001[Music] 2.01 is approval of minutes motions will prove the minutes of the regular meeting of may 26 2021. questions or comments all those in favor 2.02 of the invoice listing motions will prove your voice listing for may june of 2021. questions or comments all those in favor opposed 2.00 during may 2021 local state federal revenues totaled one million three hundred eighty-six ninety-seven disbursements were issued in the amount of two million nine hundred twenty eight four thirty nine as of may 31st twenty twenty one conductors current balances three four million three hundred ten thousand four hundred eighty four commissioners to approve the treasurer's report for may 2021 doing up this motion questions commons all these papers vote 2.04 is a budget transfer report motion is to improve the budget transfer report from may through june of
0022021. thank mr armor good evening everyone in attendance tonight at our school board meeting typically each june we take a moment to recognize our district retirees and while i expect that next year we will be in a place where we will be able to properly recognize our retirees in person in june of 2022 i expect it will be back to an impersonal retiring recognition remnants of covenant considerations and the impact on indoor group gatherings leads to one more virtual acknowledgement lisa pomerani and joe accept uh several put together a video collection of employee photos names and years of service employees are retired in the past two years in all our recent retirees dedicated an impressive 401 years of public service to end up the school district community to include all of our retirees in the
003last two years over four centuries of public service dedicated to students in service of students and staff in penn delta my office will be sending to our newest retirees beautiful indoor plants that will be delivered to their homes from school board along with a personalized note but for the record we wanted to take a moment to look at the names images of our retirees and the years of experience that they've dedicated our first group were retirees from last year we were no longer meeting in person they had nothing but zoo meetings at that time was this a larger than average entire it was not in our professional staff it actually was a smaller than average number of retirees we had you know some support staff that people might recognize certainly uh far side a year
004ago secretary have been there in a long time then the parker financial secretary from sun valley high school tomorrow will be her last day up there she's done fantastic work but unlike other districts we actually have a smaller than normal retiree middle school did a phenomenal job sending off chuck road to kind of custodian they already saw for many number of years panel a first grade teacher of year 23 weeks lesson as well because it won for send off for her but clap that we were happy to participate and martin's and that's our group for this year so we can we look forward next year to uh having all that back in person as we've typically done on monday this week which was the final day of work for most of our teachers and team
005members who were 10 month employees i emailed out a thank you letter to acknowledge what i believe and i think i termed it to be a grand slam performance by the team throughout the school year our support staff operations staff teachers or administrators pulled together to make something another which was a year of real instruction in the real academic challenge with real opportunities for student growth when the curse of covet made the years though appear as though it would lent along and end up with loss they came through i think all of us have read about we know of districts that had limitations and were unable to open at all for in-person instruction we read about that we know of less than ideal circumstances in other districts where students didn't have the option to access
006live synchronous instructions from their teachers we've read about or we know places where important end of year events did not come to pass for those kids but thanks to our staff that is not the story in pendleton instead the pandelco story is of a school year in which challenge was accepted it was embraced it was confronted and we owned it plain and simple the quality of the virtual learning and hybrid learning and the blended learning that was provided to pendleto students exceeded expectations and that's what i'm hearing from parents who have emailed me it was gratitude for a great job that was done under very difficult circumstances i say year after year we have an incredibly dedicated team of employees and this year they prove what i mean but i can't stress enough how proud
007i am of the work it has done this year my respect for the quality of the work that kids did under really difficult and unusual circumstances and my confidence that come september those kids are going to be in a great place and are going to be ready to do great things it was truly a team approach it was a community effort and this year our teachers got a chance to meet grandparents in ways they never did before because particularly for some of the little ones it was the grandparents that had the kids to help them on the computer to make sure that they moved along there was so much national talk about learning loss and how traumatized students have become how far behind they're going to be and i don't have any reason to buy
008into that our students had access to solid instruction over here but it was virtual or in person it was a very good product for the students who may not have learned well due to the online limitations we have a plan to provide immediate supports to get them back to speed beginning as early as the summer so thank you to everyone who made a positive difference in the lives of our students this past school year i want to thank our board members for spending an evening with the sun valley class of 2021 under the lights on our stadium field graduation turned out to be a memorable top notch event i'm glad so many of you were able to be a part of it and our thoughts are already turning to the first tuesday of next year
009for the class of 2022. tonight the administration is pleased to present the school board with the proposed collective bargaining agreement for our educational support personnel we recommend it without reservation the agreement will run from july first of this year until june 30th of 2024 i want to acknowledge the work of nena tire and eric zedling along with pedestrian president stephanie johannes that group put in quite a number of hours to update the contract language where it was necessary we're happy to have that document ready for board approved tonight's agenda also includes updated health and safety plans that the district is required to have in place through the last kind of tale of this educational delivery during coving importantly as we have done this past year the plans follow recommendations from public health experts not news
010actors not politicians but the state mandate on masks expiring on monday the wearing of masks becomes optional and is no longer required restrictive social distancing parameters have and it gets us closer to a reopening of school which will feel normal again and that's exactly what i expect for september reopening the school for five days and personal instruction of normal weeks back to school and back to normal the agenda also includes a motion signifying more support for the use of flexible instruction days next school year on an as needed basis for emergency school closings i think it's worth noting on a personal level i don't contemplate a scenario in which our district never sees a traditional snow deck kit that we heard from parents that's important to developing their kids and their memories of childhood but
011we do have the tools now to ensure there's a back stop in place of circumstances developed in which we are forced to close our physical operations for whatever reason online technology rests our school calendar out of the hands of kind of faith and those unpopular makeup days that could end up late into the summer or over spring break online learning can be an asset for students under the right circumstances particularly when emergencies develop last week we encountered just such circumstances the fuel spill next coburn did its best a wrestle will weaken school away from our kids but that did not happen again stellar staff swung into action they found ways to deliver instruction remotely with fairly much notice and also to hold an incredible end-of-year celebratory function for the kids in person for the applause
012and appreciation of the school community so for the record uh i want to commend coburn staff for their professionalism their ingenuity and their dedication to the children who were entrusted to them they saved the day they really a reminder the school district has switched to its summer schedule longer hours monday through thursday in lieu of the five day week will be closed on fridays being found at this schedule saves the district close to eighteen thousand dollars in utilities plus so it's sensible to stick to the footwork that concludes thank you thank you we're gonna add an agenda on free a report mr pal is going to give us a dci report um each year delaware county technical high school recognizes some of our outstanding students in formal award ceremony pandoco had a student from sun
013valley high school recognized for skillsusa award constantina and i'm probably going to butcher this last name in an autograph for cosmetology the delaware county technical schools programs have 1088 students who have applied for technical school program for the 21-22 school year of this number 52 students from penn now have put in applications to start at the technical school in the fall there are an additional 39 students who plan to return to their career and technical school programs next year from pandarco a little dciu is upgrading playgrounds at carpool education center as well as sharon early learning center the upgrades will support all students in our county and our district students who might attend programs at these locations and on june 2nd the dciu held the last galco equity coalition meeting for the 2021 year the
014coalition meetings are for district administrators who support equity initiatives in our district it allows district leaders to spend time together collaborating about their successes and challenges and develop programs and solutions moving forward the group met monthly premier member to june announcements for the public accordance with acts 48 the sunshine law board met an i just want to reiterate what uh dr sonoff says well i just thought it was a class act by a pentagon as well as the director of facilities and my friend ron dottie and all his team for helping implement the sun valley graduation even with multiple delays i think it was the first graduation i don't find out i didn't tell you how many years it was on i know probably especially now the first one there and after all the latest
015thank you ryan and your team i'd like to thank the coverage staff as well as our administrators for putting together in a short couple days gathering that they did at the cambridge municipal center not only for kindergarten graduation to make sure that kindergarteners had their fancy send off that we normally do but to have something in place for the kids to meet say goodbye to their friends in the summer say goodbye to their teachers i had a few activities over there for them to do and just kept them busy for a couple hours so they had a chance to say bye to their their fellow students and teachers so it was a great job it was kind of tough in a couple days and rerouting buses and re-wrapping the car line and all that stuff's
016going to work out for the best anywhere else no weddings full discussion number seven public comments school superintendent for certification over the past 18 months he's been in this process parallel with all the other challenges we've had over the past 18 months but he just finished in the 2021 cohort 23 pennsylvania superintendent you've completed the program that is run by the national school superintendents association the program requires study and participation in eight separate multi-day gatherings on a variety of topics that superpeds face hello has successfully completed and mastered the skills and requirements necessary to meet the standards set board by the national super tent certification program pennsylvania association of school administrators cohort 2021 and i want to congratulate tomorrow i was surprised to see that percentage of the district in advance nice to meet you
017mentioned so we try to all of us probably by example we expect our staff to do continued professional development and i had that opportunity in the last year and a half and learned a lot from it worked with superintendents from around the state really sharing a lot of ideas and best practices for how to operate the approach so it was a great opportunity for me to thank you for the knowledge so number seven is commented by members of the public uh comments come from podium only on agenda items only for the first section or items five six ssda agreement in the pa school code 1108p use administrative recommendation to approve all personnel questions or comments all those in favor motion passes tonight's board will utilize a consent agenda item is 8.03 through 8.26 with the
018exception of 8.08 and eight point one zero we'll do those individually uh i mean the board member requires something else to be pulled please open it up all right so i need a motion to approve 8.03 through 8.26 with the exclusion of 8.08.17 questions or comments hold those in field motion passes 8.08 is the final budget for 2021 2022. the proposed final budget for 2021-2022 was adopted on may 19 2021 and has been duly advertised for adoption the 2021-2022 book general budget of 67 million 97 223 and the setting of the tax rate of 17.5655 mills from 2021 to 2022. 8.10 open up the floor for election of nominations for the school board record i'd like to nominate account motion to close nominations all right the motion is to elect colleen palace our school board
019treasurer from july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022. questions or comments all those in favor opposed motion passes number nine on the agenda is comments by members of public uh comment please approach the podium state your name address for the record and each individual is giving up three minutes hello my name is my daughter is the first career in petal elementary before i begin i want to say thank you to the board members and everyone here for attending tonight and spending time away from your families for the interest of our children after watching piss board meetings specifically the february 2021 meeting and discussing it with other parents and members of the community i've done the question why we need a dei committee tonight i have come to to express my concerns and to get a
020better understanding without judgment or persecution over the last few years penn delco has celebrated and been recognized for many accomplishments in 2015 all of penn delka's elementary schools were recognized as national schools of character and were also recognized with the pa character award to achieve this certification and award it's statesmancharacter.org that each of these schools has put in place a comprehensive approach that inspires their students to understand care and consistently practice a set core values that will enable them to flourish in school in relationships in the workplace and as citizens our schools underwent a rigorous value evaluation process to achieve their certification documenting how they have implemented the standards articulated in character.org 11 principle frameworks for schools of the 11 principles i would like to speak specifically on principle number six this principle states because
021students come to school with diverse skills interests backgrounds and learning needs an academic program that helps all students succeed will be one in which the content engages all learners and meets their individual needs this means providing a curriculum that is inherently interesting and meaningful to all students and teaching in the manner that respects and cares for students as individuals so this is already in place in our schools to address diversity and equity in april 2016 sun valley was selected to host the tour with the president and managing director for special olympics international he specifically stated i am very impressed with what your school is doing i think that we in egypt and schools all over should be learning from what you are doing here to create inclusive and inclusive environment with students of all different
022abilities you should be proud of what you're doing to me you are experts in this and just this past september sun valley was one out of ten schools in pennsylvania and one out of 121 schools in the entire country recognized by the special olympics for its work to be inclusive the special olympics president himself stated these institutions set a wonderful example for other schools around the state this is a big deal these are just a few of the many examples of how penn delga is already supporting diversity inclusion and equity i could continue on but this is where my concern as a parent comes in why the committee now i feel that pendleco was already doing this right long before it was a trend or i'm sorry a growing movement in corporations schools universities and
023communities i urge the board not to reinvent the wheel and to reconsider supporting a new committee that is following a growing movement this cei committee will cause divide the divide has already started i am already hearing stories of things happening within the schools from other parents and students that greatly concern me i have heard more stereotyping and discussion of race and sexuality since this committee has been promoted at lake thermals and proposed versus hearing about our children's ability and character discussions and programs addressing dei have already been happening in penn dog there for years i asked the board to please have the courage to continue to be the leaders and continue to set the example for true diversity equity and inclusion that penn delco has already been recognized and awarded for thank thank you hi
024my name is karen elliott and i live on pancreas avenue i actually came here tonight to speak up for parents who have provided me proof that teachers are using their classrooms to push their personal and political agendas these parents are reaching out because they don't know who to reach out to about their opposition to these class assignments they don't know who to reach out to because the person leaving the charge to bring dei into the classrooms sits here at the head of the board these concerns include a teacher writing black lives matter and all lives are legal on a whiteboard as well as hanging black lives matter and love is love poster a teacher providing multiple choice answers after a lesson for tuskegee airmen that include gender race religion a teacher wearing a shirt about
025allies advocates activists and agents change what is going on in the school district that made this teacher sorry what is going on in the school district that made the teacher think that they could wear this shirt to a classroom let's not forget this little gem in art class where a picture of three fists in the air black lives matter written above and the teacher stating that cops are there to protect you just like teachers however many times when police have not treated black people fairly and hurt them and now killed them let me be clear i do have pictures and videos of these i have left out the teachers names for now as to not target any one teacher because this is more than just one or two issues i would be happy to give
026you their names if you want me to provide them later i'm not looking for a teacher that has a certain diversity in color age or ethnic background or sex we need to focus on what is the best quality teacher that we can hire we do have differences yes that's what makes us unique but we have more in common we are all part of the penn doctor school district and looking to point out differences rather than commonalities is where parents have a problem if we have students that need to help that need help with their academics we have resources for that if we have children with emotional issues we have counselors the best thing that came out of online learning is that parents were able to see what was going on in the classrooms for the
027most part it looks nothing like when they went to school we need to allow our children to grow not just with education but socially teaching children to recognize that we have differences is one thing but to teach them but to teach the children to be ashamed of who they are to make one student feel more accepted is not logical i disagree with you that teachers should have an expectation of privacy when it comes to teaching our children i feel the more transparent the better i think with all of today's technology it would be a good idea to put cameras in these classrooms i think the community would appreciate being able to see the lessons being taught to our children we paid for the education we should be able to see the teachers class assignments in
028real time and i also think that each class should be taped in house where any taxpayer has the ability to view them at any time i would like to see public schools go away but i will settle for vouchers charter schools and transparency in the classrooms i've heard conversations during board meetings about cyber charter schools and how they drain the funding for the district i have spoken to parents who are now considering their options and they they're so that they are aware of what their children are learning all right ma'am i appreciate your comment thank you very much hi my name is laura jones i live on highlands drive i am speaking on behalf of another set of parents who are afraid to speak so these are the parents words i wanted to speak here
029tonight because over the last several years i have become more involved in my community as i talk with students and parents in the penn delta school district i see a pattern emerge that is concerning i have had students tell me that they are they are happy to be graduating this year or next because they are sick of the virtue signaling they are currently being subjected to they have complained about the emphasis of race and gender being brought into every subject as the lesson plan these kids are smart enough to know when they are being manipulated into conversation about topics they feel don't belong in the classroom they feel they are there to learn reading writing and arithmetic not to become a pawn in this nationwide game of indoctrination i have had parents tell me they
030don't want lesson plans that involved race and gender for their children what i find most interesting is that many of these parents are hesitant to speak out of fear of retaliation they fear that their jobs will be contacted or that their kids will be targeted by teachers and or other school officials i have watched numerous board meetings the one from february i find most interesting it is stated that renaming dei to penndolphocares will make it easier for the public to accept however the intention has not changed the goal seems to be making the masses conform so one to nine students one or not students feel more accepted by approximately 35 or 400 students it was also very clear that this plan would be implemented by any means what are you really talking what you're really
031talking about is bullying you already have measures in place to combat bullying in fact you are supposed to have a zero tolerance for bullying you need to focus on enforcing what you already have in place not bringing in a new movement you also have resources for those kids who need some extra attention for having struggles the district needs to stick to teaching our children how to read write and do math let the life lessons be taught by the parents thank you good evening my name is leah spatieri and i live on cambridge road in brookhaven and i have three kids and one of my sons is he has down syndrome and he has been in panel elementary and northerly and i homeschooled my other two and i wasn't going to put him in school because
032i was fearful of him being bullied being teased by other kids because that's what kids do and i found just the opposite that he was treated with love and with inclusion he was brought into band his teachers embraced him and embraced his differences and i'm speaking out against this critical race there please do not implement it on our children i take my child to school to northerly and these kids do not see color they are friends they don't see black and white and we've had a black president we're not there that was the 50s they are to learn history but we can't put this in their heads and make them hate each other it's only going to cause division and you're going to create a whole generation of racists i am begging you to please
033not implement this with our skin with our children thank you [Applause] i'm mike platt i live at 4291 concord road in aston right up here near the italian country cafe i had a business in this community that i started when i was eight years old i'm 38 now okay and i've seen a lot of people come and go in this area but what i've noticed more and more are people that are playing to a theory of indoctrinating our children into having to bend to what society thinks that they are portraying for what race is or for what your cree you are or color and i wanted to do a little survey so i did one before i came here tonight and the eloquence in which my colleagues have come up and said their pieces have
034already summed up much of what i wanted to say to you folks however i will say this i asked my son nicholas i said to him today how would you describe yourself and he said oh skinny tall little tan wear glasses red hair i'm like alright that's cool he didn't say anything about being white at anglo-saxon processing protestant catholic he didn't say anything about anything to do with his race with his religion or anything he just basically described what he looked like if he was asked what his friend liam looked like he would say he's a kind of little chubbier guy a little shorter than me and he likes to play video games we've done a really good job okay in this school district in allowing our children to think just with their minds focused
035on what they see and not with somebody's bug in their ear as to what they should see okay i asked my four-year-old before i came here i said joey he hasn't hit school yet he starts this upcoming year describe yourself he said just a kid so everything that we've had in place up until now seems to be working why do we need to invent a new name for something that's already working and why do we need to describe anything but one race and that's the human one we're all homo sapiens last time i checked i had to memorize 212 different species of trees for my harvest exam okay i have to do diseases for each of them that affect them in different ways but we're just one big race here i don't see any of
036you as any other color other than the human one that's it [Applause] good evening everybody school board and members of the community my name is joseph taishala i've resided in asset township since 1985 i'm a graduate of sub valley high school 1990 prior to that i attended catholic school for nine years i grew up in chester in the city of chester i didn't know anything about race or anything else until that was taught to me later in life by various people was not schools or you know parents or anything like that but just life experiences i think kids don't see that i think it gets taught to them and i think it's important for us to remember that when we point out repeatedly the differences instead of the similarities and i've heard a lot of
037great things today i was expecting i wasn't really sure what i was expected i heard a lot of great things today um doing this unprepared just kind of coming out and speaking from the heart a couple things i wanted to talk about that i recall from the february 2014 uh dr steinhall even said a colleague of yours told you specifically to avoid using the words diversity inclusivity equity whenever possible and that children or kids are okay with that but adults some adults are uncomfortable with that and you used i think the phrase i thought we were past those days emphasis on those days those days that i grew up then the parents were very involved now we have a situation in our country where to make ends meet a lot of times you have to
038have both parents working and so on and so forth i thought we were past those days when you had to send the kids out to the coal mines with the mom dad the whole family worked together we used to have at least in my experience mom was at home she came to the help scout meetings was a grandmother she was a lunch mom she was on the bus field trips a lot of other parents too moms and dads have seen that government should be limited and school is a function public schools are a function of government we're giving more and more power every day to everything above us but instead of on a you know even playing community with each other i would like to see less school involvement in things like this um i
039would like to see more parents involved i'd like to see more parents and the folks that came out today had a lot of great things to say and we're reading for parents who i think would be a little bit concerned about being here in public uh you know for whatever reasons we know about cancer culture you know uh if we can't say diversity factory inclusion what happens when people start getting cancer well we're not really canceling a little job or mary over there we're just we're not letting them talk that way uh you know things like that uh critical race theory well we're not really talking about critical rates theory we're talking about you know xyz and rebranding things words mean things i'm an educator myself i've been teaching music lessons for almost 15 years
040and i work with kids ball ages from all the school districts not just pandelco and garnet valley and so forth they come from all around wilmington you know all different places i work online i talk with kids in school districts outside of the general area for that purpose and kids are great i don't think they need this kind of stuff pushed on i feel this is like adults who want to do this adults but you know you hear about uh well you know the kid's gonna be in the pageant because mom couldn't make it is the pageant that's gonna push the kids for sports because the dad couldn't make insurance whatever this is there's a small fraction of people in my opinion that are pushing this kind of stuff kids need to be taught two
041things one actual academics and two how to be critical thinkers we need to mold the kids the school's responsibility is to mold the kids into critical thinkers not indoctrinated think this way or this is this is our point where we're at and you must adhere to this before you can make any decisions outside of that kids are smart i've heard people say that and i think the kids uh don't need this kind of direction i think voting affirmative for us back in february is a huge mistake and i'd like to make sure and i hope that the school district can contain this and control this because this has been coming on ways from federal government state government local to the county government and now it's here in our backyards critical race theory has nothing to
042do with any education in my opinion and if that becomes part of the dpi curriculum uh i think that's a a losing situation for everybody i appreciate horrors and uh thank you any comments by members of the board yes so i would like to um officially congratulate all of the real coaches within penn galco school district those that have stayed and remain with as coaches for penn delta with our sports um that are in it for the real reason and that's the kids and that's our pandoco athletic program so i just would like to put a big shout out to those that remained on there and we appreciate you and we recognize all of you and then second to all of you that have the courage to come up and speak tonight we hear you
043we recognize you we thank you i would personally like to look into cameras for each and every classroom i would also like to make sure that there is no advertising whatsoever of any race color uh group out there because our kids come to school to learn they don't come to be preached what they should do and what they should not do that is a parent's job and if the parents don't want to get involved i'll be here to speak for you and remember to all remind everybody that that's why we're here for each and every family each and every student they don't come to school to be reading some sign on the wall or some stupid teacher's t-shirt that should not be allowed because if that's allowed i'll start recognizing all my groups that i
044want to remind everybody about and i'll start wearing them should not be allowed i don't respect it nor do any of my colleagues up here i would like that to be in place starting our next school year before i start i want to say that i'm speaking for myself and not the lord i also want to make it clear we have many wonderful teachers that have delta but over the last few months i've heard from students parents constituents taxpayers that we're concerned and i appreciate everybody that came here to speak tonight many of the parents have reached out to me and asked me to keep their names and their children's names anonymous and at times i feel like we're living in another country because there's so much fear that people are afraid to speak up
045and that's here we had a request go out to share the experiences in pound delco for the alumni with questions and also with the current students they were asking questions and i think some of these comments were cherry-picked to bring relevancy to what the argument was during this time i remained silent and i watched and i listened i also did my own verbal surgery survey and it broke my heart kids and parents are noticing what's going on in the classroom some have said that they feel like things are being shut down their throat others and this is continuous this is not one or two children others said they can't wait to get out of school i heard that from an 11th grade honor student because they were tired of what they were listening to in
046school and they were uncomfortable with the assignments but they were going along because they didn't want to be treated differently in the classroom when we talk about social and emotional learning which is a big deal today in public schools i wonder how the student felt when the art teacher made the comment about cops and killing black people knowing that that child had a parent that was a cop where we worried about that child's feelings i received a message from the parent and i'm going to read it i just wanted to thank you i'm not sure if it was you that referred to mrs x class but my child is in her class and i assure you this was not a 10-day experiment it was put it put many in their class in a precarious position
047the very first day of school and made them feel uncomfortable and has significantly impacted their ability to learn and i can tell you for too long schools have been enjoying unconditional trust and that needs to change and it needs to start with the board it is up to us to focus on the achievements and the acknowledgments mentioned by one of the constituents tonight things we can be proud of and not to follow the political narrative that's going across the country right now and i'll end with this and i think this should be in every teacher's lunch if your student knows your political affiliation with please you failed as a student or a teacher teachers are there to help students think for themselves not like you parents are responsible to instill the values they deem best
048for their children and again i want to thank those who spoke up today i think a lot more may have the courage because of that and i want here to start paying attention what's going on thank you all right future meetings uh next month we will only have one meeting there's no study session will be july 21st business meeting here at the services