity at all times. And my style is a servant style leadership. I'm not the guy on top. I'm the guy that helps hold everyone up and the teachers and students way above me
092on that flowchart. So I'm just happy to be there. I just want to stay positive because um it's not a negative situation. We just need to we just need to do a few things. We're going to be okay. Thank you. Some important dates to remember include May 19th. That will be our next board meeting with an executive session planned for 5:15, the committee of the whole at 6, and our regular meeting at 6:30. At this point, I will entertain anyone who wishes to make a motion to adjurnn. Having a motion and a second, I will ask all those that are in favor, please say I. I. Anybody happen to be opposed to that? Hearing none, motion carries. Meeting adjourned. 7:54. Thank you very much everyone. Have a great evening.