Special Meeting Followed By Standing Committee Meeting

001call the meeting to order at 6:12. Uh if we could rise for the pledge of allegiance and I do apologize. Thank you for baiting and be patient while we had our executive session meeting. United States of America to the stands for all. Okay. M Ramirez, do you have roll call? Okay. Thank you. Okay. The purpose of the me meeting this evening is for approving personnel and other matters properly presented. Do we have any public comment from on regarding agenda items? If you have anyone in the public who would like to speak on agenda items, please come to the podium, sign your name. Okay, seeing none, we will move on to four personnel. I will need a motion for A and B. A motion to approve the attached healthc care buyout resolution and B affiliation agreement

002with Millersville University of Pennsylvania. Motion second. Is there any questions or discussion? Okay. Uh all in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Next we have C. Motion with regrets and best wishes to approve the following retirements as presented. We'll take D, E, and F. D, motion to approve the following resignations as presented. E, motion to approve the following leave of absence as presented. And F, motion to approve the following administrative transfers as presented. Motion. Second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay, next we have G, afterchool program and H. G, motion to elect the following afterchool program employees as presented and H, motion to elect the following summer employee as presented pending receipt of all forms and documents required by the district. Motion. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I I.

003Any opposed? Okay, next we have B. Uh, adoption of the EASD 202526 proposed preliminary budget. Uh, I'd like to make a motion to table this item and reschedu uh the adoption for the budget. Do we have to bring this first and second it first and then table it or can I just do a motion table? So, as we're seeing the presentation a little later tonight and I'd like to make a motion to table. Okay. Okay. Okay. All in favor of tableabling till next week. I Any opposed? Okay. We will have the presentation under the regular board meeting. Okay. Is there any other business? Okay. Seeing none. Okay. Interested citizens in nonaggenda items? Is there any citizens who would like to speak on non-aggenda items? Okay, seeing none, if I can call adjournment to the special

004meeting. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Next, we move into the standing committee meeting. Uh we have the superintendence report. Miss Piaza. Good evening everyone and thank you again for your patience this evening. Uh today I do have a couple presentations that will happen under my section, but I also wanted to um publicly thank Dr. Schultz. She's not with us this evening, but Dr. Katie Schultz today would would have been her last board meeting with us Friday as her last day with us. And so we had an opportunity and we'll continue to see her this week as an opportunity to thank her personally, but publicly wanted to thank her for her years of service here in the district. Um this evening we have a few presentations. So, we're going to start, I think,

005with the East Public Library doing their budget presentation. So, Jen, if you want to join us, great. Thank you. I wasn't expecting to speak so so soon after seeing this. So, this is excellent. Uh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your time this evening. I am here to present to you the 2025 2026 Eastn Area Public Library budget. We are presenting to you a total operating budget for the library of 2,722,119 which as you can see the library's uh budget is asking1,871,364 from the special library tax revenue collected by the school district for this upcoming year. And as a reminder, um the school district agrees to be the taxing uh municipality for the public library. Public libraries do not have the authority to collect taxes in the state of Pennsylvania. Um and that

006um equates basically this year the library's budget is proposing a 3% increase in our budget or a modest increase of approximately 54,000 $54,56. The remainder of our budget, as you can see, consists of um state aid, state aid for being a district library center in the state and just our own inter um internally generated income. Uh there is no proposed increase to state uh to public libraries from Governor Shapiro's budget. Um but that being said, uh we were able to really look at some things um internally and really pull back on some things and um uh with some other retirements and some just within the library. Um really feel that we have a conservative but yet um budget that we can um use going forward for the upcoming year. Um so as we as I

007do custom customly customerly um at this time recap of the last year and talk about things that are happening at the library. Um last year you might remember that we started to direct resource share with the 25 other libraries in the Lehigh Valley. Um, the reason we're able to do this is is because we share the same automation system, the same computer system that we use to check out check out books, check in books, um, our same catalog. Um, that is truly a cost savings for all 25 of us. Um, because we can share our items. we already had a um a vehicle literally in place to share items and we just erased those boundaries. So, if you go on to our website and you're looking for whether it be a book, a DVD, um,

008music or book on CD, and you see that the library, a library in Lehigh County, whether it be Parkland Library or Bethlehem Library or East um, Eastern Monroe in Monroe County Library has that. If you place a hold, simply that item will come to you at Eastston within a day or two. Um that is truly a savings for everyone um because we don't have to try to buy every item that there is available and it does save on shipping. We don't have to ship items. We can get those items that way. Um just in one year we all of us shared over 255,000 items. Um, which that number just when when people ask me like are libraries still really re relevant? People still use libraries? When I say that number, absolutely. And what's interesting about

009that is um the most popular book that was that was shared um for those of you that are readers in the room was of course the women by Kristen Hannah which was a very popular um popular fiction book was on all the book clubs. It's a must-read. It still has a long hold list. But what was what was really telling is that one of the highest books for in that list, the top 10 was um Dave Pilnney's Dogman's Grime and Punishment. And when you know if you know anything about the Dogman books, which I saw all of your fourth graders at the library this year, and I asked them, "What do you like to read?" And they said graphic novels. And most of them said Dogman. Th that Dogman Grime and Punishment book, which we

010all snicker and might like have a little chuckle. That book was shared thousands of times between all of those libraries. And and um although I'm sure adults get a chuckle reading that, that's what I think about is that um families bringing bringing children to the libraries for access to those books. So working together with these libraries has really been a success and I'm glad that we're able to do this in the Lehigh Valley. Um and we are in Pennsylvania the largest sharing partnership in the Lehigh Valley. Um the for back down to the Eastn Library, we circulate uh just about 200,000 items every year. Um we have over 15,000 library card holders in our community and we register um on average about a hundred new library cards per month. And certainly, I know I don't

011need to tell tell you this, but with um have you seen Eastston? All the new construction, all the new apartments, and not just in Easton, but within Palmer, within Forks, um we've really been um able to help promote the library, have um flyers, handouts, goodie bags to tell about this is your library, welcome to the area, please come to the library. um and being able to tell people register new library cards. Um which is great for us to tell people to come to us, but then we have the influx of people coming in and registering new library cards and having to buy new library cards for us. Um so we do see about uh 200,000 visits to the library every year. Um, online materials are still the most po probably so popular as well. Um,

012I'm I know I'm going to tell this to every group. Um, especially this year when we did see the Express Times no longer being published in print. You can still read the Express Times through us. Um uh all you have to do is go to our website and under the e library um besides a wealth of excellent databases um that we do have that your students can use that um anyone can use. We do have access to full text to the images of the express and the morning call um and they are available just with a library card. Um, we also have now 20 museum passes that we loan out to families or to anyone who comes in. We really have seen that uh locally we have some great educational places and we really want

013to encourage people to take advantage. Sometimes um sometimes you don't know about some of these great museums and great um day trips that are accessible to go. So to be able to uh come into the library and check out a museum pass to the uh Constitution Center in Philadelphia or the Seapport Museum or Eastern State Pent Penitentiary around the holiday around the Halloween holiday. Uh we have those passes for you. We have 90 uh 90 mobile hotspots that pro that help families connect to the Wi-Fi um access um within um uh within I lost my train there. Um we have over a thousand people using our computers at the main library and our Palmer branch a month. um because there is such the digital divide still in our community with just trying to get access

014to the internet and access to um to the internet for whatever it is that they're looking for. Um um even just downtown we see um we do charge 20 cents 20 cents for printing uh whether that's printing from the computer or coming in to photocopy and daily um we are that's what we are helping with is people coming in to print because um there really isn't anywhere else downtown to print to connect to print or to photocopy anymore. Um the ebooks, ebooks, we have over 14,000 titles that um people can check out and over 2,000 magazines that you can check out through online and 9,000 audio books that uh you can check out through online as well. Uh this year's summer reading program is Color Our World and that will be starting on June 16th,

015so right after uh right after school ends. um where of course we um we really hope to um uh have our families come in and participate and that's something that we do really enjoy with our children and our teens. We're reading and winning prizes through the library. We have um so many different activities planned. Um we do have uh all different programs. We have Lehigh Valley Zoo coming in this year. Um we have uh ice cream trucks coming in. We have all different all different things to really just make it a vibrant summer. And of course prizes when when uh children and families read. Um our story times are at full at full capacity that we add more story times each uh every every time we can we add another session to story time. Um

016the we do have for our school age children we are offering different kinds of art clubs. We do have gaming clubs, writing clubs. We have all different types of activities that we do try to offer um for our school age children especially in the summer or on the or on the weekends. um our Mark's room of local history. We do have um I know I talked about this before, but we do have a colle of the Russia yearbook and we now are starting to get duplicates, which is great because um you never know when something happens to one or when one decides to take a walk. So, we do have duplicates and we we do keep those in a separate place and we do fill them in. Um, and we're starting to see people coming

017in again. The the ancestry and local history uh interest is starting to uh fire back up through everyone. As I mentioned a little bit ago, it was great to be able to see almost all of the fourth graders this year from the Eastn Area School District. I really thank you uh for your support with working with um working with that permission to allow the fourth graders to come to downtown Easton in partnership with the Seagull Museum. um there they come in and to talk to them about the talk to them about the library, which many of them have already been to the library, of course, the school library, but when I have them in the MarkX room and talk to them about the Easton flag, um especially with America 250 next year, but when I

018talk to them about um envisioning what what life was like in Easton 250 years ago and the Eastn flag and what makes the Eastn flag so special. And for some of them who may have who might have seen the Eastn flag or recognize it from Eastn football games or other um other East sports, um it's really really u fun for me to see and your your fourth graders are tremendous. Um I I'm a little impartial to the Cheston fourth graders of course u being a Cheston alumni as we know but thank you for your support with that and I hope we can always continue having the fourth graders fourth graders come to the library. Um as I'm as I'm wrapping this up as you know I'm we are so grateful for the support of the

019school district um that you provide being our tax collection agency. Um this this partnership goes goes for more than a hundred years and we really are um really thankful that we do work together so well. Um I it is with my great honor that I have been serving as the library director of our public library for 20 years this year. And I I stand here and I I sit here stand here still with all the nerves as when I did 20 years ago. But I think about how much has changed. But I really am just so proud as um as an Eastern area high school alumni um to be a part of this. Um thankful for the partnership, thankful to work with all of you and as certainly as a taxpayer within the district. I

020certainly respect and appreciate your willingness to serve on the uh serve on the school board. I know how much you you do see go through um and you are respected and appreciated. So, thank you for what you do. But is there any questions I can answer about the library's budget? Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay, we do have another presentation this evening and that is from our friends at Dwey and CHA who are going to talk a little bit about our proposed high school building project. Um, steps that have been taken to date. And I know Mr. Ziadic, Dr. Ziadic, sorry, if there's anything else you want to say prior to starting that presentation, feel free. Sure. No, I just want to say thank you to CHA members and ally members along with the administration

021for working through some uh conversations over the past two months uh in regard to the continuation of that design and the project itself. Uh so tonight, we probably have about a 25 maybe 30-minut presentation uh reviewing what we've accomplished over the past two months together as a team. Uh, and then we'd be looking for some feedback and and some some input. Uh, and then we'll talk about future steps. So, just want to welcome CHA and Alloy. And Jamie, I think you're kicking it off tonight. I think Randy said you were kicking it off tonight. We'll do it. We'll do it together. So, I think we might need to just grab this. Do you want to do that? Yeah, fine. So, we're just going to grab this and uh do this. But, uh we want wanted

022to first of all thank Josh, Tracy, Ken, the whole team, the whole admin team that's been uh meeting with us every week. Um and then every two weeks we've been meeting again and then there have been a bunch of uh stakeholder um meetings as well. So, um I know you gave us 25 minutes. We're going to beat that and be ahead of schedule. So, here we go. Jamie, why don't you walk them through? All right. Um, so, uh, this slide's kind of just showing our team that we have here tonight. Um, Randy is sitting behind me. He's our, uh, principal architect and, um, owner of LA5. And again, my name is Jamie Bours. I'm a project manager with LA5. Arie is next to me with CHA. Mike Depodwin is sitting um, supportal support. Mike, he's

023our project manager from CHA. And Rick Rosberry is with us as well. um he is our uh lead on civil with Collier's engineering. So um so this is just a quick uh kind of agenda of what we're going to review today. Um first we're going to go over the site selection which should be pretty familiar to everyone um from previous board meetings. Then we're going to go through the schematic plan of the building. We'll go through some program comparisons between the existing building and the new proposed building. Um and then we're going to talk about construction phasing as well as the budget and the schedule. So, first would be the site selection. Um, so this should look very familiar to you. This is the existing site as it stands today. Um, with just a couple

024stats on the side, your existing square footage at roughly 30 377,000 square feet. Your, uh, current enrollment at roughly 3,000. Um, that gives you about 125 square feet per student, which puts you at a capacity at about 109. So, we know your building is jam-packed currently. Just by just by reference, they used to be rules of thumb when Plancon was available. And the rule of thumb was 120 square feet per student for an elementary school, 150 square feet a student for a middle school, and 200 square feet per student for a high school, just as a reference guide. And we'll talk to you about what the new building is looking like. But those were the basic premises under the plan con uh parameters just to give some benchmarks as a reference to what that actually

025means. So um previously there was um a lot of discussion and investigation to a couple different areas on the site as far as building um back on some of the existing baseball fields on the existing track. um in the corner number four which was initially selected um and we went through a lot of investigation did soils testings um all different types of reports on all that information. You go to the next one. Um we came up with uh this grid um to really analyze the pros and the cons of each site. Um and of course these came out determining that the corner site was the best possibility to use and go to the next one. Um so this is where we end up ended up at the last board meeting that we presented at. So

026um approved the location to use which is the um the baseball field in the corner. Um you know we're looking at certain things to achieve with this which would be to reduce the parking travel distance for the students and staff. Um to reduce the internal travel distance within the school itself and try to um be more efficient with the layout and reduce the square footage of the building therefore reducing the cost. So at that point we were looking at a building um at roughly 450,000 ft to 480,000 ft um with a similar student capacity of student enrollment um which would leave you at 149 to 159 square feet per student and at that point we were looking at a budget range of 290 million to 320 um which is going to change of course. So,

027yep. And the only other color commentary I'll add to this is there were three things that we challenged ourselves with as we went through this. One was just reaffirming the location because there are some challenges with the location that we determined to be strategically the best solution. There are still some challenges with that. But as we were doing that, we went back and revisited and we still are very feel very strongly that that is the best strategic location while keeping the high school in operation. And then the other good news with this slide is we've been uh narrowing down the square footage as well as narrowing down the cost. So that's good news. So when we get to the end and I have to talk about budget, just wanted you to remember this is what

028we showed you in January and we've been keeping it uh below that number and working towards that. And then the last thing I just wanted to mention and um you know uh part of the reason Rick is an instrumental uh Rick Roseberry is an instrumental part of this is you can see the site and the road infrastructure in the site. there is significant site work um uh par parameters and uh items that we must address. We've got some really good news as we move forward which I'll talk to you about. But um you can see from a site standpoint uh we are addressing the entire site campus. So this is a remaster planning I believe of the entire site that we own which is really cool because it gives an opportunity to project out for

029the next 50 to 100 years what this could be for this school district. So there's my color commentary. I'm being dick vital today. Okay. So um the next will be the uh schematic plan review. So um after the site selection and we came back to the studio and really sat down to decipher what would be um our programmatic concept behind the design for the school and we thought about what the heart of Eastston is which was the center square. So you can see you know center square is a square but it's also the circle. So how can we navigate around that circle and and bring the programs to the heart of the school as far as the academics. So, um, we came up with the diagram kind of at the bottom right of a ring

030of academics in the red, um, and how we can merge and connect, um, the arts and the auditorium and music, that department to the athletics with the administration and how we can bring that academic zone um, within all three of those. So, you can go to the next one. Um, so this was the point that we came across. So, um, as Reef said, this is really like a campus master plan, um, redesign. So things that we're getting on site in um because we're moving the building would be new turf varsity baseball field um on the bottom left the a new grass practice base a new grass practice baseball field a new varsity turf softball field new tennis and practice fields a new band practice field near the band room and near the auditorium um a

031new access road around the track to the lower end of the site because you'll see some of the grade changes in um next slides a new access road from the bus lot to the lower site. You can kind of see which we'll zoom in that the buses would come around the back of the building. Um dedicated bus parking behind the building and then additional pedestrian improvements and trying to really centralize all the parking for the school for activities during the day and for after school activities. Anything? Yeah, the only other thing I'll add um so some good news to talk about here. One is um we don't need to do a traffic study. Uh the traffic already exists. We're not really changing too much from a traffic flow. As as those of you who have

032been involved in other projects knows, if a traffic study is waved, that means uh there are potential savings from a traffic standpoint. There'll still be some improvements necessary, but one of the things we're going to do is we're going to make sure we do an internal traffic study by a traffic engineer because one of the things we want to make sure is that the traffic patterns that we organize on site, uh Randy and I were just talking about it earlier, we've talked about it with Rick, is get somebody to independently look at that and make sure our campus planning for traffic movements are the best they could possibly be. Okay. All right. So, um, zooming into that image, um, you can see where we're nestling the building into the corner. And what we're looking at

033is to kind of sink it into the grade and bring some fill up so that we have a level parking lot and a main entrance on a second floor. And then you would go down one floor to programs and then you would go up one floor. So, a big majority of the academic piece would be three stories. Um, your gymnasium is kind of sucken sunk into the ground as well with the main gym floor at the lower level as well as um the the auditorium, sorry, is on the parking lot level on the other side. So, um, we're trying to take advantage of the grade back there and use it to our advantage to get a lot of these academic spaces to have exterior access, be able to get the band to have a a

034good spot on the outside of the building. You can see the green um space between the auditorium and the academic wing. That's where we're proposing the band would have their practice. They still have a parking lot off to the side. Um you can see all the ma major parking in the front bus overflow in front of the um gymnasium for um other after school activities. So um the and the most important thing to think about with this is that you know this this meets the core program that we've reviewed with the EDS specs and reducing down the square footage of the building. Um we have a robust horizontal and circulation system. We're still keeping that ring but we don't have multiple rings anymore. Um, we have additional uh community space. We have uh capacity for

0353,000 students in the gymnasium to hold the whole student body. We have um a capacity for a single class for a thousand in the auditorium. Um we have a lot of common spaces that will be can be also be academically activated. So we're kind of dual using the cafeteria eating areas as large group instruction spaces, open spaces for students to come and gather at. Um, and within, you know, condensing and bringing the building up, we've reduced our interior and exterior travel distances all around. Bless you. So, I I guess you're going to show them the floor plans in a minute, but basically just as a reference guide. So, level two, uh, I guess we would call as the main level, right? um with level one below it which is accessed primarily from the rear and

036then level three is one story up. So really the movements although it's a three-story building are pretty much usually one floor up and down and which really uh makes things uh good from that perspective but also allows us to compact the building footprint for cost reasons and stack things um together. So you'll see that as she walks through the floor plan, but that would give you kind of a good uh reference point. Okay, you can go to the next slide. So this is just a you know flattened version of that image where you can see where we're laying out classrooms. Um we have a key legend at the top there. So um and I know it's it's small and it's hard it was hard to read initially when we put room labels on. So, we're

037trying to get a little bit of a blow up, but we have a really condensed academic wing core. So, we're testing out this um idea of these double corridors with a zone in the middle that would be occupied by academics and adults. So, we have a pieces of administration sprinkled within the academic zones back there. Um we have the the blue greens are the general classrooms, the dark green is science, and then the beigees are the administration. So you can see where we have clustered of things kind of spor like throughout. Um and the light purple is special education or small group rooms or learning support. So um we're trying to you know make this as efficient as we can but also ensure we have natural light to a lot of these spaces. Um you

038can see to the right that's is where we have the right we have our um auditorium. So this is the upper level. So that um the auditorium floor is on the floor below that. So it's kind of sunk into the ground. Um the athletics you would enter on this level. You would enter at the top. So we have a running track above the gym floor. So you would have this level would be like your auxiliary gym and if you were coming for an event in the gymnasium, you could enter and and then go down the bleachers to the main floor. So we're trying to take advantage of that spa of the grade change there by sinking that volume down. So you can go to the next slide. And again, this is a kind of zoom

039in again. Um, you can see it better from the the the uh the previous slide. You can just go to the next one. Um, so going a floor down, this is that ground level. So the back end of the building gets more of that access from the grade. So you can see where we would have some bus parking in the back. And back there are a lot of our uh tech labs, design labs, art rooms. they get they'll be able to get that ground access that outdoor access to everything. Um as well as the band and chorus and marching band auditorium they have a lot of access to the grade around the back of the building as well. So that ground floor would have our main auditorium space again for a thousand students. Um this

040ground level has our main our main gymnasium floor for 3,000 between the seating um all the bleacher seating in that space. Our pool is all the way off to the left. So that would be down on this level as well. Um and then all of the gray in the back is our um maintenance facility u maintenance storage kitchen serving supporting the cafeteria space. Um you can see the dark um blue we kind but that's our common. So that can act as um our cafeteria space or a group, you know, large group instruction space that has access to that courtyard as well as the other dark blue kind of in the middle below where the main entrance would be. That's um we're proposing as our media center or library to kind of be part of the

041eb and flow of the the you know the student population and the circulation with still some you know secluded areas underneath for books and small group meeting spaces. But we really wanted to activate that space as part of the academics. And then this would be the third floor. So you would access this floor from stair towers throughout that piece. And this again is mostly general classrooms, science labs. Again, we have science stacked really on all three floors. Um and then some small group support rooms on this floor as well. So this will be an interesting chart and if anyone has any questions about it, feel free to interrupt me because it's going to be a lot of information on it. Um but just to start off um the the the admin and our group tooured

042a couple of schools ahead of the design of the the new building. Um and we went you know reviewed the ed specs reduced the program in September um you know further to uh 5,000 535,000 square feet. Then kind of took another round reduced the program even further. So we got it down to right under 500uh,000 square feet. And currently where we're at now, you can see the date of April of this year. Um this is our current square footage where we're at now. So we're down to 457,000 square feet. Um which gives us at a PTE capacity of 200 2,975 students. Um PD of course takes capacity a little bit differently because they look at 25 children per uh classroom and we know you have 30. So you have, you know, clearly have more room

043to put more kids in that building where we're at right now. Um, but that also puts us at 151 square feet per student. Um, and you can see that comparison to some of the schools that we toured such as Dallas High School, Wils Bear, Inboro, and Upper Marian. um those have some larger numbers, but again, we're looking to make a more efficient building and activate some of those open spaces to try to, you know, really have a a dense academic building and keep that circulation down. So this chart again has a lot of information on it but what we did was we took the existing program which is on the upper level. Um we added up all the square footage allocated to the disciplines. So academic classrooms which is English science or English language u

044social studies you know those types of rooms um science labs special ed support and so on. Um the dark blue is common spaces. So, cafeteria, library, and then your we have we have that labeled as service initially in the existing um community spaces. We're looking at music, theater, and then gymnasium, athletics, anywhere that the public may gather after school hours, and then our support for the building, which is academic and faculty. So, in your when you're looking at the existing building, you have a net square footage, which is minus circulation and support spaces, bathrooms, all those other things. you have a number of 240,000 square feet. That's compared to your overall square footage, which is 377,000 square feet. So that gives you a ratio, which is an efficiency of 1.57. So that's already that's that's

045pretty good. Um, but when we go to the building we're looking at now, we're trying to activate more of those spaces that you wouldn't normally activate. So, we're trying to pull some of those community spaces into the academic zone and we're increasing some of those spaces to have, you know, the capacity to house 3,000 students in the gym or a thousand students in the auditorium, things like that. So, we're upping our square footage numbers in all of those categories, but we're also making our building more efficient. So, we're looking at a net of 300 311,000 square ft versus your total square footage of our building, which we're at 457,000 square feet. So, we actually are going to reduce our um we're going to get better efficiency at 1.46, but we're gaining almost 70,000 square feet

046in building. So, we're making this a greater, more academically efficient building for our students. Um and again that's because there is an increased um learning square footage by activating some of those service spaces for academic and community use. Um we have less of a travel distance. We we have only one big ring instead of multiple in the building. Um which reduces our travel distance by almost 300 square feet. And um you know our parking increased but we're making it more efficient by having it all be on the same level rather than at all these tiers. So yeah. So, just to reinforce what she said again, uh, oops, sorry. So, the scheduled area is what the 311 is and the 240 that's called scheduled area. So, it's scheduled for use essentially. And then the other one,

047the architectural area. So, just again as a reference point, uh, PTE asked you for justification if your ratio was greater than 1.58. So the existing school is just at that teetering point whereas the proposed school is well below it. So again just to give you another reference data point. Um the other thing that this did for us is we were concerned when we saw the uh double corridor in the classroom wing, but it reinforces I think that there is efficiency being gained all around and that although that provides so many different opportunities from when we saw some of the schools that had that, it's not hurting us, which is a positive. So if the district really likes that, which the team really liked and it seems to work from a educational delivery standpoint, we seem

048to be on track from an efficiency standpoint of a design. So I'll say Alloy 5 is doing a good job. I don't want them to say it. Keep that. All right, I'm going next. Okay, so you better help me out with their color commentary, too. You know what I mean? So, all right. So, construction phasing, as I said, you know, we confirm that we're at the right spot, but um you know, keeping a high school of 3,000 students. And by the way, it's tremendous with the some of this good weather we've had when we went out there and did our reconoitering for the phasing. Anybody know what that word reconider is? Anyway, it's a uh Yes, you do. I'm sure you do. Good call. Yeah. Anyway, you can tell them later. But anyway, the the

049bottom line is um it's such an active site. So much going on. Um so that's where we're going to need help from the district. You know, Kenny's already on board it with this. Josh is the principal. Kyle's been at meeting. Um they're on board with we know we're going to unfortunately have to deactivate some zones to really make this work. And really what's important is it's a school site first. construction site second. That's what we have to remember when we start talking about the phasing. It's as simple as that. However, there's a big however. We have to make the construction site efficient and executable so we don't overpay. The example I like to give is you drive up and down the turnpike, the Pennsylvania turnpike, and you see the number there. It's a $298 million

050project widening from uh you know Plymouth meeting up there all the way up to Quakertown, right? Well, if I were to tell you only a hundred million of that is going into permanent improvements and 198 million was spent on all of the temporary stuff. We don't want that, right? So, there's going to be a little bit of pain and there's going to be a little bit of work that we're all going to have to do to do it. So, we've set up on the bottom. I'm not going to go into the details of the phasing because that's for us to work out. But just from a general timeline, we have it broken in three phases. Phase one is to start in May 2027. And by the way, starting at the right time is key. Bidding

051at the right time is key. Getting our bid documents right, our phasing and our site plan and all of that right is key. There's so many keys that we've got to hit so that we can beat our budget. That's really the key. Phase one, bam, one year. We're basically uh within the yellow zone. Everybody's a little happy at this time except for the pool people because we have to take the pool out in order to really make this work. But other than that, we're starting off nice. We getting some earthwork, some of the storm water that Rick likes to get happy with, but other than that, nobody really cares. And we're seeing some footings and stuff happening. So, one year. Go to the next slide. Now we're in phase two. You see the line timeline

052on the bottom. Now we're in phase two. Now we're still happy because we're starting to see some stuff happening, but there's more contractors on board. Stuff's coming in. You know, Kenny's getting called cuz can't get this out and you know, closing stuff down and you know, Mike Depodwin's pulling his hair out. He's going to be like me by that point. You know, no hair. So here we go. Right. So two years of that. two years of getting this building out of the ground, this beautiful building that's going to be the new Eastern High School. Now, we are coming to the last phase. And you can see, if you remember, just stay on that slide for a minute. If you remember that front entrance there, we have to get to the front entrance. But in order

053to do that, the existing schools in the way. And what portion of the school is that right there? So remember we got rid of the pool of off the end there where the blue uh blue items are. Now the whole that whole wing is the mechanical plant and gym gymnasium area. So now a little bit more pain because there is no way we could do abatement abate abatement demo that building and do the site work so you can get to the front of the building properly in what do you guys have these days for summer? 8 10 weeks maybe. you know, you close school and you're starting it up again already and so all of that. So, we need more time than that, as you can imagine, to do that demo and get that site

054work. So, we haven't worked out all the details, but we're working through that. So, we're going to need something early 2030. If you go to the next slide, early 2030, that red part is the biggest issue. Um, we're going to have to work with the team. The AD's been on all of the team meetings. He's been there. Uh Kyle's been there. Uh we're going to have to figure out how we uh get an early phase demo uh back feed the building with a temporary uh cooling plant um and electrical and keep the rest of the building functional while allowing construction to continue in that area. And then there's a lot of other logistics. I'm not going to bore you, but to us that's the biggest challenge. So want to make sure the board's aware of

055it, make sure the community is aware of it. There are some challenges. We've been through some harder stuff before. This will get done. Um and we'll figure it out. All right. So, that's the phasing. Sure. Color commentary. So, um, the the beginning too, we have to know that those the soft the baseball field that the building's going to go on, all of those new fields at the, you know, the left of the site would be constructed first so that any of those sports that would be disrupted would, you know, be done and out of the way so that we wouldn't lose any fields during the the main school to be constructed. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you. I thought she was going to say it's a great job with the phasing, but

056it is a great job. Okay. Yeah, I'm just saying. All right, so the next slide I think we're going into the budget. All right, so the budget and the final, you know, schedule we've kind of talked about, but the budget. So we came to in January with the site option selection. You saw that slide. The number was north of 300 million. We've brought it down. So rest easy. We brought it down. We came back to you with the draw schedule that Jack and the financial team are working on. And I know you guys have a, you know, have to deal with that. It's a tough decision. Um, but obviously that's part of the the plan there. So, just wanted to remind you. So, today the numbers you're going to see are are below the the

057numbers that we've been talking about, which is a good thing. The square footage, we're at uh, as she said, 460. Actually, we went down. We're 457, even better. Um, where we were talking about 420 to 480. So, we're doing really well there. And you can see from an efficiency and program standpoint, it's going to be hard to uh reduce more. Uh we don't want to have a building that doesn't service for the future. So we need to be careful with that. We've had to take care of some additional site work. Um and some of the site work logistics are very very complicated. Just to very simply put, all of the utilities head down towards um 22 right across the site that we're building on. So, we've got that. We've got storm order. Storm water heads

058down there. So, some big challenges which uh Rick is up to the task. He's going to be hovering above and figuring out all the solutions, but we've worked through some of those. We have some ideas on how all that's going to work. Preliminary phasing we talked about. Um for a project of this size, we felt like we could uh tweak down the um fees, permits, soft costs from uh 15 to 13. And I'll show you that. This is a big one. We've set the inflation factor at 2% right now. And I'll show you what that means. It's still big numbers, but um that's something we have to work on. And that to me is going to be dictated by timing, proper bidding at the right time, the order of magnitude of this project, making sure

059contract doesn't execute. We can we can work on that number that way. So, those are some parameters I wanted you to be aware of before we reveal the budget. Next slide. That was like the draft yesterday. You know, they call it the reveal. Sixers couldn't do it though. Still number three picks. Geez. Anyway, so the reveal for the budget is $298 million is what we're looking at as the total project cost. Now what I want to remind you what that means is if you look up above the construction cost the hard construction costs permanent improvements is 230 million approximately. So out of the you know 298 230 is hard construction cost. Then you come down the line and you know we we can address any of those but in that is everything from the abatement

060to the demo to the site work um and a very limited amount of phasing line item and then fees permits as I said I think we have plenty there and then we've got furniture and equipment we got to fit this building out we got close to $7 million there the administration's going to work with Josh and Kenny and the principal are going to work on honing that down. I think we can pick up something there. Um, and then we've got two contingencies there. They add up to about $11 million. We have to keep those and hopefully minimize what we end up using there, if anything. And then right below the bottom line there is, you know, it's a long project. We've got about 7% in inflation also factored into this budget, which is good, but

061obviously we don't the fact that we have something in there, but also we don't want to use it, right? If there was something we were going to save or find a way to get it, imagine if we could either get half of that back or some version of that $20 million back on the table. That would be fantastic. Or not spend it, right? So that's how we make up the 298 million total project cost at an executive level. We're sharing that. Now the next slide is going to tell you the work we still have to do. So the work we have to do is we have to monitor. ENR tells us that inflation's at 4% is what we should use. I think that's okay for a project when you're 70 million 60 million because of

062the magnitude of this project. I feel like right now hovering at that 2% is still okay because of the order of magnitude that it is. Okay. But we have to keep an eye out on that. The earthwork and geotechnical investigations we have to do. So if there's something that we don't know, we know the square footage, but the subsurface issues on this site, as you know, we picked the site where we felt from a historical perspective and initial investigation had the least possible risk. We now want to verify that as the design gets further and confirm it. There will be some un subsurface improvements required. I can tell you when we did that uh classroom addition off by uh adjacent to the track, we had to do compaction grouting. Uh Lehigh Valley is a is

063a bad area for subsurface sinkhole carbon geology. Unfortunately, this site has additional issues to contend with. So, we're going to have to do something. We have some money put into that budget to for it. We just want to make sure we manage it right and include it upfront so it is part of the project bids. That's what we want to do there. Okay. We are continuing to look at the tariff uncertainty. Every one of our clients asks me about that against the current schedule. Bottom line, construction, you can ask anybody. There's never a cheaper time to do it than now. You postpone something, it just becomes more expensive. What the impact of the tariff is, we can all sit here and talk about it. I don't know that anybody knows the answer to that, but

064we're going to have to just continue to monitor that. If there's things we can do to mitigate uh impacts to us, we'll have to do that. Again, you have to remember when you do a project like this, just another rule of thumb. I've given you quite a few rules of thumb today. But another rule of thumb, about a little over half of that hard construction cost is labor. So that's not affected by tariffs. Then a lot of the stuff that we're putting into the ground when you talk about the other half of materials is soil, dirt, movement, you know, concrete, uh, masonry products that, you know, I'm not sure what the impact is going to be, but there will be some could have impact. I'm not going to say no. I just don't have the

065answer. We're going to monitor it. Okay. Opportunities though. Continue to scrutinize overall square footage. Make sure we we keep to that 257 or less. This is a big one. This project is prime for value engineering. Um so we use save society of American value engineers and we're certified in that and we've done some tremendous value engineering exercises. after today, after getting your input and maybe at the next meeting, some additional input from the board. Either way, we're rolling up our sleeves and the whole team's going to going to work on a value engineering exercise. We're going to study what type of footings. We're going to challenge each other on the type of structural steel. We're going to challenge each other on the HVAC systems, electrical, plumbing, every single area. We're going to make sure we

066deliver value to the district. Okay? Not always cutting costs, delivering value. That's what the key is going to be. And I can talk to you a little bit more about that at the next meeting. Verify off-site improvement, scope of work. PennDOT, I already gave you the good news on that. We don't have to do a traffic study, but there will be some road improvements in 25th Street. There'll be some improvements along William Penn for sidewalks. Sidewalks are being put in everywhere, and that's probably a good thing at a high school. So again, um, good stuff there. The site work is in progress defining that scope a little bit better with storm water and all the earth work. So we're in in that process and we're going to find a way to make sure, you know,

067we can keep as much dirt on site, minimal import, all of those type of strategies. This is a big one, the I told you about timing, the procurement strategy. We may have an early sight phase. What's the biggest procurement challenge on this project? I'll give you the answer. The size of the project. There are a limited number of general contractors and even other prime contractors that have bonding capacity or capability to execute a project like this. I already know how to fix that. We're looking at that. We got a strategy for that. So, we're going to work on that. We're not going to say it publicly because I'm not yet ready to reveal. All right. So, we're going to work on that. Evaluate and refine the fixed furniture and equipment budget. Bottom line, a lot

068of opportunities to to keep us in the right direction and we've got a lot of work to do. So, we're looking for your input today. I think I think that's the last of the slides. We're looking for some direction, input. Oh, two more. Oh, schedule. Yeah, I think we've we've got the schedule. Go ahead. Yeah, the schedule. I think you kind of know it. I hit that with the phasing, so I won't belabor it, but we want to be in the ground, right? We just said right there in uh 2020, what is the date there? Groundbreaking. We want to do a ground May of 2027. Okay. Uh the next big milestone for the board, I'll tell you that which is going to come up on the next slide, is we're going to come to you

069in August of this year. Um, yeah, but I just wanted to show them on the overall timeline. No, that's fine. If you see that August date, board update, that's when we will be asking for um jumping out of schematic design and going into design development. So, the stages of uh design are schematic design, which we're in now, design development, then construction documents, then bidding, and then construction. So the next major milestone will be design development and then also a big act 34 hearing that'll come up which is again required by law. Uh but you guys have been open book on everything showing everybody everything. So I don't anticipate that to be a big issue. But if you go to the next slide as Jamie was saying just a little clearer date pictures where you can

070do that. Here we are today May 13th. There's a May board meeting. We're happy to come back in uh June at the standing committee meeting and uh either reply to some of the questions that come up between now and then or just give you another update or just revisit the same thing all over again. Whatever is at the direction of of the board u director H. So whatever you guys decide on that we'll we'll be happy to do that. And then like I said, we're coming back to you in August to stick with the schedule because if we don't bid this thing at the right time, don't start at the right time. To me, that's a big big variable that uh we have to control and we need your help to control that. So, I

071think that's it. I think last slide. Is there something else at the end? Mike, what's the last one? So, the next steps, continue board updates, the board meeting. Uh, by the way, just you know, plan con's in moratorum. They keep things going to open up. So, we're still going to follow the original plan con process for accountability and also just to have it on the record. Um, maybe they'll just open it up and we'll submit all the forms and we'll get some additional reimbursement. I can only hope, right? Um, as soon as you give us some direction and we're moving with schematic design, we are going to look at um some other funding opportunities to try to offset some of these costs. They're not going to be huge, but every million-doll grant that we can

072pursue is going to be a benefit. I have had good good success with some RCAP funding for school projects lately. Um, we would need the support of the local um legislators to do that. So, we'll get on the road with Josh and Tracy and perhaps one of the board members uh to help us, you know, with that endeavor as well. So, that's there. And um I think the rest of it we've sort of all hit, right? Okay, Josh. Yeah, thank first of all, thank you. That was very comprehensive and we appreciate the time that everybody's put into this over the past few months. Arie, I do want to make a few references to some of the comments. Um you know, although we've presented quite a few things and we've been working through this for I

073would say probably two months on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with a lot of uh team members. Um and we've had these presentations for the public and for the board. uh you know, we'll continue to strategize as administration, as a district to seek ways to get, you know, stakeholder input, um public feedback, etc. You know, we'll continue to still look at that. Um and then we'll most likely also look to have a some type of committee workshop or or an evening where we can work through this as an ad hoc committee as well. Um and we'd be looking to do that probably in sometime in June. Uh looking and seeking board feedback and just open it up to, you know, to a workshop. So, wanted to just share that because I know that's important. When

074we look at the timeline, I think we've heard it multiple times this evening that we are trying very uh diligently to keep to the timeline for and for a million reasons, none none more important than just pure budget and and meeting those deadlines. Um, and just as a reminder, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, we the administration continues to work, you know, with you and with Alloy in creating these plans so that we can hit those milestones. Um, and should anything ever change, we'll certainly communicate that with you, but we're going to keep on our our track to make sure we can hit those. So, uh, just want to make a few of those comments and open it up to feedback, input, suggestions, etc., and other comments. So, at this point,

075Josh is correct. Our next opportunity to hear a little bit about it, not not a ton, but a little bit more about it or to see some schematas will be Monday night at the state of the district. uh we will have a table there where there'll be some drawings and schematas available and possibly some QR codes for some feedback. Um we will be seeking to have you continue this is part of our ad hoc committee. We did decide to do this project at this point in time as a predominantly as a committee of the whole um and which then invites the public to those meetings. So, we will continue to have updates as appropriate during our standing committees, but we will also schedule some additional um building project open forum committee meetings. First one being

076in June, date not selected yet. Um and then as necessary or as needed, we will have smaller ad hoc committees join some of our already standing meetings that happen during the workday. But our preference where appropriate is to have these as open forums for our board as well as the community. So, we continue to gather feedback. So, I will encourage the board as we're doing that to open, you know, offer your feedback there and then as necessary, as I said, we'll bring them into a smaller smaller committee groups if if needed. Um, so that's where we'll start for now. Yeah, just Okay. Just yeah, just just real quick. This came up before. I've mentioned it before again and I do appreciate the uh looking at the square footage cutting down and I I've seen some

077numbers that you work with on this, but uh you know, we did do an enrollment study. So, we're looking at the way the enrollment study says right now around the time the school would open, we would only have about 2500 students at the school as opposed to 3,000. Um, I'm not going to sit here and argue about the math and everything else like that, but that that does if if you do the math on the formulas, that really knocks it down about another 50,000 square feet if you're sticking with the 162 number. Um, which and the other magic number you had in there uh the the 420 number multiplied by something uh that knocked like 23 billion off that number right there. uh based on that square footage you multiply square footage by um 420

078towards the end. So just some observations that I had made uh no the two questions I had though gymnasium athletics that seems to be quite a sizable square footage from 52 to 79. Um, what I'd like a little more on detail. What is that? Is that is that because maybe we're going with a more full-size pool maybe or or a standard size for gym for hosting high school, you know, events, wrestling, basketball, volleyball. Yeah. So, you know, to be kind of like in like compliance or or whatever whatever the term is. Yeah. To meet right standards for sports and stuff. Yeah. So we we looked at, you know, taking advantage of the grade to efficiently stack, you know, pieces that we could like auxiliary grims up on the second floor above wrestling. You know, weight

079room has access off of that running track. Um but you know, you're um we we you know went back and forth on where is the entire student body held and the direction was the gymnasium. It's a cheaper space to build if you know it's a cheaper larger space to build than an auditorium to seat 3,000 students. So, um the idea was that we'd have one class in the auditorium as as far as capacity and then you could seat the entire student body in the gymnasium between the bleachers and chairs on the floor. So, um that's where the biggest increase is coming from as far as that. Um you know, the pool you're kind of limited to what it is because of how the pool functions. Um, you know, we're still kind of looking at certain

080ways to maybe cut something from that, but um, the biggest increase is from that gymnasium space, that main gym space. So, and I'll also add uh, Director Snider. So, two other comments with you. So, also the gymnasium space is the heavily used most community space, right? And the other piece is unfortunately the current one is undersized, right? So, right, factor all those variables in. And then the only other comment I'll make um you know obviously enrollment I'm not going to say whether it's 2500 or what it is but um I would just request that you just can't do the math directly off that square footage because the core spaces the one you just identified probably we're not going to reduce it um if you reduce classrooms. So when you are going to reduce square footage

081for enrollment it's going to directly be at the classroom. So, you can't use that ratio um to just do the maths. It'll reduce square footage, but it won't be anywhere close to what you're just talking about. But it will reduce square footage and it will reduce cost if that's the directive of the board. Um and you know, through the administration, however, but it won't be those numbers, I'm just telling you because you're not doing the math quite right. Yeah, thank you. I I wasn't figuring the math would be perfect. I'm just going as a kind of a guide, thinking aloud with that. But I do I do think it's something that we do need to consider that that the enrollment may may be less uh with that. And that's really all I want to say.

082I don't want to dwell on that. I know other people have questions. And I and I just want to make a comment here. I feel bad for the art and technology department. They um they're getting a whopping whole new two square feet out of this. Everyone else seems to be getting uh little more little more elbow room it appears there. So um maybe 9950 is enough for art and technology. I really don't know. But it's just kind of a it really stuck out with me and I know it stuck out with Jen too like well everyone else got big space but h two square feet there you go I could maybe put a shakuerie board here and there it is. So okay that's all I I wanted to mention. I know other people had questions

083so I don't want to hold it up. Thank you. Okay go. Um so I really don't have that many questions but so um enrollment was the big one and wanted to talk about the enrollment and you know is that typical that schools when you're building new schools you build spaces for the entire uh student body and when I look at the other four schools you had for an example what was the square footage and the total cost of those projects I mean they're half half the enrollment But you what what total cost? I wouldn't that would not be unfortunately a relevant answer, but I can get it for you. Well, I'm just saying. So, what are you looking at a square footage cost by for for your for our building right now? Yeah, we're at

0844. It's right there. We're at 420. 420. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's right. It's right on that on the bottom of that that page. You are um you have the inflation. Just to correct, that's $420 a square foot, right? That's what we're saying. Yeah. On that cost estimate page, you have that uh the bottom section there, the 2% inflation per year. Yes. And it says midpoint of construction. Are we bidding in phases or is it going to be one bid at the beginning? No. What happens is that's the way we do inflation. uh director Simonetta because what happens is when contractors and subcontractors are bidding the project the what they look at is when are they going to be able to procure materials have it on site and execute the work. So that's why it's usually

085taken to the midpoint of construction. Um like I said that's one we have to continue to monitor. I'm very comfortable with the midpoint of construction strategy. the number that um I'm happy to have a discussion and somebody else might be smarter or have a better answer. We had to come up with something is whether the 2% is accurate. That's impossible for me to come up with but I'm very comfortable with the midpoint of construction that strategy we've used. It's the industry standard on how you do inflation. Okay. I just didn't know why that wouldn't be included in that first section at the 230 and add the 19 there or the 20 there versus Say that one more time. Apologize. I didn't know why that wouldn't be added if if that's your budget for construction cost

086of the building. That I would assume that to be part of that first section and the cost of the building would be $249. So you're saying just move it up? I mean I'm not saying to do that. I'm just saying I was confused about bidding in phases. Yeah, I don't No, it's not in phases. I don't have a problem doing what you're saying. I'm happy to move the line up. I just want to monitor it separately. That's all I was pointing out. And the only thing I was pointing it out is um you know the numbers up above there is some logic to it and some engineering judgment as well as construction. But the 2% the inflation one I don't know. We can look at the news and I have no idea right. No, I'm

087good with it separately and monitoring. I just was questioning Yeah. if it was all part Yeah. But and but the other good point you're making, you made a very good point there. It's only on the 230, right, Mike? Right. Dep on the 230. It's not on the soft cost. So, okay. That's the other point you're making, I think, which is very valid. Thank you. Okay. So, we've been talking about this for years. I think we're we've added cost to this project um because we delayed and delayed um money is a factor. We're trying to go out and trying to get the public to support this. I know it's been talked about before I got on the board. We may have talked about it, you know, since but everyone's asking why do we need it? Why

088are we doing this? We can't afford it. All that. My question is I don't know if we're driving that point home enough on the need as opposed to try to renovate what we have. And I know you did an analysis renovation versus new. Um I I think that that should be brought forth again. Um there's a there's a formula to do that. And what are those renovations? You know, I've heard numbers of 30 million. Well, we can fix the high school for 30 million. That's not feasible. I know that. But that's what I'm hearing. So, the question is, I think we need to bring that up again. If we're going out, we're going out with a budget. We're trying to get the public support. Um, I think we need to re uh uh re whatever

089we're looking for, rekindle uh that conversation to make it very clear why we're going for a new high school versus trying to renovate and maintain. The end of the day, we've said this for months now. We're borrowing money. We're borrowing money to fix the high school, to do what we have to do if we don't build new. We're borrowing money because we've spent all the reserves. We're borrowing money to fix our other facilities. So, we need to keep this borrowing plan moving forward. I just think I don't believe that the public is aware or remember the conversation about renovation versus new. And I think we need to really bring that up again. and maybe your next report, next analysis, even if it's two minutes, why we why we went this route and why we're continuing

090to go this route. Yeah, Director Serminetta, I know you have a lot of experience and you're very savvy with uh how to do these projects. So, um we can definitely revisit it, but one of the things we have to do when we revisit it is we have to be careful that we're comparing apples to apples. And that's where the real challenge becomes when you're saying renovation because yes, we can go fix the roof and we can go fix some HVAC and we can go do something. I guess tear the pool down and build a new pool, but you know, like I I I don't know like what parts are we doing and I think that's the issue. We will definitely revisit it, but um we're going to revisit it as close to the options as

091we had before. And then we're going to have to adjust for some of the programming that we've verified. And then we're gonna have to adjust all of those other numbers for the current costs that have also changed because I think it was maybe almost a year ago when the decision was let's um let's pursue new versus renovation because we're putting good money after bad. And then there's a variable of programming. How do you do the programming in an existing building and all the challenges of the existing building? I I understand we'll do it. I I'm just saying at this point we're at crunch time. We're going to be asking for a budget that's going to support this building program that's probably going to be more of a tax increase than than it has been. And

092I think that needs to be front and center on why we're doing it as opposed to just asking for it if that's what the board wants. Yeah, it's up to the board, too. I'm just saying that it I think it'd be very beneficial. Yeah. So, as we started this conversation, again, I should say restarted the conversation, we talked about a couple of different options. One was renovate, one was hybrid, keep part of the structure and build around that structure, and one was new. And I certainly think we can re um iterate some of that conversation for the public and the board. Um, so your point's well taken, but there are very distinct reasons, mostly financial, um, and structural, why we chose to go this route, but I think that can certainly be revisited. Um, you

093know, so the community and the board have full knowledge of that. Again, I and believe it's justified. I It's just, you know, I don't think everybody remembers or understands that. Sure. And the other Go ahead, Josh, real quick if you don't mind. Um, and we can certainly reiterate that too. I do want to make a comment. Um, I know you mentioned you heard about $30 million to maintain the high school. Um, I'm I don't recall being 30 and I will say to you that it was 30 in regard to capital improvements as part of the fun as part of the borrowing plan for the next 5 years. But I will say publicly we've made the comment that when we looked at the capital improvements over the next 5 years just in order to maintain the

094high school, we're looking at more about 53 to $60 million to do those improvements. And then that obviously doesn't address, you know, any of the other needs. that just gets it to a place where it's status quo. Um, but we're it's really more closer to 60 million than anything else. So, um, just want to echo that to make sure we're all on the same page, obviously. And that's the analysis I'm looking for or I think people are looking for, well, 60 million, we'll do 60 million to maintain the high school over five the next five years instead of 300 million. I'm saying explain that. That doesn't do us that doesn't get us anywhere on our needs for the high school. And that's what I'm trying to to get at. Um, and you talked about the

095the ad hoc committees and like the board the board's input is after presentations and input and decisions have been discussed. You know, we've done very successful projects as ar mentioned and there was always board input during those schematics. I'm hoping that they'll the that ad hoc committee or the board input will be on the earlier side of these presentations at the design phase starting in August uh versus getting it after the fact now. But that's not for you. That's conversation here. So we we'd welcome it as soon as possible. Yeah, that's been very successful in the past year and it's been very successful in other districts that I've worked with. Thank you. Yep. So, as previously mentioned, those will start in June and be running, you know, pretty regularly there forward. Um, I will also

096make a comment, reiterate what I said last board meeting around the scope of the project. It is something that we're asking our firms to look carefully at the size and the enrollment and keep that in mind from multiple perspectives. A standard building and what is our enrollment projections going to be versus also thinking out of the box about public education and what does that need to look like and how many students will we actually bring into the building at one time. And so those are all things that will continue to be part of those conversations we have with the board and the public and the staff regarding what that building ultimately looks like from a capacity standpoint. The other piece I think Brian maybe you're you asked was around the gymnasium and the size of

097that excuse me in a re uh response was it was 100% accurate. Couple things that we were looking for there. one is be able to have the capacity to run the athletic programs that we need to run for our district um in a flagship building that we're spending a lot of money on. So, we don't want to now say we're going over to the middle school to keep continue to run basketball. While that is an option, we want to make sure we have the facility within the building that we're building. Um and the other piece is that currently within the high school, there is no space in that building that the entire four grade level body can come together as a body. So anytime they do any kind of assembly or celebration, we have one

098of our grade levels that are watching it on, you know, on the big screen on their ETV in the classroom or auditorium. And so we do think it is important from a community standpoint to have a space and the gym being the most um inexpensive and efficient space to be able to allow that entire student body. Even if we're talking about a a system where kids are ebbing and flowing ebbing and flowing across a span of time, when that full student body comes together, is there a space that they can convene as a group? Um, and that's where that number of 3,000 is coming at this point in time. You're welcome. So, my last comments on that part of it, too, and thank you very much for the presentation. Um, I think when we talk

099about some of the stuff with the arts and the gym and those kinds of things, I I'm hoping that as it was looked at, reorganizing some of the way it's set up might also help even though the size might not be increased. And also to think about that not every student is taking art so it doesn't affect as many students. But I'm hoping looking at some of the design part of it is that the reorganization of it is allowing a little bit more efficiency and effectiveness for them to be able to have the the um curriculum that that's effic that's good for them. I I will also say related to that, some of the locations that are currently being proposed are looked at are strategic locations within the building to allow for opportunity to go

100out into the green space or the outdoor space to pull that into the classroom and rooms like our art rooms or um bigger tech rooms or spaces that are being uh capitalizing on that option as well as we currently talk about that plan. Anything else about the about this at this point? Just real quick. So looking at the design portion of it, what exactly will be? Is that where we're going to be looking at each of these and saying, "Okay, here's a suggestion of what we have as far as the design or here's the questions we have." I think in August it says begin design development. What exactly is covered with that? What we're looking for is to get as much input between now and August. Okay. um after uh August um we want to

101make sure that the building footprint doesn't move, but we still have a lot of work to do in inside each of the spaces. But as an example, if director Snyder uh decided and the board agreed that we want to make the gym smaller as as an example, probably not the best one and probably won't, you know, but there's an example that we have to know now. Okay. If for some reason you really decide you want to design the building for 2500 and want to cut 15 classrooms, I don't know, I'm just using a number. We should know that now. So that feedback should happen now. Um like director Simonetta said, if for some reason we don't like a three-story building, that's got to be decided. Now, I'm just giving you the type of things that

102we need input on now. That's why we're here. We've been to you a couple of times. The the location hasn't changed, you know, but some of the other detail stuff the administration is very capable with staff to, you know, fit out the room and how the science room is going to go. I I don't think that's a executive level input. You know, um that's I think more administrative. But the executive level decision we want right now is are we on the right track? Is there something you'd like us to revisit? The type of big things like director Snyder brought up. That's a big thing. Um, you know, so that's what we're looking for. Um, the type of HVAC system, we'll come to you with that later and let you know what that is. You'll certainly

103be able to say yay or nay, but that's, you know, Kenny in our area of expertise. Um, we hope you'll concur with our direction, but just globally. And then there'll be the aesthetics. So soon you'll start to see the exterior. That's something that the architect will want tremendous feedback. That's board level decisionmaking on what the aesthetics are. We want to focus the civic presence. There's a famous quote by Winston Churchill, right? We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us. That's the board's um that's what the board should be working on, the shape of the building. the size of it, the budget, all of these type of things. These are the areas we need your input. If we were to get input right now and you were to tell us, I don't know, you got to

104bring the square footage down or something. We got to know that now because at some point we're going to be very challenged to go back and then we're going to miss the timelines and all of those things that Josh outlined are going to happen and we don't want to go there with redesign. So this is like director Simonetta like you asked director H. We need that input now. We're willing to come back weekly monthly whatever it is. We're working all all day all the time on this stuff. So we're ready. So without asking those questions or asking those questions again not saying that did it did there was any analysis that reducing it to 2800 students did that save a significant number not having the big rooms like yeah if you go back to the

105floor plan we've talked about this so if you go back to the floor plan um you know the team has talked about that director Simonetta and even so go back up one sorry the other way the no you're doing good go Keep going. One more. H. Go. One more. Bigger one there. That one. Okay. So, see the Actually, even the bigger floor plan would be better. Go up. Oh, these are the phasing. Yeah, you're you're right. Sorry. Thank you. That's it. Yeah, there you go. So, see those um rooms there at the end on the far right on the upper right where the stair tower is. Okay. Um they're like in a yellow bluish green, whatever that is. And then there's the gray. So if you take those three rooms off and you know three

106floors of it, there's nine rooms. Okay, nine rooms times 30, that's 270, right? I don't know, something like that. So that's something that we've set up that we could still do. Director Simonetta knows the strategy. Um maybe it's just an alternate bid because you know today you could he thinks you're going to save 23 million. I'm going to tell you you're not going to save 23 million by lopping that off. But that's the analysis. So but we've already done that Mike. We're we're that's but we didn't we'll tell you. I just told you ask questions. We'll tell right. So that that is a conversation we had and my directive to that was to take the nine rooms off. But I'll be ready to do that. So I think I mean that's for me without having

107board suggestion but that would be my suggestion is take those nine wombs off. We can do it as adults. Yeah. Well and we also have to think about like um so with the act 34 process. You're you're looking at me but we're not included in this to have that now we are but I'm saying now. So that's that's that's my issue as opposed to being in on the early stages. Yeah. Okay. So my suggestion is can we pick a date for June to start having these discussions and that way we're all informed, we pick a date, we can start having the conversations and the public's also informed. So um provide that date for you. Okay. So thanks. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. So, the remainder of my superintendent's report, couple

108real quick announcements. Um, May 18th is National Speech Language Pathologist Day. So, certainly want to thank anyone who is working in that field for us. And then we do have the state of the district on Monday night starting at 6:00 at Cottingham. Doors are will open at at uh 5:30. And then for the public, we will be putting out an advertisement, but our board meeting from May 27th is being moved to next Wednesday. Okay. So, it's a change of date um and day. So, it'll be Wednesday, May 21st, and that will be a 7:00 meeting here um rather than cancelling the 27th meeting. At that time, uh excuse me, we will be uh hearing our proposed final budget again and looking for the board to take a vote on the proposed final budget. And that

109concludes my presentation. I do want to apologize. We do have our music staff here for a presentation and that will come up under academics. Thank you. Can just quick question. I just want to make sure I have it right in my calendar. We are going to move the 27th meeting to the 21st. That's correct. I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. So there is I can delete the 27th from my calendar. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure I had it right. Okay. So next we have academics. Are you going to be taking that or I believe Mr. Cook and Miss Hilton are going to take that and I'll jump in where need be. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Piaza. Thank you, Mrs. Hess. Yes. Uh

110this evening, Mrs. Hilton and I will be taking the academic uh committee report uh for the board. It's exciting opportunity uh to have our music folks with us this evening. Um two very uh important milestones uh for our chorus at 120 years and our band at 100 years. Um as most of you know, we also had a ceremony on Friday. the Eastn Area High School day honores uh this year was our marching band. Um so it just shows you the the significance of the tradition of the music programs within Eastston. Um and so tonight uh we bring to you a presentation. We have with us here Mr. Ballentine, uh Mr. Dler, Mrs. and Mr. Wrestler. Um and I'd also be remiss if I didn't provide this opportunity to thank Mr. Wrestler for his years of

111service and congratulate him on his recent board approved retirement. Thank you, Mr. Russell. Um, so they will be presenting this and highlighting our rich history um of the music program, showcasing some current student participation, providing uh an overview of some recent curriculum updates, um, as well as outlining some things that they feel are necessary for the growth um, and excellence in our music program. So, without further delay, I'll turn it over to our music folks. Uh, starting, I believe, with Mrs. Good evening. Um, and thank you for allowing the music department to give an update on our 2425 school year. Um, you can see our vision statement will be appearing up there shortly. Um, and that is to serve our students and community by creating one of the nation's finest school music programs. Some of

112the things listed here are things we are currently doing such as supporting existing programs in place, providing access to equitable gen general music curriculum, vertically aligning our instruction, which we've been spending a lot of time on working on our curriculum, and hopefully um our music department web page will be launched soon. It's ready to go. It's ready to go. Um, and there are some things that we'd like to pursue in the future to support and grow our vision, which is creating a sustainable budget to maintain and replace our inventory and adding music electives that meet students needs for the future. Things that involve music technology and things that are listed there. Okay. We have a passionate, creative, and inspired teachers that want to keep the East Music Department growing and moving forward. On the next

113slide, we tried to sit down and discuss all the things we've done. Um, and we kind of lost count, so we just left it at 125 plus. Um, because we're not really sure how many we do. They're countless. Um, the music department is a wonderful ambassador for our school district, both outside of East and most importantly in our own communities. Above are some of our larger events that involve multiple schools or grade levels, as well as Eastn alumni. this year. And on the next slide, we broke it down even farther where we showcase what each level is doing. And we often have the opportunity to hear our older musicians play and perform. But we are making an effort as a department to find opportunities for our younger performers to do the same. We are also

114making a push to find and create opportunities that allow our older musicians to mentor or perform with our younger musicians. Examples of that would be all city chorus which is grades three through 12 which we restructured diff different different this year and we made it an all day event and built in times where they could socialize among 3 through 12 which is it was very wellreceived by all the grades. Um we also do showcase concerts to help fifth grades transition to the middle school. So the middle school music groups perform for fifth grade to help with recruitment and retention. And we do the same with eighth grade moving up to the high school. and we find that's very effective as well. And we also do sidebyside concerts where the eighth graders get a chance to

115go up and play with the band and the orchestra. So, we're working very hard on um retention. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Wrestler to talk about our enrollment numbers. Thank you. So, as you can see um in the East Area School District, just when you see the marching band going down the street, you know what our enrollment numbers are looking like. We are by far the largest band in the Lehigh Valley. Um, and when you consider that Bethleam houses two high schools, we easily outpower them combined. Um, currently this past year, we have roughly 6,200 students, which are is approximately half of your student body involved in a music program. um from my aspect looking at it from the elementary and the question was uh asked of me earlier by one of

116our other teachers um our fourth and fifth grade in band and orchestra alone um we have 44% of the student body in those grades enrolled in the program throughout the district. So that's just in fourth and fifth grade just in band that does not consider course numbers at the uh elementary level. So, you're talking you're probably close to 70% of your elementary, fourth, and fifth grade students involved in some form of music performance. Middle school, um, you can see that their growing color guard especially has been brought up just because of the numbers there that have been increasing over the past few years that then feed into Mr. Ballentine at the high school. um student honors. Um we have students involved at the secondary level in so many programs between district band, region band, and

117all state band. And Mr. Ballentine also this year has um one in we had two in nationals in the last couple years. So we've had students perform not just in the local state level but in national I believe all East as well. So you know we have students involved in so many things across the district. Next slide. Thank you. So, I'm going to talk very briefly just about um our 100th anniversary for the band program. Um so, you can read the things on the slides about some things we did to to try and commemorate the the anniversary. Um a recording. One of the biggest events was bringing back uh alumni for the only rainy weekend in the entire fall. Um that was just my luck. Um but uh it was a great event otherwise. Um

118and you can see all the ratings. Um but this is all a lot what the public sees. Um and I just want to comment a little bit about the kind of the behind the scenes. Um so you know to do any of these things um we take eight student buses and two equipment buses. So uh it's a fleet of 10 buses to go anywhere. Um and that is all led by a student leadership council of about 60 students. Um we have quarter masters that load and unload the buses. We have librarians that take care of our music. We have section leaders that that rehearse our groups. Um, and I think through this whole experience of the anniversary concerts, um, and and the band festival, it really connected our students with people 30 years ago, 50

119years ago that did the exact same things. Um, and they they got to have that connection a little bit. Um, you know, we talked about how many performances, Mrs. brought that up. Um, this year, our high school ensembles, uh, band and orchestra performed about 75 times this year. Um, 10 in the last two weeks. Um we just had uh one of our last jazz events of the year this past Saturday. Um and uh you know looking back at our seniors and their involvement um in the past four years they performed uh to over 1 million spectators. Um that includes things like the New York St. Patrick's Day parade um down uh Main Street Disney on a jam-packed day, which gave me some anxiety. Um um just getting them all out of the park. But it

120uh like Mrs. All said, they're great ambassadors not just to our local community, but also nationally. Um and this senior class had the opportunity to travel to Germany a couple years ago. So even on that international level on the next slide, you know, we talked about the 100th anniversary, but now it's what's next? What's coming uh next year? Um so our enrollment in the high school marching event is projected to increase next year. Um and you know, I always ask myself, well, why why are things happening that way? Um and one of the or some of the reasons why are we are offering more afterchool opportunities. Um, so we offer after school tuba lessons because that's always an instrument really hard to get students in the younger grades to do that. And so why don't

121we fix that? And so we have students p pairing up with some adults to teach after school tuba lessons. Um, this year we were fortunate enough at the middle school level to start a beginning band and beginning orchestra program um where uh Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Davis come up um once a week and they get to work with beginning students who maybe missed that fourth grade or fifth grade opportunity and if they jumped into seventh and eighth grade band and orchestra they maybe wouldn't be successful. So it gives them an opportunity on beginning lessons to begin working on that and then um as Mr. Wrestler said our color guard um that is led by Miss Ferguson. This is her going to be her third year doing middle school and high school. And if you look

122back at that earlier slide it says 50 in middle school and 49 in high school. Um, so the numbers are coming up. Um, and this upcoming year, we're thinking we're going to have between 65 and 70 at the high school. Um, and that's a true testament to her. Um, this upcoming year, I'm not I'm going to be very brief about uh what this next season looks like. Um, we we're trying to modernize ourselves a little bit while keeping with tradition. So, the next time you hear the marching band for the halftime show, um, you're going to hopefully recognize some of the music. Um, we are licensed with Coldplay. So, if you know the band Coldplay, you're going to hear a little Cold Play in our show next year. It's not all cold play, but it's

123something a little bit different for for our marching band to be doing. The kids are really excited about it, and it provides them a challenge, but also connects the audience with music that they're going to recognize, too. Um, and then uh this year's a big year for our armed forces. So, the Navy is uh it's their 250th anniversary and they're doing a homecoming weekend uh the middle of October. Um and we have off of school that day. And so, we're going to be going down to Philadelphia to do the 250th Navy homecoming parade. Um and then our big event for next year is in New Orleans. We're going down for the Sugar Bowl parade. Um and various other events surrounding the Sugar Bowl. Um we'll be traveling over winter break December 28th through January 2nd.

124Um we are taking buses down there, seven charter buses. It's a little bit of a long drive, but um it'll make everything else feel like a really short drive. Um but some of the performances we'll be doing uh include the French Quarter. Um there's a battle of the bands down there. So we'll get to compete with bands across the country that are performing at the Sugar Bowl. Um and then of course the New Year's Eve Sugar Bowl parade um down Bourbon Street and then in addition to some sightseeing and then the bowl game uh on New Year's Day. So um I'm going to turn it over. I have one more thing. Sorry, I'm looking at my notes. Um and then uh our wind ensemble uh and our chamber strings have been performing at adjudications the

125past couple years um to get evaluated by um some state uh college professors and all of those things. And next year our wind ensemble was recently invited to Westchester University for a new series they're offering. It's called an east meets west concert and it combines one high school band from the eastern side of Pennsylvania with one high school band from the western side of Pennsylvania and we'll perform for each other and do then do a concert with Westchester University um band which is a really great experience since so many of our students end up going to Westchester University. So I'm going to then turn it over to Mr. Dler um to talk about our coral program. Hello. Uh we celebrated our 120th anniversary this year with a concert on May se 2nd. Um we had

126an alumni choir join us. Uh we had three rehearsals with them. Uh and then we put them on the stage with the rest of the current choir at that concert. Uh we commissioned a piece by Walter Chase who's a member of Straight No Chaser. He's an alumni from 1995 of East High School. Uh, and the piece was called, uh, Singing Brings Me Joy. Uh, you can hear it on our YouTube page, and we're in talks with him about possibly con uh, commissioning another piece for next year. Uh, all the music at the concert, with a few exceptions, was written by either current or former student and staff of East Ner High School. um including one of my favorite pieces that we did was from two ladies that graduated in 1910 called Dreams of Eastn High.

127Uh so we recorded the concert and it's going to be broadcast on WGPA 1100 a.m. on Sunday, June 8th at 2 PM, one day before graduation. Um, we uh I was interviewed on uh WDIY uh couple months ago and it was rebroadcast a few times. Uh, it was broadcast at April 10th at 11:00 a.m. and April 27th. Uh, so some of our other highlights this year, we started a conducting fellowship program. Uh I met with students from the choir uh during in the morning before school started and we had our student conductor. She conducted one of the pieces at the winter concert at one of the showcase concerts and also uh at the anniversary concert. Her name is Izzy Beaky. She's going to be a music major at Maven University next year. Uh we took

128a trip to Philly and Baltimore this year uh to see Shantacle, which is a full-time professional coral ensemble. They were fabulous. Uh next year we're planning a trip to Hershey and in 2027 we're planning a trip to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Some of the other things that we've done this year and are planning to do again next year, we were invited to perform at the Temple University Canat Festival, which is a high school coral festival that takes place in October of every year. You have to be invited to go. So, next year will be our second year. We've been performing at Moravian University Coral Adjudication uh every year. Rowan University Young Man of Song uh festival that's in October at Rowan University. We had a vocal health clinic this year brought

129to us by St. Luke's University Health System and they talked to our students about taking care of their voices. And next spring, our spring concert will be celebrating 250 years of the United States of America. So, all of our composers on that program are going to be American composers, names you might recognize. I hope Aaron Copeland, George Gershwin, and and like that. Uh, and then we'll also be looking forward to our 13th anniversary of the All City Chorus Concert in 2016. I'm going to bring up the Esser word here, but we've came tonight to again say thank you. Thank you. Thank you board for approving that for us last year. It's been a godsend. Um you can see there for it was the first major purchase of instruments and equipment since before 2000. The kids

130were ecstatic. It was Christmas in September at the schools when they saw the things appearing in our rooms. So the process was not easy and it was extremely time time consuming but it was worth every minute and we worked very closely with Dr. Draper on that. And with your support, we were able to add over 430 instruments and pieces of equipment that have impacted students across all nine schools. And these purchases have allowed our students the ability to create and experience music in new ways. And there are some pictures there. We we kind of put smiley faces over them, but there truly were smiles in those pictures. The top corner is actually from my room. That's my little March Elementary music room. I had three xylophones before Esser and it would take me all 40

131minutes for all the students to be able to cycle through and play and now I have 14 and they get to buddy up and they have two and they're playing you 20 25 minutes of the of the class period. So they are loving that and I'm able to do so many more things and there's a lot less discipline discipline problems because they're more engaged and the bottom picture are the new cellos up at the middle school. So they the kids were just ecstatic. So thank you board. Thank you for that support. For the seventh year in a row, uh this has been awarded to the Eastn um school district. This is something Mr. Valentine spearheaded um at the start, but um it goes to show you the support we do have here in the Eastn

132Area School District. So again, thank you. Next, Gina, and you can just keep going to the last one. So obviously needs and concerns of the department. Um this is you know our biggest discussion point each year at vertical time so that we can align from our youngest all the way up to our oldest. We do not get a great deal of time as a department K to 12. Um a lot of our inservice time is is grade level specific whether it's elementary, middle or high. So being able to discuss what's going on across the district is important to us especially since some of those uh department times have been eliminated. Um, the second one has been addressed by Miss Piaza. So, we do appreciate that long-term budget planning is our biggest concern and it has

133been for many times for for many years. Yes, we got the influx of Esther's money last year to purchase the instruments, but what's going to happen to those instruments? So, creating a budget is something we've discussed with Mr. Cuck and are still working in um and working on just to maintain the instruments we have. individual buildings, especially at the elementary level, do not have budgetary um the budgetary ability to pay for repairs. Uh it's not addressed in principal's budgets. So there are times instruments may get damaged that we just cannot repair and then sit on shelves unused. Um for the past five years since CO has impacted us, Esser's funding has paid for the cleaning of all the instruments students use at the end of each year. We do not have that money this year.

134So, I know for the last week of school, I'll be spending a great deal of my time cleaning and sanitizing instruments uh for use in the future. But for the high school and the middle school, that's really not going to be an option because they're talking about a great deal of uh the number of instruments that need to be taken care of is just insustainable for them to do on their own. So, they do have some budgetary uh on their own at those levels they've always had, but not nearly enough to take care of this. So, something again that we've been discussing with um Mr. Mr. Simonetta and and or excuse me, Mr. Cuck, and he's been taking it back to our CFO, I believe. Um, so that's something that we're just discussing. Staffing, and

135this is a great one, especially with what's going on with me. Um, two years ago, we lost a staff member due to retirement. We understand the financial situation of the district. Um, but that eliminated general music in eighth grade uh to address it. And then to address some of those uh deficiencies, we lost seventh grade general music to adjust the staffing at the middle school to allow them to better um facilitate the teach uh the pro uh programs that existed. Um we still believe there is need uh there for a second um vocal teacher um to address the the numbers um and to assist Mrs. Kirk Greenblat with what's going on and her numbers at that middle school. um that was something that had been there for many years and then when we had the

136budgetary issues back in 2011 2012 those positions were lost and never regained. Um and finally and this is the one that's near to my heart what will happen um with my retirement will I be replaced I do not know. Um, like I said, currently we we service 44% of the fourth and fifth grade students with the five instrumental teachers that we have across the elementary level and some assist from um classroom teachers um in two of the buildings with me leaving and if it I am not replaced I do not know if that is sustainable with four teachers. Um, and I know that is been weighed on and thought about. Uh, Mrs. Ol and I had a discussion about it this afternoon in preparation for this uh, meeting tonight after we discussed it. So, um,

137I thank you for your time. Um, I look forward to you discussing these um, when you can. Um, and I thank you for my 24 years here, you know, as I I reached the end of my career. Um, this is not my first stop. Um, but it is my last. Uh, so at the end of 33 years in instrumental music, uh, thank you for all that you've done for our department and that you continue to do for it and please consider these things as we do uh, consider our growth in the future. Thank you. Rich, again, we want to thank you for your years of service and wish you health and happiness in your retirement. Um certainly we'll be discussing these things as as we have already started and to the department thank you for

138being patient this evening but also thank you for your presentation. Very well done. Thank you. Oh. Oh I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead Brian. No again say same thing. I I want to you know congratulate you on your retirement and thank you for everything you've done. Uh as most people know my my children have gone through the band both my boys and uh it's been a very good experience for them. You know they've built some strong friendships. um they always enjoyed it. Uh they learned a lot and and I was really pleased with with how that has worked out. Uh the band itself represents itself well. Those of you who have traveled to other festivals either locally or even uh to the ones more dry more, you know, several hours out. Uh we

139get compliments on the band all the time. I'll be standing next to somebody at a parade or performance and our band will come and I'm just there and I'll hear the person next to me just make this comment like like they're amazed like my god who is this like you know and and I'm just like almost kind of snickering a little bit like with with pride you know because I'm like yeah they're going to represent and they're going to uh you will be very impressed with them when you see them play you know I don't even have to say that to them because I know that that will happen so I I really you know I I know your IMA is is very strong and I know they'll continue to advocate for you as far

140as when you need things for instruments being purchased, cleaned, maintained, uh anything like that. I I know, trust me, I know the IMA, they're they're very uh very active and and I hope they continue to be too. So, um thank you for the whole music department. Mr. Valentine is is is a great leader. He's a great director. I I I was not a m I'm never a I'm not a music person for for band. I I I didn't follow it when I was in high school and you know I'm at the point now where I I go to the football games really for the band more so yeah I want the team to win but I like listening to the band too. They really get it get it going. So again thank you and I

141and I do appreciate everything you do and appreciate everything you've done you know for my sons and and their you know their group of friends. You know I I have band kids at my house all the time. you know, sometimes they come over and jam, six or seven of them. So, um, it's been a good experience for them and and good experience for me, too. I've really enjoyed it. So, uh, thank you again. So, I have a question. So, the honor students, can you explain a little bit of what that means as far as being an honor student? Yeah. So, um, there were a couple different levels. Um, I can start with the the the district level. So, um, there's a state organization, PMEA, stands for Pennsylvania Music Educators Association. Um, in December of every

142year, students go to Parkland High School. Um, there are 12 districts in Pennsylvania and they audition for a spot in a district level festival. Um, so this year we had 10 students make a district band festival. Um, including one of our uh one of our uh Barry Saxs players. He's a freshman Sawyer Llamus. he ranked number one um on his instrument as a ninth grader competing against seniors. Um so we had 10 students make district band, seven students make district orchestra and one student make district choir. Um to give you a perspective of how many students typically audition um there's typically between 6 and 700 students auditioning. Um and they take approximately 120 depending on the ensemble. Um, from there if they uh rank high enough at the district level festival and if they're also

14310th or 11th or 12th grade, so Sawyer couldn't move on this year, they can advance to a regional level festival. There are six regions in Pennsylvania and then they can finally advance to an all-state festival as well. Um, and we had two students, Alex Jyn and Ella Hudson, um, who made the all-state festivals this year. Um, and then, uh, this year was not a nationals year. Um but in the past uh we had one student come back for EHS day. Roger Cabrera um ranked amongst the top eight students in the country on French horn and the year prior to that in 2021 um Mumi Barlay the exact same uh thing ranked in the top eight for French horn. I asked because this was explained to us once before and I don't think a lot of

144people understood it. So I wanted them to understand and see how important and how impressive that is. So, thank you. And they do this all on their own. Um, we don't like I I do a mock in uh mock audition with them in uh November, but other than that, they're independently learning solos or scales. Um, and it's giving them a great real world audition and interview experience to learn how to deal with your nerves so that when you go on that interview, you know what to do. When you go on that audition, you know what to do. So, yeah, they're to be commended for that for sure. Yeah. There's also county band. um which is run through Northampton County. All the county schools and the I believe the uh paroial schools participate as well. Um

145that's usually about 120 kids. Easton has sent 30 this past year. So we are well represented within our our local community as well. Okay. Thank you so much to our music department. Um, and I have to echo everything that was said previously, but one of the most important things I think is Mr. Valentine mentioned is your ability to keep pace and modernize, right? To keep kids active and engaged at such a young level and to continue to to to offer field performances and choir options for kids at a secondary level that keeps them interested and keeps pace um is something that I've seen over the 17 years as an administrator in this district. um whether it's jazz ensembles or coral music um or coldplay field show. So, you know, kudos to you to continue to

146keep our students engaged in modernizing uh you know, the band, but also keeping that tradition. Um I got goosebumps thinking about Friday Night Football. So, congratulations. Thank you so much for your support. I hope you like it. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Mr. Valentine. Thank you very much for attending this evening. I appreciate it. All right, so moving on. Um, we have some items for B board approval. So, we're actually going to go in out of order here. Uh, we'll start with our field trips under D. Uh, the robotics club uh will be going to Warren Tech uh for a competition. Um, and then we also have our Rovers achieving diplomas program attending the Muhammad Ali training camp in Origsburg, Pennsylvania. Um, that is an in both an inspirational and a reward for the

147outstanding work that those students are doing towards achieving their high school diplomas. I'll now pass it along uh to our conference requests um to uh Mrs. Hilton. Thank you, Mr. Cuck. So, we have some conferences underway and uh one that has already passed. So, tonight Dr. Draper and Mrs. Caraprice are attending the state association federal program coordinators conference in Hershey where they hope to receive some good news um on federal funding that we've all been anxiously awaiting. Uh Mrs. Care Priest has also recently attended the preK counts conference. Um we have two national conferences that are highlighting two of our student leaders both supervised by uh business teacher Miss Klene. We have the Microsoft Office Specialist Conference coming up and the future business leaders of America. So we wish those students best of luck in

148those competitions and thank Miss Klein for her willingness to supervise those trips. I'm going to tag Mr. Cookback or No, sorry. Are we going into Go right ahead. We're going to go right into CNI updates. Um, Girls on the Run has their 5K event up at D uh D Sales University on Sunday, May 18th. We have four schools proudly sending teams, including the middle school, Forks, Tracy, and Shaunie Elementary Schools. All are welcome to attend and support the students. The race begins at 10:00 a.m. uh once again at D Sales University. We also have as part of our rising transition plan at the middle school, um we have our ESL trip to the middle school where our fifth grade multilingual learner students will visit the school um providing them an opportunity to meet students and

149staff, learn about expectations and procedures and become more familiar with the school environment. We in past uh back on May 1st, we hosted a spring to kindergarten kickoff. Mr. Bonia was a key facilitator of this opportunity to bring together our kindergarten teachers, our elementary principles, and some of our community partners. This is an opportunity for us to re-release a Ready Rover document that was a document finalized right before COVID. Um so we're looking to create Ready Rover 2.0. Uh and um all in an effort to make sure that our incoming students are ready um to have a successful kindergarten year here in East. We are also in the middle of planning our summer school programs, our high school and middle school programs. We'll oper off offer a credit recovery opportunity for students at the middle

150school and high school, our elementary schools. All seven will be offering a two to four-week program for our incoming kindergarten students focusing on building school readiness uh in areas are areas such as procedural and instructional routines and also early foundational skills, literacy skills. Uh lastly, our Project of Eastn partners will continue to host um the summer sizzle program at Tracy Elementary School. They've been working very closely with our interventionist teams at the elementary schools to identify students in grades one to five who are in need of a little extra boost in their literacy foundational skills as well. Mr. Cook. All right. Uh, also coming up, um, our post or excuse me, our federal monitoring visit, uh, was postponed, uh, until June the 10th, 2025. So that's what Dr. Draper would like to present to you.

151Um, the results will then follow roughly three weeks after that visit. So towards the end of the month, uh, we should get that federal monitoring uh, report. Um, the ELA and math frameworks, which have been previously reported under academics, have been updated and revised. Um the importance of that revision is that we're able to share them out with our community partners um who serve all of our students in their afterchool and summer programs so they can continue to reinforce those skills that we are addressing each day in our classrooms. Um we also have an update uh for AI. Uh there has been a small committee uh created under the curriculum instruction team. Um that team has put together a survey that's been recently sent out to staff by Dr. Draper. um to gather insights into

152teachers knowledge, comfort level, and experience with AI tools in ed. Um we're also interested in learning how AI is currently being used in our classrooms and understanding our teachers readiness to understand what future potential it will have for our students. Um this feedback that we're going to receive from the surveys is an important uh part of shaping future professional development opportunities and guiding our efforts to support the effective integration of AI into our schools. So, lots of things on the horizon for our curriculum instruction department. Um, starting to get that information back now uh via some surveys through for a small committee for CNI. So, more to come on that. So, that concludes our updates. Uh, and then once again, we just have those conference requests and the field trip requests for board approval uh

153next Wednesday. Thank you. Okay. So, like Mr. Cuck said the conference and field trip requests will be on the uh agenda for the 21st. Next we have athletics. Dr. Zetic. Sure. Yeah. Just want to apologize. Dr. Baltz uh said he does miss being here this evening. Uh but he is out of the district. So um I believe Mr. Gaga, you want to talk through the next two that we we discussed and we'll fill in together. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Um so again I'm here uh to talk on behalf of Dr. Boltz and there are two items this evening um that are on the agenda. One is uh a purchase of helmets uh for the football program. Uh in speaking with Dr. Boltz and the work that he has done to research this uh the

154purchase of these helmets will very much diversify our equipment that we have. Many of you are aware that we are moving at a lightning pace in terms of safety especially around athletic equipment and and these helmets come um with a an advanced opportunity for some safety pieces as well. It also will go a long way towards replacing our aging equipment. Um it would be a purchase of 60 Speed Flex Axiom helmets. Um and part of this offer is with every helmet that we purchase, we would also get a pair of shoulder pads um to replace and upgrade um those as well. Uh and that is part of the pro uh part of the purchase as well. Um, we did work with our St. Luke's support staff um to look at the technology. These are what

155they what Ryell calls smart helmets. So, they do come with technology inside of them and a sideline package where the impact on those helmets can be read immediately on the sideline um to indicate injury. Uh, and it can also be used to look at a player and their use of their helmet and a teaching practice uh to show them how they properly should be uh entering in into any type of play. Uh, that could potentially be a safety concern. Um so these helmets are obviously u moving us in the right direction um in terms of replacing aging equipment but also in the safety area as well and uh Dr. Boltz has done a lot of research uh towards this as well. Uh he has also wanted me to make sure you understood that he did

156uh take care of this budgeting this in his uh budget process as well. Any questions on the helmets that I can answer? So Kyle, do you remember what the combined value of those are? Uh so it just under 44,000 right so the original combined value was closer to around I think 70 or 80 um but the the deal had pads absolutely right so when we when we were looking to make that deal it came out to be about 44 um I will say to the board um you know Matt's recommendation is to utilize the the St. Luke's funds uh the $75,000 that you know he does determine on a yearly basis that is his recommendation on where to draw the funds from to purchase these Okay. Uh the second item is uh scoreboards. Um we

157are looking at the American Scoreboard Company for an agreement to install two digital scoreboards in our main competition gym, which for us we know is the middle school gymnasium. Um that is a value of $200,000 at no cost to the district. Um they will install those two digital scoreboards. One would be 10 by 15, uh the other one 7 by 15 in size. Um, and again, no cost for installation, no cost for equipment. Um, there would be a yearly software cost. However, uh, Dr. Boltz wanted me to make sure that everybody understood there is a revenue sharing opportunity for us to take advantage of. Um, any type of advertising that we send in and refer to the company, we would have 25% of that revenue come back to this to the school. And Dr. Dr.

158Boltz is very confident that with our support locally for our our programs uh that we would recoup the money necessary for that software um uh cost that would come every year. Um these are controlled by iPads. Um so it would get rid of the consoles that we currently have to upgrade and replace or or take care of. It would be taken care of or the whole thing would operate on a district iPad which obviously we already have in our in our um in our repertoire. Uh, and I know uh, Whiteall High School uh, has these already in their gym. Uh, I went as well as I know Mrs. Arn got up at this point and oh, she's over there. She was able to go and actually see the process of how this operates, how their

159operators are working the boards from their iPads. Um, so we do have a good background in that. U, aside from Whiteall, these are also in Banganger, Nazareth, Central Catholic, uh, and from my understanding and many more gyms to come in the very near future. Um, they do have Wi-Fi capabilities or internet capabilities. So once installed, our fans can connect right into those scoreboards and see what the score of our games are without being there. Uh so there's a lot of capabilities uh that come along with it. Um and it's a an opportunity that we feel uh is very important and and would be very good for for our athletic programs at the at the high school and obviously with the middle school gym. Yeah, Kyle, I'll just add one more thing. The the value of

160that software, it is a yearly uh fee for the software. It's about $7,500. Um, but however, with the the revenue sharing, um, we're expected not, you know, not to necessarily have to, you know, be concerned about that. But Matt has that budget appropriately within his budget as well, uh, to take care of it should it not reach that. Um, and then the $200,000, the combined cost of everything, including the AB server and the install, um, for both boards. And then that, you know, we would we would pay those those revenue, those ad revenues until those boards would be essentially the the cost um, and then it would become ours. So, uh, it's an opportunity to work together and to get the the three boards, um, but to also participate in the ad revenue sharing. So,

161just want to make sure that we're all on the same page on that. Uh, I'd also like to say that I think with these boards, it also gives the opportunity for like our fizzed department to utilize them for teaching and instruction. So, it's not just for our athletics, it's also a possibility for our our gym classes. Correct. Um, in recital E, uh, it says that in exchange for the supply of the equipment, the school agrees to grant to American scoreboards the exclusive rights to all media rights used on in connection with and arising from the use of the equipment. What does that mean? Media rights, is that images that are broadcast over the scoreboard of the students or is that just advertising? So, it's it's basically uh linked to the advertisement and and I will

162say that was reviewed by our office and we did push back a little bit on it. Um it's so linked to the way that the funding happens for the scoreboard uh that that's that's something that they require. But if you look a little later, uh we did add the language that the contents of any and all such advertising and or sponsorship are subject to the sole discretion of the school for final approval which shall not be unreasonably withheld. So um we were able to add that that um you know we still have final approval to ensure the contents are appropriate. Well appropriate but is it what is the content? Well so they have so it's advertising that they would be um collecting for the scoreboard right so um they do contain or control that um

163aspect of it and again that's to link to the district not having to pay anything okay for the scoreboard. So, it's not images of the students. Oh, oh, no, no, no uh no, not like uh I mean these scoreboards are in the school, so I mean there may there would be like replays of of the potential for there's the potential for a replay of a play, things of that nature, but it's not something that is um broadcast uh outside of the district. Okay. Because it it's it says that they have the rights to them any media that's used on the scoreboard, which would include playbacks or images of the band or Right. Right. Um images of the students playing. Yeah, let me take a look at it. Uh you know, my understanding was this was

164all related to the use within um and on the scoreboard. Um so I can take a further look at that if that's an area of concern and we can Yeah. Thanks. report back by next week. Okay. So, I was remiss in asking if there was any public to be heard on academic items, agenda items. So, is there anyone who Okay. Now, I will ask if there's any public to be heard on athletic agenda items. Seeing none. Okay. Okay, next we have budget and finance. Mr. Trent. Sure. Gina, could you bring up the presentation, please? So, we'll call this the preliminary proposed general fund budget. Uh, next slide, please. So, here are the deadlines we're looking at with the PTE. By the 31st of this month, we have to adopt the proposed version of the final

165budget. That's what we'll be doing at the next meeting, next Wednesday. Um, June 30th is the district deadline to adopt the final budget. That's what we'll be doing at the final meeting in June. And then internally for us, July 15th is when we have to submit the final budget to Department of Education. Some of the days we have to remember um the timeline is that there has to be at least 30 days between the proposed and final budget adoption. Hence why we're moving the meeting. And the proposed budget also has to be available for public inspection for at least 30 days. Uh next slide, please. So, this timeline has changed, but June 24th is true. That's when we'll vote to approve the final general fund budget. Next slide. So, this is the overview of where

166the budget is today. This is what we'll go over in the next few slides. It's a balanced budget, $214,15,899. Um, our revenues, as we've discussed, have come from the local, state, and federal. And you can see the numbers associated with the salaries, the benefits, the purchase services, and the supplies and property. And it represents a balanced budget. So the value of one mill, this is a condensed chart of what we saw at the last meeting. Um 2526, we're proposing 72.17 mills. That constitutes a 3.5% increase. One of the things I want to point out with the 3.5% is there is no fund balance being used in this budget. And one of the keys to remember is fund balance is public funds. So when you use fund balance, you're using public funds. It comes from public

167sources. So this has no fund balance. It has the 3.5% which gives us 72.17 mills. Next slide please. Here is with the millage rate that we are presenting right now. The expected annual and monthly increases for Eastn Forks, lower Mount Bethl, and Palmer. can leave that up. Go ahead. All right. So, we had the presentation by Raymond James. We keep revisiting this. If you go to the next slide, I have it blown up. Thank you. So, the the big thing here that we need to to look at. So, let's start. Let's look at 2025 and 2026. Those are the top two lines. So, if you look at column 8, total debt service. So, our debt service this year, what we owe to pay our bonds is 16.3 million. What it would be next year is

16815.8. That's a change, a decrease in $483,000. But if we go over to column 14, because we're moving towards this $300 million capital projects um fund, uh it goes from 17.4 million this year to 19.138 million next year. And that's what's in the budget right now. 19.138 million. That represents an increase of 1.738 million from last year or sorry from this year to next year. If we were to look into our um if we were to look at our collection rate and figure it out that's about 1.11 mills. It says 1.05 up there with our collection rate. It's 1.11 which is about 1.59%. That's where we get these numbers from. The 1.5% was the estimate given by Raymond James. That's actually what we're looking at. That creates a surplus of 3.3 million. You can see

169it's in yellow. It's highlighted. And then if you go back to column 7, there's highlights over there. That's where that money is going to be going to in the future years. Um, so that's what we've been talking about. I figured it was important to have it up one more time because it has played a role in a lot of the discussions and the development of the budget. Next slide, please. March 25th is where we started. Um, I'd been here I think three months. Uh, the original presentation had revenues of 212.5, expenditures nearing 220. So, we're projecting a deficit of 7.4. If you can go to the next slide, please. This is the changes in the general fund budget that have occurred. So, the tax le levy increase for the capital projects plus looking more in

170depth at the local, state, federal revenues. And you have to understand those all didn't go up. For example, the state revenues uh decreased because as we were losing positions, we're losing the state share of retirement funds we'd be getting. So, I had to decrease the revenues there as well. Um, we moved the we we removed about 2.5 million from the salary lines. A lot of that was through the retirement incentive and there was other areas where that occurred as well. Um, we've been working very hard on the health benefit lines and we've reduced that line by almost 1.9 million. thing to remember is with the salary lines, every every salary you have to count about 25 or 35% of that and add that on for benefits. So, that's a big chunk that comes out right

171there. We negotiated um a 0% increase in our health insurance for the administration fee, administrative fee for um going weekly instead of monthly. That saved us $200,000. And there's a lot of other just little movements along the way. Um the executive team and administration spent a lot of time analyzing every single district contract and $640,000 is the amount that was able to be removed. Whether it was contracts that were through ESSER and then we budgeted and then we were able to remove. However it got there we had $640,000 contracts. Um there was I calculated about $385,000 adjustments as external budgets were presented. So that's the IU, that's CIT, that's Northampton. When I first budgeted, I didn't really know what I was looking at with those. I put in a number and then as they came

172through and we could really zero everything in, we realized the savings there. I had $150,000 reduction in technology line, which the board approved. It was the iPads. And then from March until now, there's just the the standard movement you have in the budget as you meet with everybody where you can slowly lower amounts. For example, you know, I might meet with a principal and they might say, "I don't need, you know, $1,000 in this line." And then as you slowly start to pick everything apart, that's where the rest of the money came from. So, if we go to the next slide, there is the chart of how it happened from the March presentation to the balance budget that we're presenting today. So, you can see the increase in revenue on the left side and then

173you can see the expenditures decreasing on the other side. Every decrease expenditure is a recognized amount right now. So there's no anticipated amounts in there. Those are the recognized amounts that have occurred. Next slide, please. Um so the next steps, our next meeting, we'll present this again, maybe go in depth if there are any questions that need to be presented over the next week to me. We'll propose the final budget and then we will advertise our intent to adopt the final budget June 24th. Are there any questions for me? Um Jack, first of all, I I just want to thank you. um appreciate what you've done to, you know, get us from where we were beginning of the year when you first got here to where we are now. Um the um the one question

174that I have I do have a couple questions but one one for you is the if you go back to the slide um slide number five the value of a mill on the 94 U percents value of mill 1.664 that's only $1,000 more than this current year. I just want to make sure that that's accurate. Um I'll check my calculations. I have a spreadsheet that I dropped into the presentation. We've looked at it. I just want to make sure that that that's right. And then so a mill is one point generates 1.64. Then you go to eight and you look at um the new mills 1.05. So that real going up 1.7. Sorry. Yeah. Could you go to slide eight, please? Sorry, Gina. One more. One more right there. Yeah. So, the value of one

175mills just to be clear. So, that equals the 1.6 and that's close to the the 1.7 that we need for for increasing. One thing you did mention is the that then surplus and and I uh that last column 3.3 that's the surplus for what you're budgeting um for next year that we do not need to pay debt. that is starting the fully funded process for the capital PR plan. I just wanted to make that very clear that we're not uh you know carrying surpluses and then that opportunity also is to address some of our facility needs uh during the year or when as they come up. Um yes. Okay. Yes. But uh thanks for uh the detail and the presentation. Um I do have a question for uh Tracy and um just when we talk

176about that reduction on the contracts of 640K. So those services that we were doing with those contracts are they going to be eliminated? Are they going to be picked up elsewhere with with you know under the current numbers? How are you going to uh plan for that? So some of them are being eliminated and some of them are being reduced. Um, some of them will potentially be either changed of a provider or picked up under things such as ready tolearn block grant. But as an example, and we're still working through some of these uh pieces, Mike, but as an example, we have to uh renegotiate our contract with Bucks. And one of the things that we know there is that last year we had I think about 40 or 45 students and we're proposing to

177drop that down to 30. So that will change that contract just that number alone and then whatever else happens within that contract. Um another example is our contract with communities and schools. That's been a long-standing contract even to the time that you were here but during ESER we added an additional four or six positions and those positions will have to be pulled back. Mhm. Um and the ones that will remain will be redistributed based on needs at mainly our high school and um middle school. That's where that that group is servicing most. So there are Yeah. Okay. So there are pieces there and then there are just some contracts that we eliminated altogether, right? Um that is either duplicatus or uh decide that we no longer need them for whatever reasons. Did could we have

178a like a list just for anam so we can uh just for our own benefit um on the the Bucks from 45 spots to 30 what have we used have we used the 45 and are we going to need them? So, I'm going to let Craig, you know, jump in on that. But what I will say, you know, prior to him responding fully is that it's an eb and flow, right? There haven't been 45 there, the same student for the entire time, but we have eb and flowed. And there is a danger in this in that some of those are our highest need students. And so, if they're not going there, then where are they going? And the hope and intent is that we are programming appropriately within our buildings to keep more students there.

179And the reason why I ask is, and just so everybody knows, when you have 45 slots, you're paying for them whether you're using them or not. So that's why I was asking, we have been using them. And then are we prepared if we need more than 30 or if we have to do something else with those students? Yeah, Craig can respond. We have those spots have been filled the entire time, but not with the same student each time. Right. And Craig, if you want to kind of elaborate a little bit more. So looking at our numbers the last uh two years, that's how we kind of defined where we wanted to start this year. I would say we didn't start off with our 44 45 slots totally filled, but we filled up fairly quickly looking

180at our uh 7th through our 12th grade students. Um what we're doing at the end of this year is really looking at all of our students that are currently enrolled in Boxmont, having a discussion with the school counselor and Boxmont to determine who should be returning for fall of next year. really having discussions in terms of it might be comfortable for you over there, but at the same way, is it something that we can do to still educate you at the high school and be able to provide the supports for you in this building to make it more appropriate. So, I am looking at a reduction of students that would probably be over there. Um, but we should have a real firm number based upon looking at the end of the year numbers. Um, and

181then really taking a look at what those numbers are for next year to ensure that we're staying within our allotted amount. Bucks's been pretty good. Um, Mike, also with if we go over that number, a lot of number, they're still giving us the discounts that we've saw previously in our uh in our negotiated contract. So, we aren't seeing an uptick of 20% for a student that we put over there. That's above our 35 numbers uh slots. What happens with the the agreement or Bucksmont if we take out 15 students? Is there a need? Will they will they have those slots filled from other districts? Is that going to create a problem with uh them maintaining their program? They they do have a concern in terms of this the space and they and the number of

182students that are over there. But we assure them you know through discussions that you know we are still going to be utilizing them as we have previously. Um and they are looking at they do utilize other school sending school districts to to bus students down there right now. So, they're not looking at a reduction in staff or anything like that based upon um us going uh sliding between, you know, five to 10 different students. And that is the agreement uh being negotiated or like amended to it like we have an it's an agreement for 45 slots. Is it a new agreement or we're just going to amend it? So, we're in the discussions right now with Boxmont. We have a follow-up meeting next week with them. We kind of went around a little bit in

183the discussions of what we were looking for in terms of our continued agreement and they kind of gave us their thoughts. Um, you know, obviously we put ourselves in the best position we could to negotiate with them and also understand that right now between them and LLA and the IU this is all we have in our general vicinity and it's very close for pro, you know, proximity for busing. So to your question that that contract is expired and so needs to be reauthored. Okay. Okay, thank you. So, with that contract, are we looking as a one-year contract at this time or are we look what what's I think those are yet to be determined. Right now, the the original convers or the conversation on the table is one year and then decide from there what

184they're going to do and what we're going to need. Okay. Does anyone else have anything? Um, thank you, Mr. Simonetta because you asked most of the questions I was going to ask. I just want to clarify that at this point we are doing it's this 3.5% increase. That is correct. Okay. And we are utilizing the $7 million from the tiff. That is correct to balance it. I did have one more go question or request. um when we project forward so you we receive that 7 million influx for this year um that's a concern for 2627 because we're whatever we're only going to realize percentage increase on the taxes for that year not an increase of $7 million in the base we've already we're using that for this year so if you could provide the board

185or the finance everyone um maybe a projection on where we're going to be at for 2627. Um so we just have an idea. Um listen folks, it's it's very obvious uh you know when you see the the two s the salary and benefits account that uh unfortunately uh you know we still have work to do because 2% tax increase does not equate to maintaining what we have under the current staffing. So, it'd be good for Jack to present that and and do keep the future aspect in mind every time we're talking about spending and budgeting. I will add that to the presentation for next week. Thanks. Sorry, one last thing. Could you also add in there where we are at as far as our fund balances? Sure. So, as we move forward, Jack has done

186an outstanding job on this budget, as we've all kind of seen and acknowledge, but the plan moving forward is then to produce these three to five year projected budgets that we will continually report on throughout the course of the year so that you can keep track of where we are um and where we need to go in terms of our projections. And the work, you know, as you pointed out, Mike, and we've been talking about for a while, is certainly not done. We know that we have to continually look at see where are those cost savings, you know, where are the duplicative services, what does our staffing look like. And so it is certainly not a one-year one-year fix. It is an ongoing fix to uh be able to continue to support this building project

187if that's the vote of the board and the will of the board. Um, but also then to once we're through that piece to be able to bring our our annual budget back down to that, you know, uh, level of funding that our taxpayers are more typically used to. Um, and that can only happen by us doing our due diligence of continuing to cut and be conservative where we can be within our budget. So, next I have the food service management contract with Witton's. There was no further questions, right? Am I good to move on? I'm good. Okay. We have the food service management contract with Witson's. This is the third year of our four-year contract with them. Um I just sent the final documents to the state today. So hopefully they don't send them back

188and we can sign everything and we can be good with that. Uh the Homestead Farmstead exclusion resolution, it was listed in the presentation. It's um 5,714,732. Um just some information on it, it equates to a maximum reduction of $41266 at our current millage rate. It's in a reduction in assessment of 5,717 per parcel. And to qualify for the reduction, the property must be your primary residence. Uh the next resolution, is it E? E is uh designating depositories. That's just yearly statement of where do we put our money? It's our bank accounts. Uh the F is the Giant Corporation. It's a a donation of approximately $7,000 and will be used toward food service equipment upgrade in the student act uh student cafeterias. And then the St. Luke sponsorship funds transfer. Again, this is a yearly um

189agenda item. It's to approve the transfer of $150,000 from the St. Luke's District Community Partnership Agreement to the capital reserve account. And this money is allocated to assist in the payment of the bond for the turf field at Codingham Stadium. And I believe that's all I have. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Does anyone have any other questions? All right. Is there any public to be heard on budget and finance agenda items? Okay. Okay, if you could come to the podium, sign your name, state which municipality you're from, and you'll be given five minutes. Thank you. My name is Bud Hackett, and I'm here to tell a story about the tax increment financing that is yielding $7 million to the school district. And I was privileged to be a part of a group of people in the

190Northampton County Industrial Development Authority. We were volunteers. I am no longer with that group as a volunteer right now, but I'm very proud of the work that was done in and around I will be brief. In and around uh 2011, this body approved a resolution that helped authorize uh and the Industrial Development Authority to issue bonds on behalf of the Shrin organization to pay for the inter help pay for the interchange at 33 and Tatammy Road. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the process, but I'll review it quickly. Prior to that time, Mr. Shrin and the Shrin family assembled between 800 and a,000 acres. The value was about $2,000 an acre. The tax revenue to the school district was very low. The concept was if Mr. Trin could put in a new interchange,

191which was about $40 million, and a bond could be issued for $28 million to support that. That would increase the value of the land, and it was an economic development program. It would help create jobs. It would incentivize industrial companies to come to Northampton. And the result has been about 12 build about 12 buildings large buildings about six the average is about 600,000 square feet have been built mostly on the western side of 33 and Tatami road interchange. So, our interest from the economic development side in the county was to help create jobs and help promote new business. And oh, by the way, that will eventually yield tax revenue to the school district, the county, and the municipality. You agreed to to postpone your acceptance, we'll say, of the taxes that were generated in the

192past 10 years, but most of that bond has been paid off. I don't have the details of that with me right now. Most of it is paid off. And now all that tax revenue is going to come to you, the county, and and the municipality. So, I'm here to talk about it because it's a proud time in in my career where we were helping the economic development of Northampton County, encouraging the creation of I believe there's about 3,500 jobs up there right now. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of people that are working that might not otherwise be working. And to create an environment that would yield revenue for the school district. So whether or not you know that story or not, uh um I was encouraged to come and tell it because

193not everybody knows how that worked. But there were a lot of people in the 2010 to 2016 time frame that were involved in this activity um producing jobs, producing industrial development, and now producing revenue for the school district. There's a lot more information we can share at another time if you ever want to know, but I came here tonight just to share that bit of information. Enjoy the 7 million. Mr. Hacket, thank you for that. I was here when we did that tiff and uh we were we planned it out. We um the board everybody looked at that that revenue was expected after 10 years. Uh it was originally designated to have a real good head start on funding the new high school and all the work that we needed to do in a high

194school. Unfortunately uh over the years things have changed and we had to use it more for the budget which is fine as well. It's a revenue. It's a tax revenue. Um we're we're balancing our expenses with it. So this is why we're needing a little more at this stage of the game for our high school. But that was a that was a interesting involvement uh that I was part of back then. Learned a lot and I'm glad to see after 10 years that it uh came through and and worked out as planned. There's so much more that could be done in this community to promote economic development. So that's another discussion. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I that was the end of my first tenure on school board. So I was involved also. All right.

195So um I have a question on the we said we submitted for the PTE approval. So are we looking to have that on for next week or are we looking is that's more something in June July for the um food service. It'll be on the next meeting. Okay. It's I just wanted to make sure. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, uh then we will have let's see uh education technology and student supports. Sure. Craig, I we only have one item for approval which is the social worker agreement. If you want to kind of talk through that a little bit with the grant funding. Sure. So, this was through our PCCD grant before. We had a a different provider we were looking at. Um we ended up through discussions I I had was kind of discussing it with

196St. Luke's. it made sense being that they're in all our elementary schools and they can um assist our families with access and care um within the St. Luke's organization. So, what we're going to do is see if the PCCD grant will allow us to be amended. Uh Nancy Calibri is is working on that currently. If that goes through and the the grant can be um amended, that money would not to exceed that's already been built in PCCD would be $99,000 that we build be build at. Um as soon as it was approved through PCCD um then we would get the agreement signed with St. Luke's but not until that time until it was approved. Um this position would be working um in between the buildings and central administration to be able to provide uh data

197analysis and also um individual needs to families to be able to access MA and other services that are out there. Um as a school district this large not having a social worker is kind of an anomaly. So, I think this is get allows us to kind of put our toe in the water to feel what what that looks like and kind of build the position as we go and we're not um beholden to this long-term position then. So, it would be for only a year once that monies would be um exhausted. That would be the end of the uh the agreement with St. Luke's. Build hourly. It would be built hourly, correct? Not to uh exceed uh $100,000. Okay. Are there any questions? Okay. Any public to be heard on educational technology and student supports?

198Okay. See none. Is there any other business? Yeah. Just a just a reminder that we'll see everybody Wednesday 21st as a voting meeting at 7 o'clock as opposed to the following week on the 27th. Okay. And I point to if we can have the date for the Yes. Um ad hoc for the thing. Yep. I will get one. Okay. Okay, one item I would like to address is if we could have the presentations, whatever presentations are being made, be it the budget, the capital projects, the music, if we can have them on the agenda so that the public can see them prior to the meeting, I'd appreciate it. All right. And is there any public to be heard on non-aggenda items? Nope. Okay. Can I call for adjournment? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor?

199Any opposed? Okay.