PDSD School Board Meeting Feb 24, 2021

001[Music] roll call mr zamley please mrs denny here mrs ellis here mrs essler miss hill freddy mrs jones here this is pal mr c sack here mr tinsley here mr armor here thank you i would i want to note too for the record mr zebly um i know you called ms essler's name she has she's just popped up on the zoom so uh she's also in attendance and mark missus asked before we get tonight's meeting uh started i'd like to say a few things uh in reference to some of the local issues have been floating around our community there's been significant amount of social media discussion about agenda item 10.14 uh just a little bit of history and brief discussion um about the procedure i feel is appropriate um as elected school board members our

002responsibility is to oversee the and guide the district the administration is responsible for the day-to-day operation of our schools the superintendent as head of the as head of the administration brings forward most if not all items for board consideration while the past year has been unfortunately dominated by the unprecedented coveted pandemic and the main question of how do we educate our children there are however a few other topics that we need to discuss in june of 2020 dr steinhoff brought the topic of inequity task force to the board's attention the board has been considered considering that topic since then if i recall dr steinhoff recommended a training program from the university of pennsylvania while the university of pennsylvania is a respected national educational institution the board felt that one size fits all training program was

003put in the cart before the horse as a board we rejected that idea and asked the dr steinhall to go back to the drawing board and present the board with different options to discuss this topic agenda item 10.14 is dr steinhauer's current suggestion and is on the agenda for a vote to see i think it's important to state what this motion is and what it is not the motion is to give the superintendent the authority to establish a steering committee to come up with a charter that sets forth a mission a structure and a responsibility with one to two board members on the committee this motion is about the pendleto district pendleton's students pendulus staff and the penndot community it is not a tool created by it is a discussion tool created by us and

004for us the motion sets up an advisory committee that will make recommendations and i do repeat that recommendations to the board at which time those recommendations will be publicly discussed and voted upon prior to implementation here are a few things that the motion is not it is not a socialist plot that indoctrinates students with socialist agenda it is not disguised quota scheme it is not shoving other people's politics down other people's throats it is not a committee that we bring that will make binding decisions it's an advisory committee in nature it is also not a critical race theory a statistic that dr steinhoff provided us indicated that those penn delta school district students who are economically disadvantaged only one-third participate in ap courses and only five percent score in the advanced math program does anybody

005really think those individuals are all people of color i can assure you they're not remember the goal here is at penn delco to provide as many educational opportunities as possible for our students so they can succeed we want the group excuse me we want the group i just mentioned above to succeed regardless of their economic status it is conversation of the sort that can lead to mutual understanding of the each other within the pendulum school district and is our mission to fulfill that to all students we as a board are aware that in today's world words himself have been weaponized and used by individuals media entities and political parties as triggers for certain agendas the committee will have to start from the beginning including the title of the committee itself and realize that even the

006words diversity equality and inclusion mean different things of different people including the fact those words concern are absolutely concerning to some people the bottom line is very simple the beginning of the conversation is an attempt to understand each other in the pendulum community just a little bit more please be mindful as you comment tonight whether you're for the motion or against emotion things are not clear on clear cut on this topic if they were we would not have had the need for a community those members of the community who are in favor of this will need to come to an understanding why the opposition why the opposition to it and those opposed will need to understand the reason why they were others in favor i choose my words carefully i didn't say that other people

007had to accept others rationales i focus on the words of understanding each other is a two-way street um that is all this is it's the beginning of a conversation of the pendleton community in an effort to gain mutual understanding which allows us to provide a better opportunity for each of the penduco students i have learned that there is nothing wrong with having a conversation about tough issues and i will be voting in favor of this motion thank you for that number two on the agenda tonight is the approval of minutes motion is to approve the minute to the regular meeting of january 27 2021. do i have this motion so moved second questions or comments all those in favor posed motion passes 2.02 is the invoice listing motions to approve the invoice listing for january

008through february 2021 by this motion so moved back questions or comments all those in favor motion passes 2.03 miss powell yeah i apologize too many screens up as of december 31st 2020 penn delka's balance was 47 million 129. during january 2021 the local state and federal revenues totaled 1 million sixty six thousand seventeen disbursements were issued in the amount of three million six hundred and sixty one thousand two hundred and twenty as of january thirty first twenty twenty one foundation's current balance is forty five million sixty three 926 the motion is to approve the um treasures you report for january 2021 do i have this motion so moved questions or comments all those in favor aye aye opposed motion passes 2.04 is a budget transfer report motion is to approve the budget transfer report for

009january through february of 2021 do i have this motion so moved one second questions or comments all those in favor aye opposed motion passes number three on tonight's agenda is a student representative report to the board we have autumn felicia and gianna here tonight with us they're going to give us a update on the the district um are you ladies ready to get back to school we're looking forward to getting you there so you'll hear in uh dr steinhoff's presentation here shortly um a little bit of our plan and when you can expect to get yourself back in the classroom we're going to turn it over to you so let's start first with uh autumn brown hi i'm autumn brown and math english and science honest societies are now offering student-to-student tutoring skills and writing

010and respective courses tutoring has been held over soon for any student that is interested in getting extra help student to student tutoring can be seen as extremely beneficial for students since a student may feel more comfortable reaching out for help other from another student instead of a teacher since they could possibly understand them better student tutoring could also put less pressure on teachers as there might be many students that could use some extra help on the topic they are learning student-to-student tutoring is shown to be a good way for student interaction while also lending a hand to a student that may be struggling and a new committee has started in some valley called the pbis students team which means positive behavior intervention and supports this team focuses on making a positive change to the silicon

011valley culture while also strengthening the community this team will also be discussing the decisions about what expectations sun valley students should be following and what rewards should be given to encourage positive behaviors mr polleckis sent out a self-nomination form to apply for becoming a part of the team pbis is looking for students to show leadership skills and have a great strength of character this team is a great way for students to work together and to find the best possible solutions that will be beneficial for some valley and their students as a whole next we have felicia thank you autumn hi i'm felicia crystal seniors have been sending in their post secondary plans to the guidance office this is there is a video up on the sun valley website that features all of the submissions the

012video is updated weekly with the news from colleges universities training centers and employers that the students are getting into congratulations to everyone and keep on sending in submissions as we receive them wrestling had three wrestlers qualify for regions at the recent district tournament timmy kearney finished fourth shane whole felder finished third and ryan katka finished first each in their respective weight classes we wish them luck in regions thank you felicia jonah thank you hi i'm gianna ellis and one of the major events occurring in our school at the moment is our intense preparation and planning for the upcoming ap exams the exams are scheduled for may 2021 but obviously this year comes with its fair share of extra complications in the loss of our block periods in second half of wednesdays the courses have had

013to move at an intense pace in order to keep up with the ap curriculum schedule we were also recently informed of the various options in which we have to actually take the test from at-home virtual in-school virtual to in-person pencil and paper exams teachers have been helping students explore the advantages and disadvantages of both fortunately advanced placement teachers and the program coordinator or organizing practice tests in order to mimic the exam and make that setting decision a little bit easier they're also working hard in coordinating ways that sun valley can safely host the ap exam for all of the students who are signed up to actually take them and in addition to preparation preparation for our upcoming exams students have been also exploring their course selection options for the 2021-2022 school year with the coordination

014of our guidance counselors this course selection process is scheduled to take place next month in the recent push for more in-person schooling along with students beginning to plan for next year there's been a lot of newfound excitement and enthusiasm among the student body spring sports are getting ready to begin workouts students are pondering the idea of more in-person interaction with each other the course selection is suggesting a chance for a normal school year next fall these events have seemed to spread a new sense of optimism over students and teachers both thank you gianna thank you very much i appreciate that uh hopefully we see you ladies back in the hallway soon if you guys would like to go ahead and sign off you're welcome too we appreciate the report number four here on our agenda

015brings us to dr steinhoff and his superintendent's report all yours dr stone yeah thank you mr armist give me one moment to uh adjust to a screen share so i can uh flip over to a uh slide deck presentation so thank you for one moment thank you is that coming pretty clear mr armor can you see the presentation screen yes it is clear thank you thank you very much so thank you for the opportunity uh congratu welcome to everybody who is joining us here this evening great to have this kind of participation and interest in our school board meetings uh tonight in my presentation i'll be spending some time uh to discuss uh you know what we're calling a pendleco cares resolution essentially the diversity equity and inclusion resolution that i know has generated a

016number of uh levels of different interest talking about kindergarten registration uh provide an update on our comprehensive plan uh survey and the development of our updated comprehensive plan and also uh talk about something very exciting you know as mr armor uh just addressed talking to the students are they excited about getting back into getting back always four days a week rather than just two days a week which is our really our pathways to reopening discussion and i'm happy to talk about uh some really well-timed and and necessary updates uh to our health and safety plan that will enable us to get kids back into school it's been uh you know almost a year you know we're going to be very very soon uh approaching you know the annual anniversary of the time when we had

017to shut schools down for covent and schools haven't been the same since and fortunately there's some brighter skies ahead i'm happy to go through the changes in the guidance to show how it could potentially get to a place where we can merge our cohorts and get more kids back into school we know that a lot of kids are struggling you know we know that a lot of kids are not themselves you know we we understand parents who say you know what my my kids have been kind of just down kind of suffering through the winter blues not feeling excited about things and no wonder you know it is um it's not normal uh to live a life that's abnormal for a kid you know who is going through an experienced time right now this is

018an abnormal life when kids want to be in school every day they want to be doing their activities they don't want to be separated they like to be social and it's good to see that we're actually getting closer to that possibility for kids i'm happy to talk about our developments there based on the updated guidance from the chelsea county health department our first item uh diversity equity inclusion i had a long conversation with our school board last wednesday and wednesday night's study session i was asked to provide background on the diversity equity and inclusion agenda item which i did and it's i know recognizing that that we had limited participation at that meeting much greater participation tonight at this meeting so it's important to go back and to review some of the key concepts that

019i shared with the board last week and i'm happy to do that again tonight i think what you'll see is it follows up on a lot of the comments that the board president made earlier in the beginning of this meeting but you know before i begin my presentation on this topic i really have to follow up uh with board president's really sensible and his heartfelt sentiments and i have to note you know i'm i'm just really frankly you know very disheartened over how this topic has somehow been managed to be mangled and polluted uh on social media for all the wrong reasons i have a colleague who would advise me some time ago he said you know george don't use the words diversity and inclusion and equity if you can avoid it he said you

020know kids are okay with it but some adults you know still aren't comfortable with it and i was i never naive honestly i thought that we were past those days but i'm not sure over the last several days you know i've seen the most absurd and frankly patently false material on this topic on this simple agenda topic that's been on social media on partisan blogs i mean you name it you know groups with our origin original addresses you know business origin addresses outside of our district people who don't even have any connection to pandelco you know weighing in with criticisms and falsehoods the problem though is when innocent people have their reputations impugned and damaged and questioned actually had to see people put the name of some of our teachers of a teacher on social

021media in a post that kind of questioned the lesson that she taught and questioned their motives and part of a principal's email to a parent's inquiry was shared there's no reason for that to happen it's indecent i mean our employees have a right to expect a candid and frank level of communication when they respond to parent emails will remain private and both of these educators are outstanding people their intentions are really good ones their actions are entirely proper these are people with four decades of combined public service and they deserve better so look i i believe our teachers do everything they can to help our kids i really do i think we have the best staff in the region and they don't have time to indoctrinate kids a tournament of so-called social justice warriors i

022i just can't tolerate seeing any teacher's name on social media being disrespected their reputation's tarred i find it disgraceful especially when i looked into the work i looked into the assignment and it was appropriate and aligned to the standards so when you know the facts the facts something that should matter you know you understand that it's just ridiculous to see someone who does a great job be questioned and be picked apart on social media they deserve an apology and i hope that the critical social media posts are removed all they did was do what they're paid to do which is be a well-intentioned teacher doing her job making sure kids are engaged with topics that kids want to talk about you know criticism's never a solution and spreading misinformation and stoking fear are the methods

023that people use when they're on the wrong side of a topic and i believe our district's on the right side of this topic so i'm going to avoid the methods and in this next part of my presentation we just provide clarity and facts clarity and facts so in our presentation last week i had said that you know if diversity equity inclusion are terms that people are not quite comfortable with really in the end what we're looking to do is to get people involved in a committee so that could be called pandelco cares pandelco committed to acceptance respect equity and support pandelco cares committee if it's easier to call it the penndot go cares committee than a diversity equity inclusion committee then so be it because it still advances the ball right it still gets us

024through the kind of acts of kindness and consideration and collaboration that we want to see in our schools every day so as i do the presentation think about that we're talking about a pandelco cares committee if that's what works and that moves the ball forward and that helps you know save the experience for the one two three many kids whatever the number is who feel that they're not accepted they're not tolerated they feel that their opportunities aren't as equal as others if that's what it takes then that's the name that we can use for the committee frankly i thought the steering committee would develop a name and bring that back to the board for the board uh to approve it whatever it takes to move the ball forward i'm in support of it so here's

025the history behind this committee on june 24th in 2020 the school board had on its motion a motion called pandelko diversity equity and inclusion task force the motion was to approve the administrative recommendation for the formation of a district-wide diversity equity and inclusion task force as presented gas presented part is important that happened way back on june 24 2020 that information was put on our board agenda and it was taken to the board for their consideration the board approved that motion unanimously but the minutes show following a motion by mrs ellis and secondary ms powell the above motions were unanimously approved so our board members who were present at that meeting uh miss ellis from standing miss sessler ms hilford miss powell mr already approved a diversity inclusion and equity committee that's in the record

026and that's that was a place that we have and we've at least established that so it's important to know the history behind why this is here again to be clear it's already been approved unanimously by all board members who were present at that meeting i said as presented the important point was as president referenced one of my memos to the pentaho board of school directors which offered a justification for my reasoning behind recommending that the board support approved the creation of a diversity equity and inclusion task force but it also referenced joining the delaware valley consortium for equity and excellence the school board was clear you know they weren't comfortable in doing that you know just yet or perhaps ever they wanted to take time they wanted to hear more so the school board was

027doing good governance right they wanted more information and they had not approved participation in that outside membership they felt we could do it ourselves so good governance and a commitment to precision on my part forced me to come back to the board with the agenda item again a second time because i couldn't move forward saying well you will prove joining a committee and that would be as presented material when in fact they didn't want us to be part of the committee so it was clear that i need to make i need to do this the right way so we moved forward and said let's bring this back that's why we had another vote essentially it was procedural right this was back on the agenda initially procedural just to recommit to the unanimous vote that had

028already been taken and passed to have a diversity inclusion and equity committee so what was in that what's in the resolution now right we decided that i brought it to the board as a resolution so that we wouldn't have that misunderstanding right so to be very clear you know why are we doing this what's the purpose where what what are the uh uh the grounded terms that need to be in the resolution it says where was we're committed to enable all students to achieve succeed and excel whereas we recognize that diverse equity and inclusion is a priority grounded principles we recognize that when educational organizations are committed to diversity equity and inclusion student learning and outcomes improve we recognize that a diversity of perspectives produces a more energized and dynamic work and academic environment for

029our staff we recognize the value and importance of culturally relevant training and ongoing professional development for our staff in regards to diversity equity and inclusion and we believe that the diversity exists in our community and among our community members is integral to our vision and goals we acknowledge that educational excellence includes a commitment to equity in the opportunities provided to students and of resulting outcomes so be it resolved that the board gives direction to the superintendent to establish a steering committee a steering committee with the task of developing a charter that will establish and delineate the missions the responsibilities the duties of structure and membership and provide progress updates back to the board at each regular board meeting so be it resolved that the board signed members because it's important to have board members as

030representatives on such a committee to members of this as active members of the committee that was the procedural step to go back and to ensure that i had the authority to move forward with such a committee knowing that it had already been approved but it was also approved tied to membership in a group that the board has not yet uh supported than joining totally understood that so that was back on the agenda hopeful that we can move forward and clean up a procedural technical issue what's not in the resolution falsehoods that people have read about in social media posts and contacted me inaccurate representations promoted by people don't even live in our district outrageous comments that encourage division socialism marxism critical race theory that wasn't in the in it's not in the resolution plans to

031indoctrinate children force values and morals or family ideals on a child that's not in the resolution plans to replace our curriculum with a core diversity curriculum material that's not in the resolution fear-mongering misrepresentations not in a resolution they're not there because they're not to be so what prompted the work again we talked about that um you know our board president explained the history since we took that out as you know there's a growing movement in corporations schools universities communities just to assess whether our actions match the aspirational and well-intentional words that we say and we're learning more now right people will say well i never heard of these issues they must not have existed well what we're seeing is students are having the courage to speak about the effects of inequity on their school experience

032they are having the courage to come forward and say i need to tell you something i had an experience that really wasn't what i should have experienced and we're hopeful of course that that unanimous support that's already been established remains in place why a committee the wrong reasons would be it's trendy well all the neighboring districts have one in place it's a feel-good measure it checks a box the right reasons well achievement gaps still persist the academic performance of disaggregated subgroups is unacceptably low too few students in these subgroups are taking rigorous coursework staff are proactively asking for guidance and training in this work i had a focus group with 20 elementary teachers wonderful people and ask them for feedback on our comprehensive planning number one item what do you need they said we need

033we need help we need we would like some some professional development on issues about gender identity you know when students talk about gender identity issues in our classroom how do we respond so that it's apolitical how do we respond to that supportive and loving without pushing an agenda they're asking for this help so that they can do their jobs well ready for life what does that mean it means you're you're ready for these things that they're going to experience in the workplace they're going to be working with people unlike themselves that are a little different committee consists can determine why are our efforts to attract and retain more qualified minority applicants not being met why is that you know we're trying right 16 of our student body are minority students less than one percent of

034our professional educators are minorities and this the students themselves notice that that we have less than one percent of our professionally certified employees or minorities and for the 16 of the students who are minorities i would like them to look and see that they're being taught by people who are like them once in a while i think that's a value and i think we're better enriched when we have a diverse group of people diverse group of backgrounds diverse group of perspectives i think that just makes us a stronger organization existing in policies and really everybody's best efforts right everyone everyone has the right intention but somehow it's just not enough the other reason is the students themselves like our own students believe this work needs to be done despite our character programs the anti-bullying programs

035we have students still feel excluded they feel different they feel alone we shouldn't tolerate that you have a committee because this work is complex i mean we saw that like look what happened look at the kind of dialogue toxic dialogue that happened on social media just over the terms diversity inclusion and equity right people put all kinds of stuff out there right all kinds of crazy stuff that works complex you need a committee to help keep people you know stay calm and deliberate and loving in their approach to this work committee removes political influences right it's a barrier to people who have hidden agendas and it ensures a balanced and a clear-eyed approach i talked last week the board a little bit about the difference of equality and equity this is a graphic i've seen

036on the internet many many different places you know schools in the past focused on equality right everybody gets the same thing we are fair right everybody gets the same thing it was all about sameness that was the approach now we're recognizing it needs to be about fairness because we need to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity right and that may mean that you get something different so that you can have the same opportunity it doesn't mean that you get the same thing and that it has to be equal but unfortunately the term equity inequality it's become politically charged it doesn't have to be you know the committee has to look at the reality that in schools across the nation achievement gaps are there right and for some students they face barriers getting to

037the finish line that other students don't face now the purpose is not to re pull the barrier from one lane and put it in another lien to slow down a kid the purpose is to work to remove barriers for all so we know that poor children come to school having heard 30 million fewer words we know that poor children come into kindergarten demonstrating less academic readiness we know that special education kids in fourth grade have lower reading test scores we know that black and african american eighth grade students have lower math test scores we know that students who are bullied on the basis of gender identity or color or religion are less likely to graduate because they drop out and we know that students with special needs who don't feel included and have not been

038given opportunities to master skills are less likely to enroll college and finish so those barriers should be removed we have to do everything we can to remove those barriers if we're committed to all that's the thing are we committed to all students right all lives matter then all people have to have barriers removed so that they can succeed so that there was a clear lane for every kid to the finish line one of the students i talked to i said do you think we need a diversity committee you know why do you think we need a diverse community the question shows me why but why not why don't we want to work to ensure all special needs students feel included and feel valued why don't we want to examine our curriculum to make sure it's

039inclusive and reflects the diverse society we live in why don't we want to work intentionally on providing opportunities for children who face economic hardships why wouldn't we want to make all of our pendleto family members feel at home the minute they walk through our doors why wouldn't we want to give staff what they've asked for professional development on how to connect and reach kids who have different backgrounds from themselves why wouldn't we want to follow the example of kindergarten students who say always be nice and be kind to others so you know again we're committed to acceptance we're committed to respect we're committed to equity and we are committed to support i get i was asked to give examples i'll give examples again i say proceed with caution because in giving examples it unfortunately may

040suggest that the experience in pendleto schools is different from the experience in the tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of other schools across the country fact is catholic schools private schools public schools all recognize there's a problem and that's why so many have said we need a diversity team we need to hire a director of diversity we need to have a supervisor of equity we need to do this work right my own kids are in schools that do this work so there was clearly a problem in those schools as well that had to be addressed here's some examples right where's the evidence so where's the evidence of justifier's work as an asian i was always expected to be super intelligent it was as if it was my only identity right so the rest of this

041email talked to a child who felt like they were stereotyped the minute they walked into a classroom it's hard for me to reconcile my fact that my son will never have a teacher who shares the same color of skin has a similar background and knows what it's like to be a minority in a majority white school i actually had an adult at our school tell me things would be easier for me if i didn't tell my students that i was jewish that came from an employee from an alumnus i always seem to be assigned to the classrooms where no one would ever consider that i would want to go to college i was a special needs child a parent an alumnus i never remember seeing pictures or stories about people like me in school it

042was eye-opening for me when i went to college a teacher wrote the staff wholeheartedly believe diversely equity inclusion needs to be completed annually in our district asian american alumni breaks my heart how can you feel accepted in school when you hear boys say ching ching ding-a-ling as they pass you in the halls still too many kids think jokes about a person's race or religion are fair game as a gay student i experienced fear and hate speech not pride when i reported it i was told kids didn't mean that they meant it as a joke they're being dumb gay is not synonymous with dumb that's from an alumnus an employee said it's amazing to see how people can grow together when they're given the opportunities to look at the impact of their actions embrace empathy teachers

043told me what can you possibly say to a jewish colleague who arrives at school to find a swastika carved into their desk i had a physical disability i learned to live with it and be successful but i never should have had others mocking me by limping and calling me the r word that's a kid who graduated successful and has a job i wanted to cry when i heard other kids call my friend from the middle east a terrorist no wonder she sat alone here's another student i stopped going to school for a while after hearing homophonics homophobic slurs all the time i tell people now they shouldn't let anyone know that they're anything but straight and that's not that's just not right here's the teacher i couldn't believe a high school student would say out

044loud if we build the wall who will cut our grass and when i asked a student to fill in the blank i said pandelco needs to what the student themselves said improve the culture and discomfort around diversity look how wise that is because it's so true discomfort around diversity and the student said the world has changed you know you always get the best feedback from students you know it's like out of the mouths of babies you hear the words you need to hear so that's anecdotal evidence that was provided um where's the evidence to justify the work well as mr armour alluded to you know economically disadvantaged students you know are poor white students they have an attendance rate 15 below state target and well below other groups only a third of that group participates

045in rigorous courses of study such as ap why should poor kids not participate in advanced placement classes there's no so we need to find out why is that despite the guidance counselors and the teachers encouraging them to do it there must be a reason we got to open that door only five percent scored advanced on the math keystone that should have been 18 that's the state average 84 percent of special needs students didn't pass the seventh grade math assessment and that's an on-track indicator for academic success despite the extra help despite the hard work by our teachers 18 of the 12th graders in the in the annual pay survey reported that when they were bullied so if they were bullied it was due to their sexual orientation of the people who felt bullied said student

046or sexual orientation so what would the committee do meet regularly issue a report to the board they'd analyze data and input suggest efforts recommend specialized professional development for staff offer objective judgment free assessments they could serve in an advisory role but they would not be empowered to select or purchase curriculum to direct employee actions to promote partisan agendas or to supersede any existing policies and standards what might they actually do so what are some examples right people have reached out to me sent me emails and said what would this committee do why do you need it but they could partner with human resources to increase diversity recruitment efforts examine achievement gaps in our data and form action plans recommend staff book study topics speakers or other professional development opportunities so we can tap specialized expertise

047examine our procedures ensure they're inclusive assist with developing anti-bullying programs and practices if they can be improved by all means let's improve them conduct and analyze students staff family survey data propose purposeful initiatives that underscore culture of care examine where inequities may exist propose solutions examine our curriculum is it diverse and inclusive principal went around this building and looked at the posters and image you know we have posters in our library that didn't reflect diversity at all and i was glad he had that that view he said wait a second you know let's make sure that we actually have curriculum resources that we have materials in our buildings that reflect that diversity in our society conduct building equity reviews identify barriers that are preventing our special needs students from being involved in any and all

048activities and programs i think they can identify grant funding opportunities so we can make sure that our economically disadvantaged students can access the entirety of our after-school extracurricular programs if some of them won't raise their hand and say i'd like to do band but i can't afford an instrument i'd like to be on that team but we don't have the money for the booster club they're embarrassed right so how can we make sure that we can bridge that communication gap to really help kids we can identify ways people can feel more welcome we can ensure our ready for life initiatives prepare kids for college and diverse settings assist with ways to communicate to our english language learners and encourage greater participation and extracurricular activities come to school great kids great students but they're not in

049extracurriculars what can we do to fix that examine the academic achievement growth of our gifted and talented students why does that plateau why do our best and brightest kids plateau an academic achievement group we should fix that we should look at effective and supportive resources for students who want support and assistance with personal issues they're the kind of things the committee could do so i'm asking the board to recommit through their unanimous and previous support for a diversity inclusion and equity committee but it is isolated from joining any regional membership groups that are conducting work into space and tonight that agenda item is uh on the agenda for action uh interesting sun valley grad resident taxpayer pendleton employee it would be a great step in the right direction include context and diversity training set up

050support groups at all levels for students who need help you never know which students are teetering on the edge a group like that not only impact change but maybe save a life so i move from that to other topics kindergarten registration wonderful to start talking about next year getting back to normalcy our online digital registration will open on march 22nd we will be sending out information of course we have some parents new to the district who will need to look for information on our website that will be prominently posted in all of our social media accounts on our main webpage and also on pdsd.org website all the information that you'll need to be ready to complete online registration just like we did last year we are not going to make parents come in or always

051sit and wait for an appointment several hours before the school day starts i know i remember seeing mr tinsley waiting i think it's at 5 30 a.m to register his child uh you went up to do that you'll be able to register your kids on your own time online and we will begin to let you know what documents that one need really excited to see uh what will be i guess the class sun valley class of something like 2035 or something like that 2034. uh updating our comprehensive plan work so tomorrow we expect that we'll be sending a survey uh out to parents uh to ask for some feedback so far focus groups and to work with our staff and the data that we have looked at tells us so far at least that there's

052those four priorities so we have a clear and compelling need for targeted student supports and interventions so we're saying that our district should commit to implementing targeted and intentional supports to ensure that all students are making progress towards ready for life benchmarks we want a hundred percent of kids to be ready to read and respond to texts by fourth grade we want 100 percent of eighth graders to be algebra ready by eighth grade we want 100 of our 12th graders to be ready for life when they walk across that stage we heard we saw students who failed to meet proficiency benchmarks at critical foundational grades they continue to perform poorly so we want to commit to ensuring a consistent delivery of personalized personalized instructional practices in all of our classrooms some of the stakehold groups

053think that our outreach and collaboration isn't maximized yet so we're going to commit to re-engaging in collaborative efforts with district stakeholder and community groups we think that there's a lot of resources in our local business community that still can be tapped to the benefit of our students so we'll commit to increasing those partnerships and district stakeholder groups have so far told us that you know we need to go back and look at that coursework although it's standards aligned we need to make sure that it's better geared towards developing college career and critical life success skills so we really should commit to amplifying you know the course content objectives with 21st century skill development what does that mean translated right that means that when a kid says why is this important to me why do i

054need to learn this mrs apple that she can explain exactly how it's tied in to ready for life skills that will make them ready for life after 12th grade i mentioned earlier that i'm very excited that we got news from such county health department that we can begin to bring students back we are putting that process in place since the start of schooling since covid we've based all of our health and safety decisions on guidance from the cheshire county health department right so there's all kinds of advocacy groups out there that offer all kinds of guidance documents sometimes they conflict what we have done from the very get-go is that we're going to follow the guidance from one organization and that's our supervising health department the chest county health department they gave guidance in the

055past that we followed that said there should be physical distancing of no less than six feet so that forced us to put kids into two different cohorts that's changed based on science based on their knowledge and based on the experience since last june it now permits us to merge our cohorts to provide four days of in-person instruction which will be double the current amount so really you know we know virtual learning is hard particularly for our younger students we got to act promptly but we've got to act safely so we're pleased to pursue a phased merge cohorts that we are permitted to do it's grounded and supported by evidence-based research and more current public health practices you know really it's not that far away many districts in the bucks county region that follow guidance from

056the bucks county health department have followed from the beginning an experience of opening buildings with just three feet of separation and what they found is that when students are masked and are three feet apart and you put in place all the other mitigation efforts there's no no discernible difference in the number of kids who are acquiring the virus in fact just like us any kids are getting it up there they're not getting it in schools they're getting it outside of school or they're getting it from family members so that is really important and gives us confidence in recognizing that the guidance that has changed in the health department can be believed right because we see it for ourselves you know districts that have followed that guidance have been able to have their kids in school

057and our kids deserve it too again what's changed um health departments permitting a revised level of physical distancing it supports a distance of no less than three feet but up to six feet where feasible when counting conditions meet certain benchmarks over a three week period of time and that's an important part that's why we can't start this tomorrow we've already done this with kindergarten we've merged our cohorts now our teachers have been wonderful with this change it was a dramatic change hats off to them because they stepped up they supported kids and we were able to bring them in and still meet the six feet of social distancing so our goal is going to continue to be six feet we may have classrooms where we'll meet that marker nothing will change but we could never

058make that guarantee now it might be five feet not six but what we know is six feet isn't magical and five and a half feet is suddenly dangerous that that's not what the data tells us so tonight the updated health and safety plan that will reflect the changes in the guidance are being given to the board for approval um what's the data look like i mean you take a look at the county uh just in the last four weeks with week one being the most current um dramatic change right dramatic change as you can see right and i think we're even down to closer to like 109. so that whole trend has moved right in the direction that we wanted but look at pandelco you know i was really pleased to see this this is

059not our school district this is our entire geographic boundary a positive test count a month ago 54 the 43 the 37 the 35 it just keeps going down and down down and that matches what we're seeing in our schools right number of people who are quarantined it's kind of dried up to a trickle here's the dashboard that we post on our website for people who are interested look at the number of known active cases right a lot of zeros up there look at the number of people in quarantine right down the single digits so i mean thank goodness you know knock on wood we're heading in the right direction what's the timeline school board approves an updated health and safety plan the within this week the faq material pack right we'll send out a digital

060packet of information that'll include all the updates to the hybrid schedule that'll answer a lot of questions that parents might have that'll uh point to the data that shows that this is safe i mean look if it wasn't safe we wouldn't do it if it wasn't safe we wouldn't make this change just that simple we will ask parents to affirm their interest and commit to four days of in-person instruction for their students there will be an election form essentially basically just a firm so that our principals have accurate and updated information that they can give to the staff and we're going to say look your child's been in for two days i'm sure you're thrilled to get them out of the house and get them in for four days but are you going to be

061doing that like it can't be willy-nilly back and forth you know i don't want to go to school today i'm going to stay home that's not fair to our teachers and it's hard for us to track students tentatively tentatively because we have to wait on that data of course elementary grade six and grade nine could begin four days of in-person instruction on the week of march 22nd after that we have this little thing called spring break in the way so it makes sense to have the other current hybrid students then come back to four days of in-person instruction at the end of spring break the instructional models um won't change much the elementary full-time cyber students students have never come in our school who have not been live sinking into classrooms but instead have their

062own cyber teacher they're going to be able to remain in that program with our cyber teacher we're not going to take the rug out from underneath them on that but some parents have indicated they'd like to send their kids back so they're welcome to return in-person instruction as well secondary students who have been participating in asynchronous instruction they can continue to do that but we will inform parents in the packet of information that that level of teacher virtual support could be less you know parents will have to understand that teachers now have more students in front of them not on the other side of the screen so to you know if we have two kids on the other side of the screen and teacher has 20 students in front of them teachers can't be doing

063the kind of small group instruction and breakout groups on a zoom that they've done in the past so that may look different the districts contin required to continue to offer academic and virtual support if you're in quarantine parents have asked about that what if my child's in quarantine what happens we'll continue to do what we need to do to make sure that your child isn't falling behind and not accessing instruction and the level of live synchronous support for we have a few we're just a few elementary students who are in a kind of an all-virtual format sinking into classes you know that will be dependent upon the final enrollment data after parents elect the four day options for students and again we'll answer all this in the information packet that will be sent out to

064parents but as an example if you're a third grade teacher and you have 16 kids in front of you and you have one child who has been live streaming in that's an onerous ask for a teacher to sit at their desk and work with the one child who has been live streaming in potentially at the expense of the class that's sitting in front of them right but we also know that look we're a service industry we're going to work individually of teach with parents we're going to work to support our teachers it just may mean that that level of live synchronous support you know might not be the same as it has been in the past in the past the teachers had half of their class home now they're going to be back so we

065have to you know we have to be you know fair to the circumstances that have changed while we still support you know the few people that want that we know we're not leave no child behind we're not going to leave any child behind uh you know i closed my presentation i appreciate your patience we started this meeting tonight as we do and with a pledge that you know the kids say every day that pledge ends with one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and those are words that are synonymous with a commitment to equity with a commitment to inclusion and a commitment to the value of diversity because in the end it is all driven to the same thing it's driven to bring us together as one nation under god indivisible

066with liberty and justice for all and that is essentially at the heart of what we are attempting to do with that committee nothing more with that i'll turn it back to our board president thank you mr armor thank you dr steinhardt announcements for the public tonight in accordance with act 48 sunshine law the board mentioned executive session to discuss personnel and litigation matters comments by members of the board i'll start i did have um dr steinhoff i did have three three kids in here and one already graduated high schools since your presentation ended um but in serious in all seriousness it was it was very uh very thoughtful and it was a lot to cover quite frankly um but on a serious note uh when you were talking about if miss phillips and i think

067it was me and mr blair were the ones who were there prior to 6 a.m so it's not fair for all the ones who are in pre-k uh everything's uh digital with that with this merry and all um sorry mr peters you're so far down on the bucket list next time is going to have to be uh mr mayne i would assume you're already an hour in the meeting so apologies um mr armor thank you i uh quite frankly for your opening statements i couldn't say it couldn't say it any better so for me me as a board member i appreciate it um dr steinhoff and i and seriousness um all your comments everything i you know i've known you and you can tell from my voice now i've known you personally we've we've worked

068together for uh more than 12 years and i know as well as many maybe of the 300 plus who are in attendance can tell in your voice the sincerity that you are everything that you spoke of whether it was the children coming back to school or all the other agenda items so i would appreciate you for that but all sincerity and you can honestly tell how because i know you personally i know you're you know i know how you act how much you care for all our employees and everyone uh within our district so within for both of you guys i just need to apply it's important for me to state to you both of you in a public setting um i want to thank you both for for your leadership um and then for

069me personally just one sentence is i kevin tinsley i respect and support all our administration who's on the panelist as well as all our faculty staff um that i live and all the children that go to school uh i have not always voted that particular example for dr steinhoff i voted on that there are items on the agenda respectfully i did not agree with dr signoff or what mr kamenka or anyone else right for that matter i brought and i i voted it down but i've always respected their point of view and i would and i understood where they were coming from um in my opinion i brought this up privately to mr kamenka and i'm going to say pri publicly with all with a lot more staff on this call despite lights will be

070on our district and how our team i mean i loved how our district employees started presenting topics last last week alone and have all the wonderful things that are still happening even in a hybrid or virtual setting um finally you would think that i told the kids that they're going to [Music] disney world on march 22nd i told him that actually the school board actually has to technically have to vote for it so um but at the same time they were all excited but they they were just as excited as that is that on the agenda or 10.13 i believe is still the age of the item um for reopening school safety healthy health health and safety plan um so i'm just excited i know other board members i think we're all excited for this

071to actually uh friday march 13th was was that uh was that call that we received from blacker stein officer since then but that's 2020. that's it thank you uh mr armor thank you mr tenzin anyone else yeah mr armor i got uh one thing that as well so to build on what mr tinsley had said on uh you know as a board we don't always agree with each other we you know just because you vote yes on something i vote no it doesn't mean you're right and i'm wrong i mean there we what i've learned on my time you know not as tenured as as most of the board members but you know healthy debate you know i don't have to agree with what you say but i should respect it and i should appreciate

072it and i learned to do that and you know i think we do that uh you know a lot and i feel that you know as uh you know folks are on this meeting here because they care about their children and uh you know it's it's important to appreciate and respect both sides of the story and i'm and i want to thank you mr armor uh you know you are even a bigger proponent of me getting these kids back to school i can say teenage boys uh do not excel in the cyber model uh from talking to parents in the district even though the heroic efforts by our teachers who are doing ten times the work that they did this time last year so thank you all uh you know i hope we can get

073back to normalcy very soon thanks guys thank you mr seesaw anyone else before we move on mr armor at the risk of uh breaking the mic because i've spoken so much tonight i did see a comment um about the reopening plan that um probably could i could have mentioned should have mentioned which was a question really about uh four days which is five days a week and i should clarify that really but have some of the districts throughout the community throughout the region were split on this issue about half have believed that there's value in keeping the asynchronous flex day you know that we we have as our wednesday or wednesday synchronous day uh for reasons of ensuring that we continue to have the cleaning for reasons of ensuring that we can continue to accommodate

074some of the virtual groups that students have with teachers in the in the uh pm session some of the extracurricular groups that are being run virtually in that wednesday section as well but the main issue for us is that wednesday has kept us from having to close our schools for a long period of time if there happens to be a regional coveted spike that's really saved the day we've had some circumstances where schools uh we're told that they hit that coveted spike many months ago that wednesday allowed us to send a rapid clean team in to work with chester county health department to get assurances that we could reopen and we wouldn't have that if we remove it so you know there's a lot of advantages to keeping the wednesday schedule in place i understand

075that parents put their kids in why you know squander a day we evaluated that i believe you know for the nine or ten wednesdays that we would be talking about the advantages outweigh the benefits that's why you know we are like one of some of the other districts as well that have said let's stick with four we're doubling the amount of instruction it'll help also with uh student wellness to have that p.m break to do some fun things and get caught up i just want to address that and with that i'll zip it and turn it back to you mr armor thank dr steiner all right uh we will move on to uh number seven items for board information uh it's an update on the sun valley high school renovation project i'm gonna turn this

076over to chris peters of mm architects thank you very much i appreciate uh being able to present tonight yeah christopher peters with moroni main architects can i share my screen i uh i just turned into a co-host yes mr peterson thank you very much can you see that yes we can thank you okay yes sir we just wanted to give a brief update to uh the project at sun valley high school and and really the projects um as you know in previous projects we've completed renovation in the b and c wings we've completed restroom renovations through most of the school we completed a kitchen cafeteria renovation and we just completed the nurses edition new entry vestibule and canopy so the project that we have right now that we're completing in fact we're going to put

077it out to bid in the next month will involve the rest of the the building so some minor finish replacement in the d-wing gymnasium some gymnasium equipment upgrades a major renovation to the locker team room areas um some adjustments to the weight room and the wrestling room uh moving left plan left some renovation to the auditorium including new seats uh finishes uh some adjustments to the stage uh behind that an expansion actually of the abandoned coral area including some more support spaces for that area including some larger classrooms and then last but not least the renovation to most of the classrooms in the a wing which include autism support life skills a stem computer lab the art classrooms and the fcs lab so that is all incorporated in this upcoming project that's going out to

078bid at the same time we actually previously we've already bid a window replacement project so if you've seen the school we have some new aluminum windows anodized aluminum windows in the nurses edition specifically you might have noticed that we're replacing all the windows in the school that has been bid and contracted they are in the process of working getting the shop drawings getting all those materials ordered so we can replace the windows during the summer including with that would be a facade repair cleaning patching including both the the e fist that's on the outside and some brick improvements or cleaning uh so that would actually commence and end uh this summer so um not only will this renovation this larger renovation project start in a small way in the summer we will have that window

079replacement facade repair uh starting in the summer they will be coordinated so they're not at the same spot the windows will be able to be taken out and replaced and systematically go throughout the perimeter of the school through june july and august and the third piece for this summer is the potential for repaving patching and repaving the front entry loop and the entry drive and parking and again that would be coordinated uh with the other projects so they can do that and not be in the way of window replacement or let's say the renovation in the d-wing so those are the main pieces that are we you'll start seeing some of that in the summer materials are being ordered at this point for some of it and we're close to being bidding or bidding the

080larger project that's a quick explanation of this project and where we're going and i guess if there are any questions i'll be willing to answer that thank you for your time mr peters um and i was praying for she sat and waited on us for a little bit over an hour no problem but i will say that that we are still moving forward with the renovation of our auditorium and the rest of the school right now it's been put on i don't want to say back burner but it's put on the whole there's a problem of getting supplies in some of the air areas that we would need so the project is still in motion but we've changed gears on what phases are getting done at what time that'd be correct there mr peters yeah

081this this project here uh when all of this will be in this uh project and we will be phasing it uh for minimal disruption to the school so they can make sure that everything's accommodated for the sports programs and and whatever needs to occur uh in the gymnasium and auditorium so we won't renovate the gym and the auditorium at the same time so one of those larger spaces is available so we're looking at the specific phasing that's why this drawing has a few colors on it and i failed to mention that this project would start this summer probably in the d-wing and then end the following summer with the completion of the a-wing so all this whole renovation would be complete by the fall of 2022. thank you very much any questions or comments for

082mr peters thank you very much for your time we appreciate it mr peters thank you you're welcome to join us for the rest of the meeting but i'm sure uh you have other stuff to do all right thank you very much christopher thank you we'll see you at our next monday meeting appreciate it okay no problem all right number eight items for board discussion uh she has none dr steinhoff before we get into public comments section of uh today's meeting uh i would like to call um ms armbruster to the mike here said she has something to share with us and as we uh look to do that as i bring her into the panel to uh speak to the board i would i will note for those who are in attendance um mrs armbruster

083is the president of the pendleco education association a long-time teacher at northley middle school likely speaking on behalf of the association but i will bring her in one moment and we can hear you now on this arm bristol go right ahead thank you dr simof and thank you mr armor for this opportunity members of the board i ask that you vote to approve this committee the purpose of this diversity equity and inclusion steering committee as stated by dr steinhoff is to develop a charter mission responsibilities duties and obligations to assist underperforming subgroups in our community in june mr armour stated i look forward to moving into the future as one community and making positive changes that benefit everyone we encourage members of the board to support this steering committee to review current educational practices and

084policies and help explore potential recommendations to address achievement gaps for various subgroups as educators we recognize that in order for students to be ready to learn they must have a sense of belonging teachers and students are asking for help and understanding in working with all students to feel safe and accepted in the classroom our families have had many great students go through pandelco who have learned what it means to be good citizens and who exhibit great character traits but our goal is to reach all students and we should continue to strive to do so we've heard anecdotal stories from students and parents regard regarding the lack of inclusive climate felt by some how many students have we not heard from how many voices are too uncomfortable to speak up this is a complex topic that

085includes an investment from all stakeholders parents students staff and board members we appreciate your support in working together to help all students achieve succeed and excel and where every student is penndot go proud thank you thank you mr armbruster number nine on the agenda is our section for comments by members of the public this public participation is for agenda items only please limit your comments to three minutes as we only have 15 minutes on the agenda for this please use the raised hand option uh the presiding officer may interrupt or terminate a participant's statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or relevant mark steinov we are going to start the public comments section okay first uh name that i see uh is sufi and i'll actually i'll turn it over to

086mr zebly and as he introduces speakers he can inform me when i can bring them into the panel sue fee please state your name and address for the board and the agenda item you're speaking about thank you my name is sufi shafer residing at 2350 clearview lane in aston and i had prepared some remarks to support the diversity excuse me i'm going to call it the cares committee resolution on the agenda for this evening but i will actually shorten it because um i appreciate the comments uh and the reiteration um of dr stronghouse uh really compelling presentation from last week um but i did want to bring a few points a few points up um it is this board's code of conduct which dictates the public expects that our first and greatest priority is to

087provide equitable educational opportunities for all youth dr steinhoff in last week's study session and again tonight shared specific facts of the persistent achievement gaps between certain sub-demographic groups the board this board's code of conduct also states that personal decisions of board members should be based on all sufficient facts the board's governing policy dictates that all data appropriate appropriate use all data appropriately to make informed decisions and monitor results assessing student growth and achievement which includes the board's commitment to publishing an annual district report card that includes aggregate data on student achievement as well as dis aggregate data reflecting race ethnicity sex disability migrant status english proficiency and status as economically disadvantaged the board's policy also commits to the district report card including a comparison of these disaggregate groups regarding achievement levels and surely you have

088noted additional data points on your reports where achievement gaps persist and these persist despite the best efforts of our teachers despite the best efforts of administrators and despite the best efforts of our board this resolution is aligned with the board's code of conduct to provide equitable educational opportunities for all youth as well as the district's overall overarching mission which is the first line of this resolution it's directly in line with the mission the mission of the district and the policies of the board to review these facts upon recognition of any issue to take action and the action recommended by the superintendent is this resolution there are many public school districts around the country that are exposed to legal liability based on documented achievement gaps where no changes were implemented to provide equitable educational opportunities the

089board guidelines also state that the board and administration shall give substantial weight to the input received from the community many stakeholders have shared their support for this resolution directly with the superintendent and the board and widespread community support is demonstrated in the hundreds of signatures from pandelco community members on the letter supporting this resolution lastly i wanted to point out what has already been mentioned by mr armor and uh and dr steinhoff that the petition circulated by a lower marian organization in opposition to this resolution bases that opposition in part on changes to the curriculum there are no changes to the curriculum in this resolution and if that's a concern i wanted to remind the board that no curriculum can be changed or adopted without the board's approval i thank you very much for your

090time and i thank i i thank uh mr armor and uh dr steinhall for uh clarifying exactly what is in this resolution thank you thank you very much sufi um next up we have megan killian miss killian has been being transmitted into a panel and she can unmute her mic state her name and address hi megan kelly in 328 closerville road in aston uh thank you for having me on here i just have a quick question uh for the children who have ieps uh dr steinhoff what is your plan uh with reopening in regards to children that have ieps uh specifically my daughter in fourth grade that um if i could stop you there must kill you for a minute uh this this portion is not a question and answers if you have a specific

091question that you need answered please contact dr steinhoff for mr committee okay well that's okay that's great but you just did a presentation on reopening and i have a question so why can't you be you can this is a question it's a public comment section yeah for comments only not as it is not a questions and answers session so there's no transparency i can't ask a question on this on the slideshow that they just presented about the reopening of pentagon school districts now miss kelly and i um what i would reiterate with mr armour is indicating that you know just as a matter of our process this is an opportunity for public comment so that we can hear from people on a broader issue what i'd like to do uh is please have i i

092will make sure that our special ed director um or our assistant superintendent reaches out to you tomorrow and will answer the questions about how the proposed changes may impact uh your child and we'll make sure that we reach out to you and get those individual specific questions answered for you we're happy to do so thank you mr armor the next individual with their hand raised is beth mccoy and how they shut people out right unbelievable i'm sorry mr zedlin who's next uh melissa no we had a somebody that was there and i think they dropped off next up now is melissa lavery okay please state your name address and agenda you're speaking about go ahead mrs can you hear me yes we can hear you mrs thank you my name is melissa lavry i live

093at 101 greenbrier place in aston i would like to speak about agenda item 10.14 mr armor and dr steinhoff thank you for your words at the beginning of this meeting it is clear that we all need to have an open and healthy dialogue with each other even if it is uncomfortable and i appreciate your statements as you know the pdsd code of conduct states that we as members of our local school board of education representing all the residents of our school district believe that the public expects that our first and greatest priority is to provide equitable educational opportunities for all youth it also emphasizes the importance of engaging with all stakeholders and staying current with the changing needs in education it also states that to promote student growth and achievement an effective school board models

094responsible governance and leadership by adopting and acting in accordance with the pennsylvania school board association's code of conduct for members of pennsylvania school boards one of the core tenants of the psba is to advance the conversation surrounding equity and public education as an economic and moral imperative to prepare children for the 21st century and so students may actively participate in our democracy and to respect value and include diverse peoples their third core legislative principle is the support for increased equity and accountability which includes accountability and performance standards that raise student achievement and close achievement gaps which is mandated through federal and state law the achievement gap pertains to major differences in academic indicators such as test scores and graduation rates among various subgroups which include race ethnicity gender english proficiency and abilities according to dr

095steinhoff's presentation the achievement gap and hurtful experiences of students in pdsd is not acceptable the psba states that in the pursuit of equity school leaders must assess our own actions locally to overcome institutional barriers and create opportunities so that each and every child has the tools and supports necessary to achieve his or her highest potential and they should also be able to demonstrate how their programs meet the needs of all their students equality means that all students receive the same instruction and tools regardless of their needs equity means that all students are given opportunities based on their unique needs not everyone in our district has the same life experience and it is apparent that not everyone in this district respects these differences it is noticeable that bias intention exists how can we expect children to

096perform academically if we can't even respect their lived experience diversity is what makes a democracy work and inclusion is an essential aspect of a child's developing identity as they coexist with others in society if teachers and students say they need to learn to better relate to one another we must believe them and act accordingly i have also submitted a letter to each member of the board and dr steinhoff as well which now includes 368 signatures from stakeholders i have submitted the update to be placed on the record for this meeting thank you for your time thank you mr slavery dr steinhoff we did have uh beth mcclure was at the top of the list there somehow she got disconnected if we could uh let her in before probably come back next absolutely uh once second

097miss mcclure should be on in just a moment ms mcclure please state your name and address and agenda item you're speaking about sure my name is beth mcclure i live at 701 lamppost lane um i had i just have a few comments and i think all of them are related to the diversity equity and inclusion topic um first of all i would like to say that i think that should be open to more people than just people on the board um i know dr steinhoff i just emailed you this evening saying that i would love to be a part of the committee it's actually a number one focus for myself at work and not that i have a goodness share like my proprietary work with the school but i have a lot of insight and

098a lot of information that i think would be very helpful and i would love to share with the school um second of all or second and third of all um i know that there was a conversation about special needs kids and my son particularly is a special needs kids and i know one of the major roadblocks is that it took four years for him to get an appropriate either 405 504 i'm sorry or an iep which he was denied the iep which is fine but it took four years to get the 504 and i know other parents that are still struggling and it's been a couple of years for them as well so i think that process needs to be re-evaluated especially when it comes into when they go into the higher grades and they

099continue to struggle so i think it's just a process or a re-evaluation of how that process works with the with the school district and however it works um also i do would i would prefer that when um because my child is now going through the apex program i would really appreciate that like it's included in these programs it that it's included in these new processes it are new procedures on how things are going to happen and i know that it was mentioned for full virtual or full cyber elementary kids my child is in elementary and i just want clarity to make sure that it is full like at all all levels of school like it's middle school it's high school and the tutoring program that um one of the student representatives made i did ask

100a question in the chat and the answer was that it was for high school right now are those programs available for students besides teacher tutoring are there programs like that available can high school students help elementary and middle school students so those are my comments and questions and i thank you for your time thank you miss mcclure dr stonoff uh just uh for a quick update uh mr tinsley did text me he lost power his house it's back he should be signing on there he is i see him in the uh with his hand raised at the bottom yep that'd be great to bring him in um next would be tori albanese please state your name address and agenda item you're speaking about for the board uh my name is victoria albanese i live at

10141 vannudi drive in aston and i'd like to make some comments on the committee issue i am a graduate from sun valley and anyone who taught me or knows me at all knows that i'm not afraid to really speak on issues i really believe in but even then i as a student at some valley i run into issues with being heard it was almost like kind of screaming into the void when it came to speaking about these issues so i'm thankful that i can talk about them and represent some student ideas um i think some issues that should be addressed to keep the committee beneficial for the district as a whole should be the responsibility that not only the board members but the teachers as well should take responsibility for things that not only they

102say or stuff that they also put out on any type of social media i think it's important that that is talked about more because students do see this and they do learn from things that these teachers put out because they are role models i think that these types of issues should be brought up more because even if it is a opinion it's still something that students will find out and they will learn for it and it kind of creates that ability for students to use the same type of language towards other students especially when it comes to minority groups so i think that it should be brought up more for the board to talk about the things that they not only say in meetings but to students in general and i overall think that i'll

103be doing a service for students it is to be a better role model and to keep that discussion open to everybody thank you for your time thank you so i will um say that we are going to use our half hour for public comments now uh the end public comments section will be limited to 15 minutes i do see that we have some people with their hand raised they want to make their point so we will do the additional 15 minutes now and uh cut the the final um short by 15 minutes so pete papa george is next please state your name and address for the board i'm pete pop george i live at 43 venuti drive in aston i'm an alum of pandelco and a teacher currently in the district and let me start

104by saying thank you mr armour for agreeing to vote in favor of the cares committee this past year has been nothing but tough and as educators we've found ways to rise to each and every challenge we've comforted our students through a global pandemic we brought them normalcy that had been lacking since last march we calm their worries that this world is scary that things are happening outside of their control and we did it all because we love what we do and we want the children in our buildings to continue to feel sense of security within the confines of our community over the past four years i've worked at pandelco i've had students come out to me as a part of the lgbtq plus community i've had students discuss mental health struggles i've had students confront

105their fears of being black or brown and all have expressed concern of not seeing themselves represented in curricular materials in the testing and in the community as teachers we hear our students we reflect on the materials used we adjust the books we read the tests we use the content we have to not only be mirrors reflective of our students but windows for them to see the world outside of this community this work is never easy but we know it is necessary this pandelco school district care steering committee is not meant to instill any beliefs in our students but rather to learn from them and to learn from our differences to analyze and to reflect and to make sure our community is there for all students i want to encourage the board to sign on and

106support i want to encourage the board to participate and i want to invite you all to learn alongside of us the staff so we can best reach each and every one of our students i also want to thank you all for all you do and all that you continue to do for our students it doesn't go unnoticed thank you thank you mr papa george dr stein off next we have amanda scott yes mr armor she'll come over just one moment ms scott please state your name and address for the board hi amanda scott 413 high grove lane in aspen um and i'm speaking to the return to school agenda topic as a mother of three pendleco school district students and a career public health professional personally involved in local hospital response to this pandemic i'm

107thrilled that our students may be able to safely return to their classrooms this spring however i want to point out that this is primarily due to our statewide mass mandate effective contact racing and the diligent work of our superintendent principals teachers and school staff i would encourage specific focus be made on lunch break as this is one of the documented activities with the greatest risk of transmission which is being unmasked and eating i'd also like to point out that in publicly accessible social media postings the school board member continues to promote anti-masking and pandemic poke's opinions this is not in the best interest of our children nor our community and as elected officials i'm appalled that this type of behavior continues to be tolerated in our district our board needs to respect and support evidence-based

108science instead of promoting conspiracy theory thank you for your time and thank you dr steinbach thank you miss scott mr armor the next individual with their hand raised is t'challa d-y-c-h-a-l-a please state your name and address for the board uh yes my name is joseph daishala i reside at 110 donnelly avenue donnelly like the phone book i have a couple comments i'd like to make regarding the dei proposal unfortunately i was late to the meeting i didn't get to see the entire uh presentation i have previously emailed dr steinhoff and the board members regarding my concerns about this committee and i'd like to very quickly share with you a story of two students i grew up in the city of chester i've lived in delaware county all my life i moved to aston township in

1091985 i've been a resident ever since i've been involved in the school district as a student and also i'm a private music instructor and i interact with young people on a daily basis a lot of what i'm hearing i'm not saying isn't true or is true i just don't see uh these extreme examples i'm not and again i'm not in the school district to be able to verify this or not but when i was growing up i was uh blessed to be able to attend private school for nine years and i'll give you a tale of two students we'll talk to equity for just a moment when i was in fifth grade i was reading at a ninth grade level not all the kids were when i was in eighth grade we had a student

110who was 16 years old in the last week of school actually drove to school because he was 16 and licensed that school those teachers never gave up on any one of the students there whether it was someone who had exhibited high intelligence and so forth such as myself and i'm not bragging i'm just stating facts now had we made everything equitable and fair everybody would have been learning from the same curriculum in a small same setting classroom uh those who were more advanced would had to sort of pull back and those who were less advanced would have had to sort of catch up more speaking to the gentleman who now owns his own business you know absolutely fantastic was never a good student but absolutely amazing business person um i think that equity and fairness

111is is a sort of a double-edged sword i learned directly about american history from my two parish priests one was a paratrooper who jumped at normandy and actually said mass for the troops and the other parish priest was someone who survived the concentration camps now i only bring that up into the topic because earlier in the meeting one part that i did manage to catch was it was stressed that part of what we're talking about here is not marxism that concerns me from the standpoint of if we have to describe something as not marxism i find that a bit peculiar uh marxism is a form of a philosophy and a form of governing where everyone has tried to be made equal i think the one quote was to each according to his abilities and to

112each according to his needs now kids are going to be kids i understand that and at the same time you can't regulate people's behavior if you have bad kids or if you have bad parents at home who aren't teaching their kids right from wrong that's not an issue the school board or the teachers can solve i grew up in chester and i had neighbors of all colors creeds faiths etc catholics protestants presbyterians black folks white folks asian folks you name it and i never never in my life experienced and saw color or any of that stuff until i was taught that and told that if we continue in my opinion to keep on talking about the differences that actually make us unique and make us individuals rather than focusing on and this was part of

113my letter to the school board the fact that we are one all human beings and two we are all americans we need to live up to the standards of our founding which set the course for us to be a more prosperous more free and a more equal nation and we also need to heed dr martin luther king's words that we should not be evaluated on our color of our skin but on the content of our character i believe opportunity exists in pendleco school district for all students because i was a student who attended pendleco school for four years i appreciate the board's time and i thank you for having this meeting and i thank you for allowing me to speak thank you very much thank you the next individual is sarah kerpel please state your

114name and address for the board this is sarah kerpel i am at 4531 aston mills road i want to open up with a couple of quick comments number one i want to thank the sincere comments from uh mr armor um and the demonstration of growth from my perspective from june so mr armour thank you so much for your comments at the beginning and the commitment for diversity equity and inclusion or as we um we're going to call it cares which is it will be the same dr steinhoff thank you as well for lifting up some points i'd like to start off by martin luther king's other famous letter letters from a birmingham jail jail which warns us about the white moderate if we do not address this and take action right now if we turn

115the other cheek if we don't see color we are going to set our children up for failure this has already been lifted up so i don't think i need to drag this on too much but there has been several three i think public social media post by a board member this week i would like to stand with our teachers teachers are not perfect they are also going through a global pandemic they have created content for our students with care that is centered around students their needs and their desire to learn about themselves from a perspective of diversity equity and inclusion teachers i stand with you i am proud of you i'm a mother of a fifth grade student thank you i want to move on to to comment on dr steinhofsen again this is about

11610.1 for the resolution um the two particular components that we saw this week circulating on social media number one bill lawrence online where the last speaker was an author as well as the no left turn website both of the hosts of those websites are from out of town individuals one from springfield and one from montgomery county i think it is egregious that a board member would align with someone who kind of shapes their ideas off of this racist ideology that they would seek outside people to try to undermine the progress of our school board and the success of our students no board member should go outside for help unless it is to learn in a positive way about something and this is taking some steps back it caused confusion and hatred and and all of

117the things that we've seen in the past couple of years several years about the vitriol and hate surrounding diversity i want to understand why it is that we would want to cozy up with these alt-right extremists why does certain board members not trust our calls to action students parents residents alumni they are all calling for this change it is absolutely i just don't understand how these surveys claim that there is no resid no evidence when there is evidence why are constituents calls to action being ignored and why now why when we're trying to reopen our schools to get back to some kind of normal are we trying to confuse the electorate are we trying to scare people that diversity and equity are bad things this is not a knee-jerk reaction this is not political some

118people are infuriated that this is going to be considered at this point and they don't even know what to say well i am infuriated that members of the board are backpedaling and wasting our time i'd like to remind the group of the unanimous boar vote that dr steinhoff has pointed to multiple times i certainly understand the procedural changes that are needed we want this to be inclusive i want everyone to be involved and feel seen and heard we cannot waste any more time we need to reopen safely we need to get people on board the board members parents students and staff on our cares committee and we also need to make some changes this is the second time in six months where there has been a social media fiasco where the press have been invited

119there must be a board resolution to come up with standards for social media activity particularly ones that are public and are to engage and confuse the public i'm thrilled that this will be considered for the cares committee i think that that needs to be voted unanimously once again and i ask for the resignation of miss essler immediately thank you dr stanoff we've reached our half hour um we will have a 15 minute session at the end for public comment okay let me um take a moment to capture who has already indicated uh that they'd like to speak to so that we don't uh neglect the opportunity to meet them and i have those names down here as well and okay uh thank you please keep your hand raised and we will get to you in

120the order in which you are in line thank you 10.01 is items for board action they start on page two go through page three page and conclude on page four i would like to make notice to uh 10.02 number five once again we have to uh notify the public that we regret regretfully report uh the death of death of one of our part-time custodians at northley uh mr michael to borrow unfortunately this is the second meeting in a row that we had to uh announce something like that but we need to let the public know that uh that's going on so with that uh this references the penduco budget 2021 act 93 plans pda agreement pdespa agreement pdsspa agreement the pa school code 1108b it is the administrator recommendation to approve all personnel items as

121presented we have this motion so move second questions or comments all those in favor aye aye closed motion passes i do need to add a motion to the agenda it is item 10.15 it will read is the approval of the resignation notice for employee 763-1243 as presented tonight the board will utilize a consent agenda for items 10.03 through 10.15 if any member will wish an item from the consent agenda removed please notify me now and we'll remove it and vote individually with that i'd like to remove 10.14 for a separate vote i'd like to make a motion to do that so 10.03 through 10.15 excluding 10.14 do i have this motion so moved second questions or comments all those in favor opposed motion passes 10.14 is the penduco school district diversity education and inclusion steering

122committee motion is to approve the ptsd diversity education inclusion steering committee resolution as presented do i have this motion sent questions or comments all those in favor aye aye opposed now mr zelby roll call please this is denny yes this is ellis yes this is nestler no this is jones yes this is powell yes mr csoc yes mr tinsley yes mr arnold yes 7-1 motion carries thank you mr zebra number 11 we're back two comments by members of the public once again we have 15 minutes um each each uh visitor is required to state their name and address and we are back to uh 15 minutes three minutes per person first we have sarah constant was that was that our next one dr stein hoffman was uh ms sarah constant is uh been promoted to

123panelists it looks like it didn't pass over so let me try again and she will be on in just a second ms constance please state your name and address for the board my name is sarah constand and i reside at 15 who glean in aston pennsylvania and i'm also a proud educator at aston elementary during the last five years within the district i've had the opportunity to educate our parkside coburn and aston elementary children at first i was discouraged to hear about the board's probable vote against an equity committee that would benefit our children and staff yes i was discouraged and quite frankly astonished immediately i viewed the board's probable vote against a committee focused on equity and acceptance as a vote for ignorance and unacceptance but how would my negative attitude positively affect my

124students it wouldn't so i'm here today with an altered mindset i'd like to thank you recently i've questioned my own purpose in education it's felt like a constantly exhausting uphill battle without a positive end in sight but now i thank you i thank you for helping me find my purpose again i thank you for reminding me why i left my corporate career to become an educator i thank you for publicly proving how much harder we educators must work to help our community change for the better and it's a challenge i know many of us proudly accept i thank you for motivating me to find more diverse materials to include in my instruction i've always seen myself as extremely open-minded and accepting but i could do better and i will we will i refuse to sheepishly

125take a backseat to positive growth and it would be irresponsible and a disservice to my students if i did committee or not thank you for reigniting my purpose to support our children in my classroom as they continue to grow the love and respect they feel for themselves and each other i thank you again for the fuel you unknowingly added to my mission which will continue to benefit the social emotional and academic growth of our youngest citizens i'd like to close my statement this evening by sharing a quote i recently saw by mandy hale to some growth can be painful change can be painful but nothing is as painful as staying stuck in a place you don't belong our children don't deserve to be stuck in a world where they their friends and their loved ones

126feel as if they don't belong due to the negative mindsets of others our children deserve better and better they shall receive from our pandelco educators thank you for voting in favor of the pandelco cares hearing committee the next individual is daniela cerullo please state your name and address for the board hello now we can hear you mr willow oh great thank you so much my name is daniela cerullo i live at 231 spring valley way in aston i am the ptl president at sun valley i have a child in sun valley um and i'm also an anti-bullying advocate we have a non-profit organization um i have to say first of all um thank you mr armor for your opening remarks dr steinhoff a huge fan tonight thank you thank you for what you said for

127what you do i've had a great opportunity to work with you um and i appreciate all that you do and that you listen to the parents and that you listen to what feedback as ptl members we are giving you um what i think i have to share tonight and i don't write things out and i i don't i talk from the heart and i'm going to talk from the heart right now as a board it is your responsibility to be role models for not only your employees because the teachers and the staff they're your employees nowhere in this world can you get a job have someone your boss do something on social media and it be okay it is not okay if there are issues that people have with instructors you need to take that

128up with your superintendent that's why you have one not only that it is something that should be done internally not cyber bullying on social media i as a ptl member get messages day in and day out from parents who are frustrated and i have my son who's in 10th grade who says mom explain this to me why is this happening why am i having to explain this to a high schooler of the behavior of grown adults who are elected officials if this is something that you can't move forward on you really need to self-reflect and decide if this board is where you belong okay we work really hard to try to help our children and get through the pandemic and get through we don't need any of this other stuff so please take it tonight

129take it with you tonight when you go to bed and think about what it is you're doing to reflect a being a role model um so i i just wanted to share that because it is something that we work real hard to be a part of the penn delta school district and bring some great things to our children and we work really hard too as volunteers so we would appreciate you rethinking um how you come across on social media we talk every day about our kids bashing and cyber bullying and and doing things on all kinds of of sites tick tock snapchat adults are just as bad so this can't happen anymore so maybe like we tell our children think before you speak the board needs to do the same um we have parents in

130the district who are experts um on the subject of dei we've offered services for free to the district again dr steinhoff we're offering services for free to the district if that is something you'd like to take us up on so i thank you once again uh mr mr arm armor and dr steinhoff thank you again for um all the hard work and the rest of the board members thank you mr armor the next individual with their hand raised is jude saunders please state your name and address for the board hi my name is judy saunders i live at 62 east chelten road in parkside i'd like to talk about the cares committee i i just want to thank you i really want to thank you today watching this and i came into it with really

131bad expectations because i did see the social media post of one of the board members and i just had it in my stomach that somehow we were going to foot fall on this and not do it right and you guys proved me wrong all of you well most of you and i really appreciate that i am so happy to know that this is the school district that my children graduated from i can say that with pride i think you are opening up a discussion at least coming to the table to look at important issues to all of the children because all lives matter and you should make sure that every single child life matters to make that a reality so i cannot tell you how proud i am of you right now in this moment

132um president armor dr steinhoff uh most of our school board members from the bottom of my heart thank you miss saunders and we are out of time with the 15 minutes thank you everyone who chimed in gave us your opinion comment anyone who has any uh specific questions the board can be reached through email as well as dr steinhoff mr kamenka and mr zebly if needed all right um with that we have any comments by members of the board all right we'll see is none uh future meetings our next meeting is march 17th the study session uh at 7 30 location is to be determined depending upon cdc guidelines and how things work out we would like to be in person uh march 24th is our business meeting at 7 30 once again the location

133is to be determined motion for german second you