001it again. >> Like to call us making order. Can we have roll call, please? >> Director Cooper >> here. >> Director Colliver >> here. Ma'am. >> Director Dona. >> Director Isowski. Director Hunter Rue. >> Director Myers >> here. >> Director Roberts >> here. Everyone, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Just remain for a moment of silence. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Thank you all for coming to tonight's legislative voting uh I'm sorry agenda and voting meeting. We appreciate you all for coming. Um before I begin, we met in executive session before this meeting. uh to go over um safety items, personnel items, and
002legal items. Any public comment related to the agenda items? None heard items for information. Mr. Mr. Reed, >> thank you. Um so for the review of the October monthly financial reports provided uh first of all you had the bills listing for pays. So if there's any questions or anything that you wanted to provide our information let us know um get you more detail on that. And then again um as we provide each month the balance sheet report reflects the district's assets liabilities and fund balance for all the funds. Um, typically this year we're at this time of the year we're focusing on the general fund and on cash and investment balances to ensure sufficient cash flows um to cover the payroll and operations. Good thing is is that everybody knows we got the state budget.
003So with that um our cash flow will continue to be sufficient because we'll start getting our subsidies in. Uh number two, the bank's balance report. This captures the monthly bank activity at a high level for the district accounts. Uh the overall balance in the general fund has increased uh despite the district's revenue decreasing but our revenue um this is shown last month our revenue will start increasing again with the state budget being passed. Number three is your account summary report that provides budget to actual for each general. Um and you have a picture there from from our dashboard that shows the revenue accounts at a high level. the local and state revenue has exceeded budget for the prior year actuals. Number four is your uh expense account report. This provides a good report at a
004higher level which expenses stand by function and object code um which we had had that training with Mr. Lamb that kind of went over that stuff. So for a little bit more of that information again there's a table there from the dashboard that shows month-to- date expenses for October are in line with prior year expenses. And then again, as we said, our four highest expense categories are equipment, property, salaries, and benefits, tuition for um charter and private schools, and then our transportation. And then some other highlights, as I said before, the state budget was passed. Um we're waiting for guidance to come a little more guidance come through on some of the stuff for us. The subsidies are starting to process. So we um will be able to start using that for charter payments will
005be forthcoming. Um, our PD363, which is our form that shows us what tuition we pay, will most likely have to be updated even though we had submitted it on time to the state because there is a reform with the uh cyber charter school. Um, we have PFM, our contractors that are working with us, Stephen and Hannah, are helping us to see what that is going to look like. Um, we had moved the transfer of the 5.8 million for the capital reserve fund. We're moving that to the January meeting now to let everything settle through with the budget. The Steven Foster building update, our solicitors handle them directly. Um they are starting to work with myself and Zach, our facility director for the inspections. Um we have a resolution to sale the building on this agenda
006and then also we have provided them with the statement of in incumbency. Uh on December 15th, PD will be taking direct from our subsidy our next uh 2017 bond payment. It's part of the intercept program. It'll be uh one 1 million74,8126. [snorts] And then the next one will be due in June 15th. That's the interestonly payment for $69,23126. And then the um charter school settlement, we're still waiting for the solicitor to let us know to be have and send that out. Um they are waiting for a final settlement and then the um solicitor will let us know we can mail that out. The annual audit, we're working on that. We're currently in that right now. our um AFR and annual financial report which was due to be submitted at the end of this month um
007is on track um I have it here as unudited it's actually be semi- audited and the revision would be due in January but our goal is to meet in early December to have that completed and on time any questions >> thank you sir appreciate that >> thank you and next we'll move On to the ports and presentations. Up first, we'll have our superintendent um Mrs. Sonia Coleman and Mr. Tony Paul, our director of curriculum for an update and overview. >> Good evening. Uh thank you to everyone for joining in person and online. Um, I thought it was important when we started the year, we talked a lot about our priorities and many of those are around curriculum, instruction, and assessment, but you're always hearing from me. So, I thought it was important to hear from
008our director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment for him to give you a highle overview of where we are in terms of the things that we said we were going to set out to do this year, where we are, and how those items are going. So, I'm going to ask Mr. Paul to come up to the front. He has a short presentation that he's going to review with everyone. >> You mind if I stand by the TV and just talk loud? >> They won't be able to hear you. You move the mic. >> Thank you. So, I can tell you as director of Is that good? Can you hear me? >> Okay. So, I can tell you as director of curriculum assessment and instruction, there are like a hundred things going on with curriculum. 100 things
009going on with assessment. 100 things going on more in all those categories. It's a it's a busy job with a lot of things going on. But to give you a high level overview just to just to boil it down to uh can you go back one go back one more just to boil it down to the three main things that I'm focusing on. One in the area of curriculum would be uh the the articulation of a written K12 curriculum. uh spending time with the teachers, working on what we call curriculum guides, getting those in place, putting them in order, editing them, putting them in a comprehensive document K through 12, doing that work this year, getting that onto the board agenda for approval next year. That's a major focus of mine in the world of
010curriculum. Uh in the world of instruction, uh having started here just this school year, getting to know everybody is super important to me. getting into the classrooms, getting to know the students, getting to know the teachers, getting to know everything that's going on and seeing it for in real time happening, accomplishing that by what we call learning tours, getting into the classrooms every day and and getting to know everybody and what's going on is a an area of focus of mine there. And then as far as assessment goes, focusing on our multi-tered system of support for students where we're uh increasing the numbers of students that are participating in these different types of assessments. Uh NWA MAP is a good example. We have what we call a universal screener that all students K through 12
011participated in and then we use the results of that to identify you know areas for remediation or enrichment and then we can use other programs to deliver those types of supports uh based on those results. So getting everybody on board with those types of things in the world of assessment. Uh and so all of this is articulated in a document that we call the instructional framework and that's posted on the district website. And this is something that when I started in July I sat uh with Mrs. Coleman and and just got together on some some key things that we wanted to focus on. The four key components are curriculum, assessment, instructional strategies which I just talked about and then we added a fourth one which is to build a culture of high expectations. So in
012the instructional framework again you can see all this on the district website. This is just a high level overview today but there's a lot of a lot of detail that you can go into if you go to the the curriculum section on the website. So, in the in the framework in the curriculum section, we're talking I already talked about the curriculum guide updates and we have a process in place to get those completed. Uh curricular programs and resource list, we have one in place that needs to be updated and made available for people who would like to see that. Completing that annually is important. Uh adherence to a curriculum cycle. We put in place a a series of events to occur on a regular cycle including uh what we call in-depth curriculum auditing where not
013only are we getting the parts in place but then having a a follow-up procedure after that to make improvements year after year department by department and then also the establishment of curriculum committee meetings the first of which is this Friday and then we'll have other ones with different formats coming after that. Uh, one of the pieces of the in-depth uh, curriculum alignment that we are going to be focused on content area by content area is uh, it's called vertical alignment. Just looking at the standards and the resources and the just different assessments that we're using to make sure everything's all lined up and going up through the grade levels, make sure we're being prepared for success at the next level. And then using kind of a concept of backward mapping, taking it from the top,
014what are the end goals for graduation and make sure everything, you know, is lining up to get students to where they need to be to graduate. Uh, in the assessment piece of the instructional framework, we're focused on the two main types of assessment, formative and sumitative. Trying to get more of a focus on formative because that's the one that makes the most difference, research shows. Uh, we have an assessment calendar in place that we've added more formative assessment pieces to. and then not just giving tests or giving assessments, but also purposefully analyzing the data and having conversations about how to use the data to make meaningful improve improvement for our students. So, we there's the assessment calendar. I know it's real small there, but again, it's on the website in the instructional framework. Uh some
015of the highlights of assessment so far this year, we had the PSAT is like a preAT took place in October for all of our juniors. So, that was expanding the number of students participating in that. Next year, we'd like to expand it to include all sophomores and juniors. So exposing these students to the this uh this college level work to get them to see if maybe they're you going to be a good fit for college. Uh NWA map testing I already mentioned we had the first window at the beginning of the year. Our next window is in December and then we have the state assessments of course everybody knows about the PSSAs and the Keystone exams and we do have a winter keystone exam testing window coming up uh in December and January. Okay. in
016the instructional strategies piece of the instructional framework. Again, I could talk about 122 different instructional strategies and there's a lot lot there to unpack, but the three that we're focusing on this year are called universal design for learning framework UDL, which I know uh coming in that our teachers have already had uh some professional development, some experience with that framework. So, that's good to move that forward and improve on that. uh the gradual release of responsibility which is basically a model where the teacher gives some direct instruction and then they work on it together a little bit and then the teacher puts the student off to try it on their own. Sort of the the I do, we do, you do uh model of of teaching and learning. And then the SAM model of technology
017is basically just an idea of using technology not just because it's fancy but using it purposefully to make uh to to make the instruction better to make the learning outcomes more meaningful. Uh, in the culture of high expectations piece of the instructional framework, we're just really trying to clarify our non-negotiables, putting students first, offering high quality instruction to every student. Just the things that we're staying focused on, knowing our why, knowing our purpose, uh, the professional development that we put in place, just articulating what that looks like and making sure that we're giving the teachers the tools that they need to be successful with the students and, you know, making sure everybody knows what that looks like. And then uh just having a you know an accountability piece in there so everybody knows we're not
018just winging it here. We're not going willy-nilly. We you know we have we've thought about this in great detail. We have specific measurable goals and it's purposeful and it has good reasoning behind it. So uh the way that this ties into the amended recovery plan which is the plan that Dr. Rabel had presented about multiple times at all these board meetings. uh there's there's a lot of it in there that's specific to me and then stuff that's kind of like not specific to me, but it's kind of, you know, related to me. So, I I went through the whole plan and highlighted parts of it in in black and green, whether it was in whether my name was on it or whether I just thought it was still relevant to me even if my name
019wasn't on it. And then I just go through the whole thing. Go one more. And there was about 25 different parts of the plan that are I'm either indirectly or directly tied to. And uh I've already given some examples of of things that I've been doing to hit the parts of the plan that need to be hit. Uh and just to give one specific example for this one initiative to establish a district-wide culture that includes high performance standards, accountability, expectations, and pride, something I've put into place is a monthly curriculum bulletin and I send that out to all the staff every month. And then I've also began posting that on the district website as well. So you can check that out there if you're interested in in that. It just shows a a lot of
020thing a lot of great things that our teachers are are doing in the district. We don't have to go elsewhere to see great examples of teaching and learning. We've got it happening right here at Stow Rocks and it's uh you know to put that out there for everybody to see I think is a great source of pride and it shows that we're doing a lot of great things and so I'll put some other stuff in there like updates and news briefs and content advisories from the AIU and stuff like that and just you know pictures of the kids and it just gives everybody a chance to see what we're doing and it's it's like I said it's it's developing that source of pride that's that's uh you know part of the plan but also what
021we want to be doing anyways. Uh looking ahead, I already mentioned the curriculum guides. A written and articulated K12 curriculum is my goal to have all these guides in in my possession by the end of this year. Then I can get them edited and get them on the board agenda for approval uh content area by content area over the course of 2627. Uh we're looking closely at the high school program of studies and uh looking at adding a seventh and eighth grade uh program of studies. Uh exploring advanced options. Mr. Herszing the counselor and I met with representatives from CCAC for example last week about their mechatronics program and their BNY grant program for uh some different courses that they can offer our students for free. Uh so you know we already have a pretty
022good partnership with CCAC but trying to make it better and then same thing with AP courses the college board offers advanced placement courses and to to leverage those opportunities for students something that we're exploring and then adding more academic language into the program of studies. So again, that was a lot in a very short period of time. If you didn't hear anything else I said the whole time, instructional framework is posted on the district website. It's uh you know, it's a really good uh roadmap or playbook, if you will, for what we're trying to do with curriculum assessment instruction. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Paul. >> Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Up next, we'll have our student representative, Ja Ellerv, for November student report. Good. Um, okay, there we go. Good evening, school
023board, Mrs. Coleman, Dr. Rabel, administrators, students, parents, community members, and teachers. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jay Ellerby. I am a senior here at the Strow Rocks Junior Senior High School. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve as your student schoolboard representative. The month of November has been a busy month for students, staff, and community members of the Junior Senior High School. On October 14th, we had a student of the month's lunch for the students who earned student of the month for the month of September and October. We had we held CLA our class meetings in award ceremony for the students in the junior senior high school. Our middle school was rewarded a dress down pass for good behavior. Our video production class put together a video
024for Veterans Day. Huge shout out to the following staff and students. Dr. I, Mrs. Muie, Mr. Petra, Gello, Mrs. Timlstein, Mubarak Salifu, Asian A White, Devonte Fields, and Khil Jennings. This afternoon, PAX hosted a Thanksgiving bingo and mingle. Community members had the opportunity to play bingo and enjoy a delicious dinner. Special thanks to Coach Ed and PAX for helping make this possible. Many students, including myself, were provided many opportunities to go out in the community to learn about future careers and plans for after high school. They include the IUP College tour, the future teachers club, and the Amachi group went to Harrisburg and CCAC. Our winter sports are cranking up. Our girls basketball team and boys basketball team have a scrimmage this Saturday. We hope to see you all there. Upcoming events. The US Army
025and recruiter Sergeant First Class Lopez offered any interested Stobox High School educator the possibility of a tandem jump from an airplane. It will be a 10,000 ft freef fall with the parachuter strapped to your back. Several teachers have already volunteered. That's all the information I have for you tonight. I leave you all with some positive motivation for there is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it. Thank you. >> Congratulations. Thank you very much for that. Go Air Force. Um [laughter] I'm jumping though. Wait a minute. I think I'm Can I sign up? >> No. >> A man say >> I want to [clears throat] sign up. I loved it. It was fun. It was fun last time I did it. [laughter] Up next, we
026have Mr. Tom Linsky for um energy demand response program presentation. >> Thanks everybody. Um I'm with my colleague Jake. >> Nice to meet you, sir. >> Doing the playbyplay. Jake will be adding color. >> You mind if I go up to the screen? >> Yes, sir. Jake can have this microphone. >> Perfect. Thank you. Thanks. And as far as then I'll just tell you when I need to change slides then. Cool. Great. Um, let's go to the first one. Stay right here. Can you blow up that screen just a bit? There you go. Thank you. So, I'm Tom Linsky. I'm with NRG Direct Energy, formerly Strategic Energy. I've been with the company for 28 and a half years. I'm a local kid with the Gateway. And when I was in 10th grade, a long time
027ago, I played football, JB football on the football field. I don't know who won or lost so long ago, but the reason we're here, let's go to the next slide, is everybody needs and uses electricity. The district is buying electricity through the AIU consortium. We are the electricity supplier. This is a deregulated state. Couple things to think about here are all the work, all the market things, all the effort, the timing of the market that is getting the energy, the wholesale power and that represents most of the overall cost for electricity supply. Remember, Dukane Light delivers the power to this building, your houses. That's the blue line. And the idea here, it's a commodity market. We follow the market fundamentals, technical factors, etc. And we want to be buying the blue line at the low
028point. But what you pay on your bill is the red line. And the difference between a blue and a red is simply put retail adders. And there a bunch of different names here. Capacity, transmission, etc. They are a smaller part of the overall cost, but they are increasing in cost as time goes on. Let's go to the next slide, please. Now, capacity is why we're here tonight. And what is capacity? Essentially, capacity is a standby charge that we as end use customers pay to PJM. And PJM is another word for the grid. And PJM in turn gives that money to the asset owners. Asset owners are the people that own the power plants. Power plants are deregulated factories of electricity. And people that own those power plants receive revenue from two different streams. One, they
029receive the power from the commodity, the juice, that blue line. But they also receive revenue from the capacity. Capacity is that standby charge. We want to be able to come up, flick on the switch, and our lights turn on. So that's the way the business is set up. Now, capacity, we have no control over the cost, but you probably have seen that since June 1st, a chunk of your supply bill has gone up a lot relative to other points in time. And as this graph here shows, and this is the part, this dotted orange line, this is the part of the grid where we live. It's gone up from say $30 up to $270. And unfortunately, next June, it's going to go up another 22%. Why? Well, you could use capacity as a proxy for
030the need to build new power plants. Why do we need to new build new power plants? Well, a lot of power plants were forced into early retirement because of clean air action, just aging out. The market didn't see the need for those things until there was this sudden realization in the spring of 2004 that oh my goodness data centers AI hyperscalers electrification demand for electricity is perceived to blow up. So in the face of decreased supply, you have booming demand. And then you have some other technical factors that were related to cold weather events and other things that threaten the grid over time. So the gist of it is we're paying more for capacity. It's a standby charge. It's a standby charge that goes to the asset owners. Next slide, please. So what is demand
031response? Well, essentially demand response is asking you, me, the district as the end use customer use less power during peak points in time, those hot days in June, the super cold days in the wintertime. And the idea here is let's back off a little bit on our usage instead of having to build a new power plant. Let's back off our usage for select points in time instead of having to turn on some of the older power plants that may be less environmentally friendly. Let's back off our usage so the hourly market doesn't spike and create um a volatile environment which then leads to higher prices. So far so good. Great. Thank you. Next slide. So what we're here tonight is to ask the school district if you are interested in joining other school districts and
032other end use customers in PA Alageney County and throughout PJM in other parts of the country. Would you be interested in demand response? And what demand response is simply your normal day you're chugging along here at this blue line. There's a demand response event or test. You drop your usage down to here. You get paid that difference between the blue and the red line. In effect, you become a virtual power plant. You are going to receive a capacity payment. Not quite to the scale that a power plant owner does, but the same general concept. So far so good. Okay, great. Thank you. So the idea here is you participate in demand response, you get paid to do the things, frankly, that you probably are doing already. You're doing energy conservation. You're installing light bulbs. You're
033reducing your changing your set points on those hot days or days when the building's not occupied. Next slide, please. And a primary reduction strategy for school districts is working on the air conditioning, working on the lighting, maybe changing plug load. If you have a generator, it may help. These are some of the techniques that are used and discussed whenever we're putting together a reduction action plan with our engineering team. Next slide, please. On top of that work, putting together that plan to reduce your reduction action plan, we provide metering. These are shadow meters that get connected to the light company's revenue meters and then the appropriate people at the school district can get near real time information on how a building's you using power. So looking at these lights and how much it may cost
034the district to run this meeting, you'll be able to do it instead of trying to fudge something from the utility bill in a month. You would be able to figure those things out tonight or tomorrow. The idea here is you have this information now. You could test different parts of your use your equipment throughout the district. How much would changing this point this part be? How much money would you get by tweaking the set points on your air conditioning? How much would it be if you tweaked certain lights at certain points in time? Having this information then gives you very valid, reliable data on working on your reduction action plan. Frankly, we also want to have these meters because we have a fleet of customers. We've made commitments to PJM to deliver so much capacity,
035so much capacity to them. So we want to be able to see close to real time where our customer base is operating. Next slide please. One of them we always have to with the commercial right. So we're either the number one or number two supplier of demand response services in the business. Um pending regulatory approval which I think was granted yesterday. We are buying the other firm. Next slide. There's a winter and summer program. It's fairly detailed, but we have an approach that helps you work through this process. And a couple things to think about is demand response is primarily for an event. You know, if the grid is stressed, PJM will call an event. And events are fairly rare in the past, but now with this booming or perceived booming demand for electricity, there
036is some perception that there may be more events in the future. If you're having an event, frankly, school's probably going to be closed. We're going to have rolling blackouts. But more as importantly, is to make sure this is verifiable, valid program. PJM requires customers to have a test. It's a two-hour test. And the idea here is we work through this reduction action plan with the appropriate people from the district to make sure you're confident that you can participate in this program and fulfill the commitments that you're making to us. What's important to note though, there is no cost to the district other than the time and expense of your personnel. You're going to be receiving money to do this work. Frankly, work you're probably doing anyway. Um, next slide please. One more. We at the
037end. Okay, that's it. Thanks for your time. And there any questions? Scott, can you cover um because I know within the thing, can you cover the how the contract works so they understand that part of it? >> Sure, Jake. It is a typically we offer a fiveyear contract which you're not agreeing to anything when signing the contract other than being a part of the program. Uh, as Tom called out, we have engineer that schedules a call yearly with you guys to a make sure you're comfortable with the volumes that you're essentially nominating to put into the program to receive payment because you can only receive payment up into what you volunteer that you're able to curtail. Uh and then on the flip side of that, we also want to feel comfortable that our customer base
038is actually going to be able to curtail if there was a true event to PJM. Um so again, those are five-year deals. And beyond that, it's also just to secure your spot. We ran into an incident last season, I believe it was Illinois, where we we go out and procure a certain amount of capacity that if we end up getting enough customers to fill it, no additional customers are allowed to enter. So really, we just offer the standard five-year term. That way, you have your seat at the table to earn those checks. Um, and again, to Tom's point, it's a check to you guys. There's no out-of- pocket expense. Um, it it really is a no-brainer. My favorite saying for the program is you can't win the Powerball if you don't buy a ticket. Right?
039So if you guys get in this program, there is opportunity to earn money back to the district. >> 7030 split, right? >> 7030 split, five-year term. Yes, sir. And just in anticipating a potential question, some other districts that are in a similar contract would include Pittsburgh public schools, Montour, Baldwin, Whiteall, Quaker Valley, SH Valley, Gateway, and Mile Lebanon. And that's just a a handful locally. Any questions? Any other questions? Not heard. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you all. Can we have a copy of the slide, please? >> Please. Thank you. You got another question. I'm sorry. I didn't see you. >> Can you put your mic on? when the engineer comes to look like how do you know our buildings would be appropriate for this sort of program. >> So the engine the call that's
040a good question. So all of this work is done virtually. And so one of the most important parts of the upfront process is you're going to be signing uh we call it a third-party authorization form which is a letter of authorization which allows Dukane light to provide our demand response firm 24 by7 by 365 electricity usage data from Dukane light. Then this person goes through the data. He analyzes it. He un he he is working with other school districts. He can see where certain things points in time you are peaking where you're not peaking, where the air conditioning may start, where the furnace may start, where the chillers may turn on when the lights go on. So he's experiencing that matter. He can tell certain patterns. And then based on the information he has, he
041has a heart-to-he heart conversation with your team. What are your operations? What are your hours? What kind of air conditioning do you have? What kind of air conditioning you don't have? Can you do these things? What does tweaking your set points from say 70 to 72 degrees for five or six hours mean during a school day? Those are the kinds of things and the analytics that goes into that process. Does that help? >> Does help. Thank you. Um followup. So in in the schools I guess or the buildings that you have done this in um are they like how energy efficient are those buildings? Like do do they need to be energy efficient to be able to do this program? >> There's probably more money for the schools that are less energy efficient than the
042schools that are more energy efficient. >> I see. >> Just because they've squeezed the squeeze the squeeze the rock a little bit more early. But we get a range of districts participating. And the idea here is, and this is really important. I didn't touch on it during the conversation earlier, but capacity, excuse [clears throat] me, capacity and transmission. Those are demand related charges. Demand is that peak usage during your month. Those charges, how you're assessed is based on how your building operates. and the work you did this past summer is going to inc impact the cost of your electricity starting next June 1st for capacity and starting next November 1st for transmission. So the idea here is work you do now is going to positively impact your future electricity supply contract. So the real big
043money is not necessarily in demand response, but it's in the avoided costs that you will experience by being more efficient down the road. >> You're welcome. That was a good question. Thank you. >> Thank you all very much. We appreciate you all. >> Thanks for your time. Appreciate it. >> Good to meet everybody. >> Next, we'll go into recommended new hires. Up first, we'll have Mr. Daniel Deninger for Dina student. Just come on up there to the podium. Welcome. >> Good evening. Good evening. Nice. >> Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. If you don't mind telling us who you are, where you're from, why our rocks, your experience, the home, everything. >> Yes, sir. Um, so I've taught for about seven years now. Um, in a classroom teaching both high school math and social studies, grades
0447 through 12. I started off at Propel Montour High School. I moved to Adelfi where I taught adjudicated youth for a number of years and I'm currently at Penhold Charter School of Entrepreneurship where I teach social studies and coach basketball. Um during my time as a teacher, I've always put myself into the communities that I've been in. Um whether it be as a coach, uh a mentor, lead teacher, overseeing testing at the various schools that I've been at. Um and now I'm working on getting my principal papers through the University of Pittsburgh. and this would be a first step towards that administrative track. Um to directly answer your question about why Stow Rocks, uh I've grown up in the area, I grew up in Penn Hills, but uh I initially grew up in Craftton on
045the west end. And you can see around this gym that there is a tradition and a history here. Um and then my high school offensive coordinator, Loy Johnson, coached football here for a number of years. And I saw that tradition kind of come back as a lightning in the bottle moment and really capture a group of kids and the community. And I feel like instead of having that little lightning in the bottle moment, when we have a team aligned with the right standards, community effort, we can really try to make that lightning in a bottle moment something that happens year after year for our kids and our community here at Stocks. >> Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Any questions? Raone, what did what did Loy say about us? I didn't see your hand
046go every time I turn my head [laughter] put your hand up. I'm sorry. >> Um I'm I'm happy that you're here. Um I was curious what is your philosophy as far as engaging with students who are having a challenging time. >> Yeah, of course. I think we need to meet students and families where they're at. So I am very open, transparent, and communicationoriented. Um, I'm very much so hearing the opinions of students, staff, and family members. I grew up with two parents as teachers at Pittsburgh public schools for about 60 years between the two of them. So, I can understand and sympathize with the struggles of teachers. Um, but I also know firsthand the struggle of our students and our communities growing up and going to Pittsburgh public schools, which I think a lot of
047those similarities are here at Stow Rocks. And we need to listen to our students, have those surveys, have those conversations, be an active part of the community. One of the things I love doing is having school meetings in community places so people feel comfortable so they can voice those opinions in a place where they are most comfortable. Um, and so once we have those communications and know what our students need and know what our staff need, we can find that mutual compromise where we set them up for success, whatever means necessary, whether it be through PBIS, um, NTSS interventions, whatever that may be for that unique student, finding that tailor made solution for them, um, so they can be the most successful person that they can be because our ultimate job as educators is to
048serve our students in our community. It's not to get a check or anything like that. It's to really be service of our community. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yes. Now I see why [clears throat] that's what I'm talking about. Love to hear it. Any other questions again? What What did What did Loroy say about us? >> Special group of kids. Special group of kids. I love to hear it. >> Yes, sir. >> Good. Good. Welcome to our district. >> Um later on we'll vote. Um but welcome to our district. Thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate your time. [laughter] >> Up next, we have Taylor Coverson, a professional primary center. If I said your name wrong, please tell me. >> Uh, no. Actually, you did not. >> That's what I'm talking about. I love that. >>
049Hi, everybody. >> Hi. >> How you doing? >> I'm good. How's everybody? >> Can't complain. Come on. Just tell us who you are, where you're from. I about to say that too. >> What? >> Where you? We love your energy. >> Oh, thanks. >> Amazing. Can you tell us who you were? where you're from, why rocks. >> Oh, my name is Taylor. Um, I'm from the east side of the city. I grew up in Wilkinsburg, Garfield. Um, I've been in the education realm for about 12 years now. Um, I've got about two, three years of teacher experience, middle school. Um, I taught sixth grade science, STEM, and a, um, course called win, which is what I need, which was geared towards individual needs for the students. Um, I've been the gym teacher, assistant gym teacher,
050computer science teacher. I've been a lot of teachers. Um, [laughter] um, just recently, um, I guess I started at, um, Urban Pathways, K5 Elementary. Um, that really jumpst started my my time. I spent six years there and then I moved over to Youth Places um, on the north side. Uh, and it was right before COVID hit. So, Youth Places, if you know, is a after school program, nonprofit organization, which is after school program, but during that time, we turned it into a um hub, a learning hub during COVID. Um so during the day, we had students coming in with their laptops, helping them um get through their schoolwork and still switching over to that after school time after school as well. Um and then the last four years I was at Urban Pathways 612, which
051is the middle school, high school. Um, and I took on, like I said, a lot of roles there. Uh, parent professional. I just recently started to gear towards the administrative side. Um, and why Stobox? So, I did some internet looking on Stobox and I just love how busy there's a lot of things going on here. I love the culture, the spirit that's represented. Um, and that's just something I like to be a part of. >> I like that. I like that. Any questions, comments? Yes, ma'am. That's why I came back at you. [laughter] >> Hi. So happy you're here. Um I was curious, um in this new role, uh what are you most looking forward to as far as working with our students here? >> Um in this new role, I am big on student
052relationships. So that's where you start. um I'm not going to be able to break through barriers and have those or get through those um challenging students um without stepping that first step which is building the relationships. So I am huge on that which is why I have a lot of velcro students and I love that. So [laughter] um is yeah building those relationships is the first step. >> I have a comment. Can I just ask you or a question? when you come in, please keep your energy. Please keep whatever ideas you may have, >> speak on them, bring them up, you know, because um we're doing a lot of things here in our district, >> but we can always continue to grow and continue to get better. And if you've seen how things work somewhere
053else, how we can apply them here, please speak up and please [snorts] keep the energy. >> I sure will. Please. It's it's it's it's um infectious, you know what I mean? So, >> I've been told I'm going to keep it up. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate that. Thank you. >> And up next, we have Don Janu Janiso, professional at the upper elementary. >> All right. Then we'll now move on to our non-resident agenda under a wave and approve the reading of the October 23 25 Star Rock school district board director's meeting minutes and waving accept the reading of October 7th regular voting meeting west any questions management Mr. three. Um, yeah. Number one, as as we stated earlier, to approve ratify the payments of the bills from the general fund. Number two is approve paying
054bills at the recommendation of the superintendent and business manager um to avoid any disruption in district operations. The school board directors authorized the business office to make payment on verified invoices, which there are sufficient funds to cover during the time period between the December 4th voting session and the January 2026 voting session with ratification of said paid invoices to occur as part of the January 2026 voting agenda. Number three is to approve four PASBO member year uh yearly dues for the regional chapter membership at $140. Number four is to prove the retro payment of $150 to Alec Welsh for shape America conference attended on November 14th, 2025. Number five is at the recommendation of the superintendent, the board of directors authorizes the business office to pursue bonding of the following positions by Gallagher Insurance at
055a cost to not exceed $150 per individual and in accordance with Still Rocks District Policy 005 organization, the board treasurer, the board secretary, the business manager, and the assistant business manager. Number six, approve the resolution to authorize the participation in the appointment of representatives to the Alagany Intermediate Union joint purchasing program for the 2627 school year. Items for joint purchases include electricity, gasoline and diesel fuel, natural gas, and multi-use coffee paper. Number seven, approve the resolution to authorize the sale of 800 Russellwood Avenue. in Keys Rocks, Pennsylvania and designate representatives to execute the documents and perform all necessary actions to complete the sale >> and yep >> handled by solicitors. Correct. that's handled by solicitors, but the the approvement of um the designated representative would be either somebody on the board or you could uh
056approve myself to be the signer with the with the solicitor sign on behalf of >> Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. >> And then number eight is to uh approve the confirmation of the following approved signers. Um you got the at the first summit bank account for rocks district Cameron Colliver Adrien Roberts Delicia Hosiski and Scott Reed and then remove Dr. V white shuttle as approved signer. >> Any questions? >> Is is there a way to there way to table that until next month? >> Number eight, it's going to change next month. Great. >> Motion because the the treasur is going to change. >> We can do that. That's >> Thank you. Next under operations approve the following ABC transportation employees for Stall School District. Any questions about the employees? Next, accept the Districts awarded for
057Chris Scarnady Cousing Project 18 pack of wired headphones. Brianna for sure project $100 gift card for educational resources on TPT and Katherine Winger classroom project classroom mailbox mail sorter. Any questions? Accept the donation of $10,000 worth of instruments to the upper elementary students participating in the band program from citizen sound of giving program. That's amazing. Mrs. Johnson, you will hear Would you mind talking about a little bit? Okay, never mind. So, if if I'm not mistaken, I don't want to um be wrong, but they've done this before to the high school, right? Okay. That That's amazing. That is amazing. Did it before to the high school. We were in the room and they were talking about it. That That is amazing. Instruments. That That's amazing. Um, I think whenever they did it to high school,
058kids were taking instruments home, learning, you know, it was a lot better. It was That's amazing. I'm glad to hear that. Good to see that. >> Yeah, we're really trying to grow our our band and music program, and that's a great start. >> Yes, man. >> He's having a good time out there. I love it. He put mouths on them feet. Next, approve the anonymous donation of total complete meal bag for the S rea food drive that will be distributed at the community Thanksgiving event. Dr. Muma, are you on tonight? Okay. >> And that was tonight. They dropped it off today. >> Approved the donation of 50 rings of copy paper to the primary center from the educational education partnership. Approve the donation of 85 and 90 sets of pajamas to the primary center kindergarten
059classes from Blessed Francis C. Lewis Academy. Number seven, approved the facility request for a community dinner sponsored by PAX and Stur Rock School District for tonight from 5 to 8:00 p.m. in a junior senior high school. Excuse me. Approve the facility request for an event sponsored by Straw School District and Partners for December 18th from 4 to 9:00 p.m. in the junior city high school cafeteria. Number nine, approved donation from Thermos Fisher of seven connect STEM design challenge sets for Gyno robot construction sets and fiting spring scales for use in K through6 classes. I'm sorry, I butchered that. accepted a generous donation for the department in memory of Salvatore Lauria in the amount of $311. After recommendation of the director of security and mission preparedness, the board of school directors authorizes comprehensive inspection of the
060Sturox Junior High School by NFPA fire inspector 3/PA LNI UCCC building code official Dr. Charles Miller at a cost not to exceed $1,000. Any questions? Not heard. Approve ratify the following filter matrix as presented. Any questions? Love to see it. Love to see it. Special assignment. Approve the second reading of the following board policies. Policy 104, discrimination, harassment affecting staff. Policy 103, discrimination, harassment affecting students. Policy 202, eligibility of non-resident students. And section N, I'm sorry, and policy 918, title one, parent and family engagement. This policy replaces parent involvement policies 131 and 97. Approve the first reading of the following board policies. Policy 102, academic standards. Policy 105, curriculum development. Policy 105.1, review of instructional materials by parents and guardians and students. Policy 109, resource materials. Policy 109.1, media usage. Policy 113, special education. All
061policies. Let's go. I love it. Love to see it. Love to see it. Next under educational leadership approved approved and ratify the following professional metrics as presented. Any questions? >> As person listed, is that date correct? 2025 April or is that supposed to be 2026? >> Good catch. 26. Whatever. Number two, approve Wesley School sitebased academic services agreement for August 2025 to June 30, 2028. >> Is Mrs. Linden Bigler on? That's okay. Superintendent. >> Yeah, that it's one of our placement schools for students with disabilities. So, it's just a renewing of our services service agreement. >> Thank you, ma'am. >> Yes, we pay when they go. >> Thank you, ma'am. Approve. Alexander Dush to complete 40 hours of field experience through was Westminster College with Celesteia at the primary center in May of 2026. Approve
062Emma Lewis to complete classroom observations for her educational studies at Sippy Rock University from December 2025 to January 2026. I love it. I love it. approved Britney Lindenbigler and a coordinator to participate in the PDE conference on February 25th 27th 2026 at Hershey Park Lodge in Hershey Park. I'm sorry, Hershey PA. I'm about to ask that question too. Registration of $480 for both registrants and hotel estimate $100 for both nights. Do you know who the coordinator will be? have not selected one and we'll not be moving quickly because we want to get the right person. >> Copy. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Approve the AIU title one services addendum for the 202526 school year for title one services are provided to non-public schools. Mrs. They handle um AIU handles some of our title um documentation, title
063program, title one because we're a title one funded district. There's um several documents and requirements of things that we must do. So, we're contracted with the AIU. So they handle um ensuring that our charter schools they get a portion of title funding are spending down because it does look bad if we're not ensuring that they're spending down their portion of title one funding. So this is aligned to those schools that are receiving title funds. >> You take the next one too please. >> What was that? >> The next one number seven. >> Oh number seven. Um, as you know, we've been talking about our student information system and then ensuring that we have clear visualizations, clear dashboards, and we're being fully transparent with parents in terms of how their students are doing. Our current student
064information system does not lend itself um to the things that we needed to do. And so, moving to power schools, these are all the components. It's in one system. So teachers don't have to go in currently just to and I hate to talk about a referral to issue a referral. There are three systems that the information has to be entered in on the administrative side of things. So now we have one system for attendance. You're welcome for attendance attendance grades everything is now in one system. It speaks to each other. the portal for parents. Um everything is in real time for parents in terms of how we want to communicate from our enrollment piece. Right now we have gaps in enrollment because everything is hand entered. Then there's notifications, manual not notifications. This system will
065automatically alert everyone that needs to know when a new student is coming in if they have a 504, if they have a 50 uh uh IEP, all of those things. So it that information gap is lessened. Um there's another part of it that helps us when we're meeting with the student of a click of a button we can look at behavior, attendance, grade, assessments for that student. You we no longer will go into I think it's six different systems to pull that information. So now we're in one system where we can in real time have dashboards to see how we're doing as a district. Because right now for me to calculate attendance, I pull the P bulletin every day and I keep a post-it note and hand write down the percentages and calculate it at
066the end of the week. Lots of fun for me as I was a science teacher and not a math teacher. And so um it it alleviates that gap in errors in terms of that piece. Um there's also another component the personalized learning that's not just for teachers but there's a component for students. Teachers will be able to also build assessments. Right now um they have to create them by themselves. And so this system will allow us to have create um standard aligned assessments in real time with an item bank if they want to do bail work for students by subject. All of our tested subject areas we now can ensure that it's aligned. Again, this is one system that we're working in and not now I've talked about multiple things. I've probably talked about 13
067different systems. And so now we're we're we're coming of age and putting it into one system. And so that's what power schools will allow us to do. >> Somebody said, "Amen." [laughter] >> Thank you, ma'am. Next, approve the agreement with the AIOU to provide the Stur Rock School District with 0.6 6 FTE and coverage of one therapist from December 1, 2025 through May 29th 26th of speech and language support services for the 2025 26 school year. Any comments, questions, concerns? I'm joking with you. [laughter] None heard. You got questions. I knew it. I can't hear you. >> How [snorts] many uh students is this therapist survey >> for speech and language? I believe their capacity and and don't quote me or make this law. I do not believe they can have any more than maybe
06855 students on a case load. We have way more than that receiving services. it there also is a piece where we have to assess the kids and so that has to take place and and right now you know when you think about just kindergarten by itself the number of school students that may come in and we don't have that data this person does those assessments for us and currently who we were working with um just wasn't moving as quickly as we would like to ensure that kids are receiving the services that they Thank you. And next we'll move on to the voting portion of this meeting. Like I can see items A1 through B7. A1 through B7. And can I have a motion when ready? >> A1 through B7. >> Motion. >> Have a second.
069>> Second. >> Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Director Cooper, >> yes. [bell] >> Director Culver, >> yes. >> Director Donia, >> yes. >> Director Hunter. >> Director Myers, >> yes. >> Director Roberts, >> yes. >> Six yeses. Motion passes. >> Thank you. Now, I'd like to make a motion to table item B8. Approve the confirmation of the following approved signs for the first summit bank account for St. Swiss. Cameron Culliver, Adrien Roberts, Delicia Hazowski, and Scott Reid remove Dr. Irwin Widle as an approved signer. Again, this is a motion to table. Have a motion. >> Director Robert second. >> Director Cooper, >> yes. >> Director Culliver, >> yes. Director Donia, >> Director Hunter Rue, >> Director Myers, >> yes. >> Director Roberts, >> yes. >> Six yeses. Motion passes to table B7. >> Now, can
070we have an actual motion to table it now, please? >> The first mo the first one was the the the table it. Now, proposal table. Now, we're motion to table it. >> Motion. If we're if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. What we've done before, so Okay. >> All right. All right. We were told other words before, so that works out. >> So, we were told um again, if we're wrong, we're wrong. We're told before make a motion to actual table it >> and then once it's approved, you have to vote on it to actually table it. >> I'm okay with it, though. >> I'm okay with Perfect. Too easy. Thank you very much. [laughter] Now, can I take items C1 through F8? C1 through F8. >> Have a motion. When ready. >> Motion. >>
071Have a second. Don't do that. You ready to go? >> I know you are. >> Director Roberts, >> yes. >> Director Cooper, >> yes. >> Director Culver, >> yes. >> Director Dona, >> yes. >> Director Hunter Roo, >> Director Meyers, >> yes. >> Six yeses. Motion passes. >> Thank you. Now we're going to personal management. Can I have a motion for item G1? All of it. >> Have a second. >> Director Colliver, >> yes. >> Director Dona, >> yes. >> Director Hunter Rue, >> Director Myers, >> yes. >> Director Roberts, >> yes. >> Director Cooper, >> yes. >> Six yeses. Motion passes. >> Thank you. Congratulations to Amy Connley, Ta Taylor Ta Coverson, Daniel Dillinger, and Don Denuso. Congratulations. Congrats to you too, buddy. [laughter] Number two, resend the hiring of Deina students position to
072I'm just joking. He's like, "Wait, not my name." to Darnell Shahid. That was approved last meeting. Have a motion. Motion. Have a second. >> Director Colliver, >> yes. >> Director Dona, >> Director Hunter Rue, >> Director Meyers, >> yes. >> Director Roberts, >> Director Cooper, >> yes. >> Six yeses. Motion passes. >> Thank you. Number three, approve FMLA for employee number 1776 from December 11 to January 12th, 226. Have a motion. >> Have a second. >> Director Myers, >> yes. >> Director Roberts, >> yes. >> Director Cooper, >> yes. >> Director Culver, >> yes. Director Dona, Director Hunter, six yeses. Motion passes. >> And then number four, approve theou with the Sturox Education Association PSA/NEA for the use of sick leave day increments effective November 21st, 2025 to June 30, 2026 for the 2023 through
0732026 collective working agreement. Have a motion. Have a second. >> Who's it? >> Director Cooper. >> Yes. >> Director Culver. >> Yes. >> Director Dona. >> Director Hunter Rue. Director Meyers. >> Yes. >> Director Roberts. >> Six yeses. Motion passes. >> Thank you. I'll pass it over to our solicitor. Any comments? >> No, thank you for having me this evening. It was nice to see you all again and congratulations to you on your board appointment. Thank you >> and congratulations to you all as well. >> Good seeing you as well, ma'am. Any committee reports at this time, >> please. >> Get your mic real quick one time, please. >> Policy and procedure committee uh met on November 11th. Uh we discussed splitting the school handbooks uh for next year. We also discussed putting an AI
074policy. We discussed beefing up the virtual Viking policy for success for our students as well as putting together a uh policy for annual documents which would be a part of enrollment. Um but we will look at these policies again after the reorg which will probably be sometime in January. >> Thank you ma'am. >> Any other committee reports >> I'm talking about Any other committee reports? Um, far as committee committees go, I'll send out a document here um next early next week so we can talk about committee that you're already on and you're not on. If you're interested in part of the committee, please let me know. Um, if you don't want to be on the committee you're on right now, please let me know and we'll make some adjustments. You're not going anywhere. Um, and
075then we'll go we'll move forward after that. Thank y'all. I have a public comment to to say really fast and we always ask our student staff admin for continuous learning and you know um always working hard to better themselves and I want to give a shout out to our board member um Dr. Anisha Hunter for receiving her doctorate. So thank you. Congratulations [applause] speech. >> [laughter] >> No, but seriously, seriously, congratulations. It's a big deal. I know it's a big relief off you. So, congratulations. That's all right. Any other comments, questions, concerns? All right. None heard. We will see you all at the reorg on Thursday, December 4th, 7 o'clock in the cafeteria otherwise noted. Thank you. Have a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion. >> Have a second. >> Second journ. Thank you.