Special Meeting Followed By Standing Committee Meeting

001Thank you. We'll call the special meeting uh to order. We apologize uh we had some items to discuss in executive session. So, thank you for your patience. Okay. Um meeting is called at 6:17. If everybody could rise for the pledge of allegiance. America for it stands nationy and justice for all. All right. Thank you, Miss Ramirez. Do you have roll call? Okay. Purpose of the meeting is for uh personnel and any other matters properly presented. Just so the public knows, we do have one board member on Oh, yeah. Sorry. Miss Wellington is on phone with us and we are waiting for Mr. Simonetta to join us as well. Hopefully via Zoom. Yep. All right. Uh do we have any public comment regarding agenda items? No. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to personnel. personnel. We

002will take A, B, C, D, and we might as well take all of them. Um, all right. So, we'll start off. We'll start off with um a motion with regrets and best wishes to approve the following retirements as presented. Um, B motion to approve the following resignations as presented. C. Leave of absence. Motion to approve the following leave of absences as presented. D. Motion to approve the following administrative transfers as presented. E. Motion to approve the following tenure award as presented. F. Motion to elect the following support staff as presented pending receipt of all forms and documents required by the district. G. Motion to elect the following volunteer coaches as presented pending receipt of all forms and documents as required by the district. H. Motion to approve the following changes to the contractual EPFED stipens

003as presented. And I motion to elect the following afterchool program employees as presented. Motion second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Next we have uh J. Motion to approve entering into informal conversations regarding the potential implementmentation of a healthcare buyout incentive with all bargaining units. Motion. Second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay, next we have K. Motion to approve the attached resolution outlining early retirement option. Motion second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? I will abstain. Uh L motion to approve Wilks University School of Education certification programs memorandum of understanding as presented. Motion second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Next, we'll move on to other business. Excuse me. Motion to approve the professional. Thank you.

004Motion to approve the professional service contract between EASD and Suscoana Accounting and Consulting Solutions as presented. Second. Any questions or discussion? Yes. I I must have missed something. What What What is that referring to? I don't remember. So they provide consulting services for the business office. We are not necessarily hiring somebody through this agreement right now, but is more to have uh consultants on retainer if needed. Um Mr. And I forget what forum this came up that we talked a little bit about it, but it was a safeguard in case as we're going through our business office transition that we are without a position for a period of time that if needed, Jack would have the opportunity to bring in a consultant to work for that period of time. Okay, thank you. That that sound

005yeah that that rings a bell now. So yeah, so I just didn't recognize the company name and I don't remember seeing that like before, but that that makes sense. I I do appreciate the uh the uh the clarification. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Next, we have six interested citizens regarding non-aggenda items. Is there any citizens who would like to speak on non-aggenda items? Okay. Seeing none, we will adjourn then the special meeting. We will move into our regular standing committee meeting. We will start then with the superintendent report. Okay. Thank you very much. Um I don't have much to report this evening other than a couple of shoutouts and then we do have two presentations tonight that will fall under my my section here. So

006first the April 14th through the 18th is National Volunteer Recognition Week. And so we'd like to take the opportunity to thank all of our excuse me PTA members and partners who have dedicated um and our board for that matter who are volunteers who have dedicated uh much time and effort into supporting our students, our district and our community. So as you see any anyone who is a volunteer for our community, please make sure um that you're thanking them for their efforts and support. And later in the month, but prior to us coming back is National Administrative Professional Day and that's April 23rd. And so again, we'll remind ourselves internally, but if you um know someone who is an admin professional, that would be a nice day to recognize them and thank them for their supports

007and services as well. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Wolfful, who's here from uh the intermediate unit 20 to do his budget presentation and then we do have one one presentation following that as well. All right. Good evening. Is this Yeah, it's on. Perfect. Sounds good. Um, so thank you for having me come out tonight. Um, I do want to just introduce Dr. Jackie Bartekch, our assistant executive director for student services, who is here tonight to answer any question that you have. I'm just going to turn them over to her. Um, and Jen Zingalis, who is our coordinator of early intervention. Um, so as we go through the the presentation, you have a booklet, and I think my presentation's coming up somewhere. That doesn't look like it. But you should

008have one of these. And if you don't, that's okay because I see you have them at your seat. So, I can just kind of go through it. That's the one I sent you. All right. Well, they sent you the wrong one. All right. Apologies. Okay. So, if you have your booklet, we'll just we'll just work through it. That's what we do in uh you know, special education. We just work right through it. So um if you go to the the page that says colonial immediate unit 20 mission and vision um you could just see there that our our mission and vision uh it's important for us to develop strong relationships to be responsive and and to demonstrate positive results. On the next slide you can see the scope of the IU. I'm not going to

009go through all these statistics. Um some years I go through these other years I don't but they're all there for your review. But I do want to stand out that based on data that I collected this past year, Colonial IU 20 provides more services to students than any other IU in the Commonwealth of PA. So that's that's actually a nice little statistic about our IU, which is pretty cool. On the next page, it talks to you a little bit about what's a general operating budget. Um, so it is only one of our 54 budgets that we have at IU 20 and it comprises 1.5% of the revenue. So, it's a very small budget, but it's the base budget that supports the core operations of the IU 20. It is prepared in collaboration with our I20

010board of directors as well as reviewed with the superintendent, and it's the only budget that requires a proportionate approval from all of our districts um that we service throughout the IE20 region. On the next slide, you'll see or on the next paper, you'll see the 2526 general operating budget summary. And you can see there that uh our overall budget is a 4.1% increase about $173,000. Good news is that we're not asking to increase any percent uh to um our cost to our districts. So, we're looking for a 0% across the board there, which is good news. What are the cost drivers? probably similar to your cost drivers. There it is. Look at that. Beautiful. So, if you keep going, there you go. You're caught up. Perfect. Thank you. Um, so with that, cost drivers probably

011very similar to your cost drivers, salaries, medical, um, a little bit of piecers, a little bit of social security increases. We did budget our medical at 10% um, based on the information we had at that time. I got to share with you that um even though we're not going to do anything with this budget as we are working through our other budgets, we just got news from Conrad Seagull um explaining to us that we should be probably looking at 15% increases on our medical costs um just because the costs are going up with pharmacy, with medical, the whole nine yards. So, um it's unfortunate, but it's it's the reality of our world today. So, on the next slide, you'll see kind of how we're going to balance this budget out. Um we're going to take

012some money from our premium share that comes off our employees to help balance that out. Um we also um have some really good interest um that John Walch has been doing a good job with our investments. So with those with that revenue that's coming in off the interest. We're using that to help offset this budget. And then statewide system of support that's the work that we do with through the state of Pennsylvania through PTE. um they keep asking us to do more and more work which means more revenue coming to RU which means we can do more services more support at no cost back to the districts um and then we also take some of that money and use that to to support the base budget of the IU on the next slide you'll see

013just kind of oh no yeah sorry I skipped the slide but on this slide what you'll see is just looking at over the past uh couple years what the average increase has been to our general operating budget you can see over a 7-year average under 1%. So, I think that's, you know, pretty pretty good by the IU keeping that that increase on the GOB um small back to our districts. On the next slide, you'll see the breakdown of where all that revenue um is coming from um across the board through all the different descriptions. And then on the next slide, you'll see where um the expenditures and where those increases are in expenditures across the four base um operations of IU 20. On the next slide, you'll see um what your district contribution was last

014year um which Eastston's contribution to the general operating budget was 63,588 and that's what we're asking for this year, which represents a 0% increase. Um next steps is next week we have two more school districts that we have to go out to. Um, by that time we should have majority of our approvals in um from our our um our school districts. We take that back to the IU who then um the IU board votes on it and then we send it to Harrisburg by May. Um so that covers the general operating budget. And if you have any questions specific to the GO, I'll just take a a minute here and pause and then I'd like to just go in and just share a couple uh nice highlights about I20. All right. Very good. Thank you.

015I hope you take positive action and vote yes. All right. Um so if you just allow me a couple more minutes, just want to share some what we call uh highlights of IU 2020, our impact report. Um real quick on early intervention. Um just sharing that we do operate a very large early intervention program. Those are students ages 3 to five in the region. We are actually the LEA for for the early intervention program. Um that number continues to grow. Um we're going to probably exceed 2,500 kids this year that we support. Our goal there is to try to fill in some of those gaps where the kids are really struggling, get them kindergarten ready. And then one of the things that we really have focused on with early intervention this past year is literacy

016and instructional coaching. So we really want to try to to build up those literacy skills and and those developmental milestones for those kids. On the next slide, um you'll see student services. Um a lot of work there that we've been doing to help increase the educator pipeline shortage. Um we're in great shape at IU 20. Uh we're we're better staffed than we were before the pandemic and that's because of a lot of the work that the team has been doing. Um certainly led by Dr. Bartekch. Um and some of those programs are developing future special educators program. That's where we're looking at students back in your high schools that are interested in in any type of educational field. They come to the IU. We kind of put them in front of different um different types

017of of work that can be done in education. they get to kind of talk to those those people whether it's a special ed teacher, adaptive phys coach, an occupational therapist, a counselor, just kind of seeing there's a variety of jobs out there. We also then partner with East Straburg University. They come out, they talk about um the college. We also talk about Northampton Community College that if you're not ready for a four-year, you got the two-year. And then we also talk about if you're not ready for any of those and you just want to go right into the workforce, come work at IU 20. um start to get some experience and you can kind of create that pathway which many of our employees have created a pathway from par professional to special education teacher. Um

018all of that is no cost. It's all covered through a grant. Um covers the transportation over to the IU office. Also covers we do um fingerprinting background checks for all the kids if they want to work ESY in the summer, get some more work experience. Um that's all covered through the grant. So there's no cost back to the districts. The PAR educator pathway grant has been a a great opportunity for us to grow our PA power pareducators into becoming special ed teachers. Almost I don't know 90% not not many were hiring outside of IE20 for special ed teachers. Um majority of our employees are special ed teachers that we've been hiring have been our power educators that have gone through this program. and then accelerated PK-12 special ed teacher program partnering with East Stra Univers

019East Straburg University Moravian College. Actually, we also partner with Delaware Valley University. Um, a couple of these colleges just got grants um and information should be coming out to the school districts um to support these type of programs. I know East Straburg got that as well as Dell Valley University. Um so, some some great ways to cover some cost for anyone that's trying to pursue that special ed teacher certification. So, a lot of good programs there to kind of build the pipeline. On the next slide, you'll see what we're doing as far as preparing our students with disabilities for transitioning into the future with um authentic work-based instruction. So, we have comp competitive employment readiness programs like our project search program up at Kalahari Resort, Wing Creek Casino, St. Luke's Possibilities program at St. Luke

020Anderson campus and our our Bavitz career connection program that we're partnering with Betham Vocational School on that. We also have our community- based training. Um we have our cafe 71 which is a full-ervice cafe at the IU. And we've really been trying to partner with with business that there's a lot of opportunity for kids um to get these job skills but then replicate those job skills across into other settings. So, we've been partnering with with places like Panera Bread, Hampton Inn. Um, we just started having conversation with Chick-fil-A. So, we're looking for those opportunities to create those experiences that then the kids can go into that same type of job with all those job skills um and be ready to go. And then classroom based instruction, just kind of building up some of those core

021skills before they go out into the workforce. We have our pays lab and our healthy relationships curriculum. On the next slide, you'll see behavioral health. Um, we have one of the most expansive behavioral health programs across the Commonwealth. First to provide a licensed school-based partial program in the Commonwealth. And we can support your your district across all the tiers. Um, if you just need some support as far as consultation and training, we have the ability to provide that for your staff. if you have some gaps where you need a licensed social worker, you don't want to hire your own, um we can fill in some of those gaps for you. And then certainly when kids are really really struggling, we have the programs that you can send the students to us and we can provide

022those services uh for them um all day and then help to transition them back into their homes and their communities. On the next slide, you'll see um Colonial Academy. Again, our focus there is again helping the students build up their self-esteem, build up their skills, and get back to the district, back into the community, and working well. Many of the students that come to us to Colonial Academy, they they've had failed behavior, educational achievement, some poor attendance, some tough situations. So when they come to us, we're trying to surround them with services, trying to build on those relationships, connect with the students, start to build up some of those positive social skills, some of those educational skills, and then put them in situations where they feel like they're they're giving back and they're doing something

023productive. When they build up that self-esteem, they're giving back to the community. They're feeling more fulfilled and and thriving and then coming back to you. And that's really important. So that's where we've been focusing. you can see some of the uh community projects that we've been doing and partnering with those organizations and the kids love that stuff and and again it's giving back to the community which is good for them. On the next slide you'll see um from professional learning department um one of the things that we're doing new this year is we created a hub at the IU for early childhood. So, we're offering the ability for all early childhood programs to come to our IU um and to start getting some resources, getting some training. Again, it's all about getting these kids ready

024to come to you um when when when they're kindergarten ready from wherever they come from with some skills. Um that way they're they're they're ready to rock and we can we can really start to to make some impacts um when when they get to you. So, we've we've done two of these so far. Uh first one I think we had about 50 to 60 child care centers that came and those are like daycarees, big childhood care centers. Um we're partnering with PBS 39. Um our last one we had we had more coming. I mean there's hundreds in the community that offer these services. So we hope that it starts to to grow and spread. Um, and next year we're probably going to be focusing our attention on challenging behavior because that's what we're hearing across

025the state is that um, kids are coming into programs like ours at early intervention because there's more challenging behaviors out there. So, let's try to build up some of those skills and our early childhood centers on managing that tough behavior. On the next slide, um, we offer a driver's education program. We offer the behind the wheel lessons with certified instructors and we also have the ability to do the on-road testing. Give those kids their license. Um, nice part there too is for families. Puts a little money back in your pocket because you go through this program, you get a little break on your insurance. So, that's always good news for the families if they can save some money. So, this program continues to grow. Um, and we're really proud of it and certainly want to

026let everyone know we're out here and able to do that. On the next slide, you'll see technology and operations. Um, one of the things that we did do, and I know I'm pretty sure Eastston does not work with us on high-speed internet. Um, I think you guys have a different provider. That's fine. That's okay. Um, but I am sharing that one thing we did is we did um go away from one of the providers, added a different provider, actually were able to lower the price, double the bandwidth. Um, so that that's good news for all those that are using that. And then we just continue to try to work through all these issues of cyber security. So, anything we could do to bring the school districts together, the technology leaders together, get the right resources

027to talk about how can we um protect our our information, keep all those bad actors out of fishing attempts and everything else trying to take us down. Um, all the technology folks are doing a really nice job working together, coming together as a region. And then on the last one, um, it's just a little, uh, a little plug about our print shop. If you're not aware, we do have a full-ervice print shop. We can pretty much do anything at that print shop. Um, and we're pretty much probably cutting the cost of anybody else that's doing that service. So, um, you know, I I actually have up there two two samples of posters that my daughter was doing her Deca project and she said, "Dad, can you uh pay for our posters when we do deca?

028Um, I want to get them done at Staples." And I said, "No, I won't pay for them at Staples, but I'll pay for them at our IU 2020 print shop because we're definitely a lower cost." Um, so, um, they put those together. So, we can do that. Just let us know. just reach, you can reach out to me. I'll put you in line with the print shop and anything that you're interested in doing out there, we can do really easy, get it to you very quickly. And that's all I got. So, if you have any questions for me, um, I'm here to answer any of your questions. I just have a quick question. Um, so the IU does amazing things and I love the highlights that you go through and I could talk about lots

029of them, but a particular area of interest of mine is the um, teacher pipeline and I was not familiar with the program that you talked about um, that you have at the IU and I don't want to belabor it tonight, but where can I go to either learn more about it or talk to you guys about it just to hear a little bit more about how the program works and where the grant comes from and all of that. Sure. So, you can reach out to me. Okay. Or you can reach out to Dr. Bartech or reach out to me and I'll bridge you to Dr. Bartech. She's she's the house expert. Okay. She was just down at what the sales last week. Uh so, she was on a panel and talking about the programs. Okay.

030Great. So, she Okay, great. I might tell you the wrong information. She's got all the right information. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. If you have any other questions, you can always email me. I'm always available. All right. Thank you everybody. Okay. Thank you. Um before I move on, I do want to thank uh Dr. Draper for reminding me this is also assistant principal week and so I would be remiss if I didn't recognize them and want to thank them for their hard work. We know that like many jobs out there certainly assistant principles is a is a challenging one. um trying to get through their day with all the things that are on their plate. So again, we we certainly thank all of our assistant principles and thank you

031for reminding me of that today. Mrs. Piaza, I'll also throw another one out there that April 4th is National School Librarians Day. So we certainly want to thank our district school librarians also. Thank you for that as well. Sure. Um and with that, I'm going to turn it over to either Dr. Zadic or Mr. Riel. We do have our friends and partners here from Valley Health Partnership and they are here to present um to us. But Dr. Zatak or Mr. Reichel if you'd like to give some introductions and some context. Sure. Good evening. Um through my board updates, I have uh updated the uh the district on um an agreement that we have with Valley Health Partners. Um I don't want to take too much of Carol's thunder away from uh what she's going to

032present, but it's really exciting opportunity for our Southside um family uh to access services over there. It's been about a year and a half in the making through our discussions, but I'm sure they've been working on it a lot longer. So um again, I don't want to take anything away from uh Carol Michaels uh right now, but I'm going to let her present on this excellent opportunity for our community. Um thank you, Mr. Riel. Thank you to the whole board for having me tonight. Um, it's a real pleasure to be here uh because I am a fourth generation Estonian. I am a graduate of Eastn High School. Mrs. Siago was my English teacher. Hara and I were in high school together. Um, so it's it's a real full circle moment for me to um be

033here representing Valley Health Partners in my career um as chief transformation officer and to uh bring with you um the partnership hopes that we have in the coming years. So, um, I'm just going to take a few minutes to introduce you to who we are and what services we currently provide and then what we intend to bring to the Eastn community later this spring and what we hope to do with you as a school district going forward. That'll be outlined in the memorandum of understanding that you have. Um, and happy to take any questions if we have time as well. So in your slide deck um the next slide just really gives an overview of our mission our vision and our core values and Valley Health Partners has been in existence for decades um in

034the way that we've cared for the community but only incorporated as Valley Health Partners for about five years. We are a federally qualified health center lookalike and that's a big word for a community health center that provides care to communities including primary care services and other wraparound services regardless of ability to pay. So we turn no one away for care. We see everyone who is insured, uninsured, um regardless of immigration status, regardless of age, regardless of condition and we care for the community in a patient centered medical home model. Um it is core to us that we are a public health focused model. So very patient centric but also very community centric. We also hire from the communities in which we work. Today we have 40 open positions at Valley Health Partners and a good

035chunk of those are for our new east location. Um it is part of the United States health care system that community health centers exist and um I'll talk about that a little bit in the next slide about what is an FQHC. Um so if you are not familiar with what are community health centers, we are the nation's largest network of primary care providers. Um we are independent. So Valley Health Partners as an FQHC lookalike is governed by the Health Services Resources Administration. Um so we abide by the regulations of the federal government. We as a lookalike do not accept federal dollars. So, we're not dependent on federal funding today, but we operate in accordance with the federal guidelines for community health centers. In Pennsylvania, there are 52. Um, and we are one of eight lookalikes

036and we are the ninth largest in the state of Pennsylvania currently. Um, what's interesting, and I didn't know this before I started working with Valley Health Partners, is that one in 10 Americans get their care at a community health center. And about the majority of Americans who seek care at community health centers are also covered through Medicaid. Um large portion of children, large portion of seniors. We take care of veterans. Um and again, we take care of most of the underserved u minority groups in most of our communities. It's also worth noting that community health centers grew out of the war on poverty initiative in the 1960s. the Johnson administration's focus on this um and it has always had bipartisan support um through the administrations um because of the focus on caring for communities holistically

037and we certainly hope that that continues in the future. Um next slide please. So about Valley Health Partners um this is a list of all the services that we provide. So again I mentioned we're primary care focused but we also include behavioral health and psychiatric service integration. We focused on women's health and OBGYn services. We offer dental and optometry and optical services, chiropractic. Some of you might be familiar with our street medicine program which currently serves the Allentown Eastn Bethlehem area and also has a hub at Safe Harbor. So, our teams go out into um the tent communities and also have scheduled appointments with our unhoused neighbors at different locations in the Eastn area to provide their care. And then we have robust veteran health um and care coordination services as well um which includes

038transportation assistance, social service assistance and as I mentioned we um take care of anyone regardless of ability to pay. So we have a sliding fee scale program for individuals who may not have insurance. Um we also have many community partnerships. So the reason that we're here tonight is to have a relationship with the Eastern School District as we come into the valley. Um, and we also have relationships with about 50 other active community organizations throughout the greater Lehigh Valley and organizations that also have partnered with our veterans health program separately. Um, with the number of our community health centers, we total about 20 different um, locations and we are growing. So, next slide, please. This is um, a little bit of that history. So, I mentioned that Valley Health Partners has been around for decades.

039And what I mean by that is that the primary care offices of Leha Valley Health Network at 17th Street. Um, we're taking care of the Allentown community in a community health centric focused model for decades. Um, those practices that you see at the very top there in green that transition from LVHN when Valley Health Partners was formed were part of that. the family health center, central day salude for the Hispanic community, our children's clinic. And so as Lehigh Valley Health Network um as a system started looking at how they would take care of our most vulnerable patients in the community, they had to change their model and to looking at it through the HERSA um federal guideline lens to create a community health center became the vision. Um now being a community health center also

040requires independence and so it wasn't possible for VHP to exist within being a part of um LVHN. So at that point there was a transition around the pandemic actually um to take those service lines and to begin to separate those functions and form ballet health partners. Um and so we operate today with an independent 501c3 status. We have our own independent board um which is majority made up of our patients um which is a requirement under the federally um qualified health center rules. Um fast forward to you know the early 2022 section there um the HP started to expand with new sites at Sixth Street in Allentown and add additional service lines. And then in the early part of um 2024, we started having discussions with LVHN to acquire some of their practices in the

041Poconos um that were already serving mostly underserved populations in that region. And so it made sense for us to have our service lines come together, bring our dental and bring our pediatric services um up into that region. And so we just recently acquired those practices um from Lehigh Valley Physician Group in the fall of 2024. What you see in the blue is now our expansion into Northampton County with our new site in the south side of Easton um which I'll talk about in just a few minutes. And you'll see there um I have noted that in addition to the um service lines that'll be at the Easton location, there is a planned community pharmacy and is pending the board of pharmacy approval. So, we won't be um promoting that as strongly until that um a

042awareness and approval comes forth, but we're excited to bring that to the southside as well. Next slide, please. So, here's what we'll bring to Southside. Um if you're familiar with the Lincoln Street location, we are on the ground floor of the building on Lincoln Street that has the DG Market on the upper level. We're right across the street. That's the arrow block on the top there. Um from Chestn Elementary School. So within walking distance and we're right across the street from the um apartments that were built at the mill there. The entire uh footprint includes all of these services in one place. So it's your one-stop shop for primary care. Um and we are booking appointments now starting in miday for patients. Um and it's great because you can stack all your appointments together if

043you really want to. And um under this roof, we also will have integrated into our family health center, our children's clinic, and our central day salude, which focuses on the Latino and Hispanic community, our integrated behavioral health services. Um we look forward to working with Mr. Riel and the schools uh especially at Chestston and Paxinosa where we'll have closer proximity on how we can um serve, you know, the students most in need. Um but again, we're happy to uh work with partnerships of any students that are interested in services as well as their family. And so in our partnership with the district, what would that look like? Um what we would be looking to do is serve your needs um in the greatest areas that you've identified. So we would have conversations with you about

044where um you need to see the most focus and we've had some of those initial discussions with Mr. Riel and his colleagues. Um, we've heard that, you know, there is a need to connect students to ensure that they're getting their primary care services, that they're completing their necessary physicals, and just all the care that children need to be healthy and well and perform at their best. Um, we know that dental is a particular concern in the Southside community. We've had um some discussions with the community members at their um location over there with some of our community board discussions and that was raised as a huge concern as well as uh vision care. And we also recognize that behavioral health um as it was mentioned earlier is pervasive concern across our district. And so we

045are very um interested in understanding how we can partner to not overlap and duplicate but make sure that we're coupling our services in partnership with you to complement all the rich resources that you do have. Um one thing that we know from working with the Allentown School District is that um parent and family engagement is so critical. It's a challenge for us to help you help us. Um and so we always try to make a focus on what can we do to um reach parents in the best way. How can we communicate with them? Um how can we get families engaged in understanding um why we want to support and serve their needs and starting to build that trust. So, as much as we can be present um and participate in your community activities, in

046your uh events for parents, we can just be there to get to know people, not with a marketing pitch, just, you know, to understand truly what those needs are. Again, we come at it from a public health focus. So, um that will be critical and we would like to get our school-based health team um connected as early as possible to start planning those opportunities. Um, referrals are also, you know, appreciated. We we've connected with some of your nursing leaders already and have started having conversations and actually um just signed anou with family connection of Eastston and Eastston neighborhood centers. Um and so you know it is our intention to make sure that we're connecting those dots and um ensuring again that we're making referrals and and getting the right uh case workers connected with our

047enablance services and making sure that those um you know community partners are well connected to um whatever your needs are. So our timeline like I said is to begin offering services at our clinic in early May and we're actively scheduling patients now in midmay. Um, but we hope that over the summer we have an opportunity to continue discussing your needs um and gearing up for the school district um beginning of the school year. So, thank you for a few minutes this morning or this afternoon and um I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you very much for presenting. I I as you heard, I think we're extremely excited about the possibilities of being able to represent um our Southside students and be able to have them access services and with the

048proximity to the building um they can access those services throughout the entire school day, too. So, um we're coming up with plans already working with um um Mr. Yanders over there to figure out how to do that for for beginning and fall of next year. Um, but open up see if there's any questions from any members of the of the board. Not a question, but a statement. I am very excited being a Southside resident to have you there and when the pharmacy opens since we lost our CVS, it would be a wonderful thing. Okay, any other questions? Okay, thank you and thank you for coming out this evening. We appreciate your time. And that is that concludes my report for this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next we'll move on to academics. Dr. Draper.

049Good evening. Thank you, um, Mrs. Hess. And so, good evening everyone. um C and I would like to um present one item for or a couple items for approval and just to provide some updates for our board as well as for our community. So, first we'd like to begin with um sharing that this evening we have posted seven field trips that we are asking for the board's approval during our next board meeting. Students will be taking trips to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, Universal Technical Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Seven Springs Resort, Arts Quest at Steel Stacks in Bethlehem, and also the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg. And so we are looking forward for to our students having a um wonderful um educational and and great time as they go

050on these trips. And so we will be asking for your approval for those trips next month um in a couple weeks. Now just for a few updates um take your child to work day is on April 24th uh 2025. So this day offers a great opportunity for our students to gain firsthand insight into the world of work and see what their parents do each day. And it also presents a chance for them to be able to connect what they learn in the classroom with the skills and responsibilities that's involved in various careers. We also ask that everyone save the date. The Little Rock 9 ceremony will be taking place Wednesday, April 30th at 6:30 uh p.m. and it will take place um at the Eastern Area Middle School auditorium. So, we're looking forward to the

05111th annual Little Rock Nine program where we will be recognizing and celebrating minority students who have excelled and or shown growth academically, socially, and or andor athletically. The keynote speaker for this event will be Dr. Kelsey Mloud. She's an alumni of the Eastn Area School District. She specializes in pediatrics and she works for St. Luke's. And again, this event will take place at the middle school. And so the invitation is extended to everyone and we look forward to you all attending. Dr. Draper, what time is the event? I have six in my calendar, but I feel like you just said 6:30, so I just want to make sure I have it right. I have it I said 6:30. Let me just double check. Okay. It is 6. 6. Okay. Yes. Thank you. But um correction.

052So, it will take place at 6 PM. Just a reminder that the monitoring of our Title One programs will take place in person on April 29th um by a monitor in front of Pennsylvania Department of Education. Both our fiscal and programming monitoring will be done um for the 2425 school year. I'd like to say many thanks to Mrs. Carapri who is our grants coordinator for preparing the submissions of the required documentation in preparation for our visit. Also just want to inform the board that adjustments have been made to our title one and title 2 programming for the 2425 school year. We received a slight decrease in our title one funds the amount of $2,719 and we received a slight increase in our title two of $99. And so um those adjustments are being made to

053our consolidated application and it has also been made to the grant expenditure report which has also been shared with um all board members. So you have access to see that and how those funds are being used um for our East area middle school improvement planning u meeting. Mrs. Jones and her administrative team facilitated their first school improvement planning meeting on April 2nd. It was well attended by our staff, families, and community partners. We learned about the school improvement planning process for the school and we began to look at data so that we can provide feedback which will then inform the development of priorities for that school as well as an action plan for continued improvement. The next meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 23rd at 6 pm at the middle school and the library.

054And again, all are welcome and encouraged to attend. In partnership with um communities and schools, Mrs. Katie Sames, who is our English language development coordinator, hosted a highly successful um parent and family engagement night on March 26th at the at Paxinosa Elementary School. Families and students learn vital information about the dangers of vaping through attending a session presented by Dr. Corwin, who's a pulmonologist from St. Luke's. The attendees also had the opportunity to connect with various community partners and valuable resources. The center for humanistic change um presented a mock bedroom display which provided a very powerful visual learning experience. there was on-site um Spanish language support for our families and this collaborative event was a fantastic opportunity for our community to engage, learn and support one another and we're looking forward to continuing these parent

055and family engagement opportunities um in the future. And lastly, just want to provide a reminder about our upcoming PSSAs and Keystones. Students in grades 3 to 8 will be taking the ELA PSSA April 22nd, 23rd, and 25th. Grades 3 to 5 will be taking the mathematics PSSAs on April 29th and 30th. Grades five and eight will be taking the science PSSAs on May 1st and 2nd, which will be administered online. And for our Keystone assessments um on the Eastern Area Middle School, we'll be taking it May 19th through the 20th and at the high school May 16th, 19th and 20th. And so just want to make a note again that this year the PSSA science assessment for grades five and 8 will be conducted online and beginning next year all three assessments will transition to

056a digital format. And so more information have been sent out to families regarding this and more information to come as we transition to all three assessments um being online. And so thus ends the report for academics. Any questions? Okay. Does anyone have any questions? No. Okay. All right. So is there any public to be heard on academic agenda items? Nope. See none. Okay. And then the only thing moving forward will be the field trip request. Okay. Next we have athletics. Dr. Zatic. Sure. Thank you, Miss Hess. Uh Dr. Baltz has quite a few things this evening to share. Uh some things that he's really excited about and uh when we look at the agenda items, we will most likely be recommending two of those for approval uh for board consideration. One being an agreement uh

057for helmet use and then also a new branding guide that Dr. Bolts has worked on probably for the past month or two. So, um I know he wants to to share that with everybody, but a few things to work through first. Dr. Boltz, thank you. So, um the first thing we're going to take a look at tonight is our review of the the winter athletic season. And I know Gino's going to have that in a second. That is not the correct one, Gino. I'm sorry, Gino. Can I share a new one with you? Just sent it over. Um, so while Gino's pulling that up, our our winter athletic season um was again a very highly successful season for us. Um, in a moment when he pulls that up, we'll just do a couple quick overview

058items. Um our student athlete character council over the winter season has been very active. Um some of the activities they've been involved in u over the last two to three months they participated in the national pizza day activity at Chest serving pizza to the the students over there. They also um were able to participate in ReadAcross America Day at um many of the low elementary schools throughout the district. Um, and then today I actually spent the day with them at West Point where they were given a a tour of the um not just the historic areas of campus, but also um the athletic facilities and got to to walk through the high level of of history that's on West Point's campus. So, it was really a neat experience for not just the kids, but the

059adults that were able to to shop around the trip. um this winter season. You can see we have our our scholar athletes um from each of the sports. They're going to be joining us at um the meeting later this month to be honored in person. Um but we were very fortunate yet again to have multiple overall scholar athletes from the conference. Um this winter, our overall scholar athletes were Mara Case in girls wrestling and Quentyn Hammerstone in boys wrestling. So it's really exciting um to be able to honor them. Um, Quentyn, by the way, was also our fall scholar athlete in golf. Um, and he is uh a rare uh breed at this point that he's a three sport varsity athlete. So, um, I've already spoken to him and issued him the challenge to see

060if he can pull off the trifecta of being a scholar athlete across three sports. So, I'm really excited to see how that goes um in the spring. So, as we move forward, you'll you can see just a couple of the the social media graphics that we put out over the course of um the last couple months honoring our scholar athletes. Um and then the overalls um as they were honored on the next slide, I believe. Um our high school fellowship of Christian Athletes group continues to to meet and have strong representation on Thursday mornings um with Dr. under the supervision of Dr. Kunio um at the high school. Um and it's been a a real positive influence on the students that are involved with that. U just a couple items of of volunteer and community

061service in addition to what our student athlete character council um has been doing. The baseball program has continued with um the Christmas tree volunteer work that they have historically done for a number of years now. and they'll be hosting their annual Easter egg hunt on the baseball field on April the 19th. Um cheerleading also participated in a number of things throughout the winter um and fall seasons and our boys wrestling team um did a toy drive this winter uh that provided 280 children with some Christmas uh surprises. Um overall as we scroll through here um you'll see season to season you might see some fluctuation in the overall size of one roster from one year to the next. But I think the the interesting component is we're we're starting to see kind of a a

062more consistent return to roster sizes. So if you look at the next slide, um in all we ended up with 422 total athletes during the winter season, which was it's almost impossible to believe this, exactly the same number of kids that we had last year um performing in the winter season. So um we're starting to bounce back when we look at our numbers from COVID with participation rates and try starting to see a consistency there again that we haven't seen in the last several years. Um throughout the season, uh there obviously were a number of highlights. Um our cheerleading team being district champions and um East Penn conference second place, advancing to states and doing very well at the national level. Um the boys basketball team continued to improve, but I think the the highlight

063there is looking at the success of the the lower levels. Gino, if you can go to the next couple. There we go. Perfect. Um, girls basketball continues to be a strong performing program top to bottom. They've qualified for the EPC district 11 and PIAA playoffs. Yet again, this was the fourth consecutive year that we have qualified for the state playoffs. Um, on the indoor track and field front, um, they participated in a number of invitational events throughout the winter. Um but we had students qualify yet again for the state meet there and perform well at Penn State. Um and including five five athletes and also um qualified for national meets that are held in both Boston and New York City uh during the winter season. Uh on the swimming and diving front, we had multiple

064district place winners um and one state uh meet qualifier in Jake Brunetti. Um Jake was also the scholar athlete for boys swimming uh this winter. And then wrestling um had an outstanding season on both the boys and girls front. Uh on the boys side they finished um district 11 fifth place north region northeast regional fifth and 12th at states with one individual state champion um in Nick Salomon. On the girls side, we had Aubrey Craser earn a state championship. Um, and the girls team was District 11 champions. They competed against Philipsburg for the first time ever. Um, and Ryan Pomeranka, our first year head coach, was named both district coach of the year and state coach of the year by his peers. So, was an outstanding year for the wrestling programs. Overall the winter season

065we had a 66% winning percentage was a which was a 3% increase over last winter. So um we're seeing success and and this year even more success than we've seen in past years. Uh some interesting uh items coming up in the coming weeks. Next Tuesday night we have our third um in our series with Dr. Jared Spencer and Mind of the Athlete. He'll also be including Dr. Hannah Wilderson on Tuesday night um as part of the uh presentation series which includes presentations to our student athletes during the school day, our coaches after school, and then um presentations that are open to the parents and community in the evening. Um as you go through with just some other winter highlights, like I said, Jake Brunetti qualified for the state meet in swimming. March was National Athletic

066Training Month. Um, and if you follow us on our social media feeds, we were highlighting our athletic trainers through the words of our coaches and what they had to say when asked about each of the trainers that works with them. And this was a comment made about the team of trainers and the impact that they have on not just the health or the the sport um aspect, but just looking at the the athletes lives as a whole and trying to make a positive impact. Highlights for our girls wrestling program. Like I said, the district champions, the first district championship, and the banner is prepared and ready to go up in the high school gym. Um, as well as a graphic from the the first East and Phillips for girls wrestling match which was held at

067our high school gym in January. Um, like I said, highlights from our our wrestling programs. Aubrey continues to add to her accolades. Um, as you can see there, not only was she a state champion, she was the most outstanding wrestler of the state tournament on the girls side. And this past weekend, she qualified for the United States under 20 national team u by winning her weight class. So, she will be representing team USA in Bulgaria this summer on the women's wrestling side. uh winter season. Uh we continue to to try and do everything we can to provide supports for our student athletes um on the academic side. So you can see the total number of um ineligible weeks. So um that's 12 total weeks um could be the same individual um at different times at

068the middle school level during the winter um and that's 48 at the high school level. Um, as you know, this year, um, you know, in and most years, we've we've pointed out on the next slide that our student athletes, even with those numbers, are consistently performing, um, at a very high level in the classroom, especially when compared to those who are not athletes. Um, so these are the the numbers that we had from the previous school year. And as part of that, just want to highlight the the winter teams that had the highest overall GPA, which kudos to Coach Ellis and the swimming program because they swept the winter season on the boys and girls side um with both teams having um team averages of above 95%. Uh this year we kicked off our Athlife

069program at the high school with additional supports. Um and as you can see here, the the team has grown from uh two initially to four individuals, three at the high school and one at the middle school. Um that are providing a wide range of supports for our stu our student athletes. Um on the next slide, you'll see that um some of the highlights and things that they've been going through and doing. Um, they created a schooly group of resources to pro uh provide all kinds of helpful tools to our student athletes and their parents from high school eligibility to NCAA eligibility, recruiting and college preparation, career pathways, time management. Um, just a myriad of resources that they then can reference when working with our kids um, in a one-on-one or intervention or team uh, standpoint.

070On the next slide, you'll see that our our three coaches at the high school have at this point that as of this week have already eclipsed over 300 one-on-one meetings with student athletes um through the course of September through April. Um and these could be academic interventions or just check-ins on kids that might be struggling, a new transfer to the school district to check on how their transition is going. um or just some concerns that may have been brought by, you know, a coach for them to check in on. Um they've also put in over 80 hours of additional work, whether it was a coach and parent meeting with our winter sports uh athletes, family engagement nights, they did an athife education program in Allentown, student leadership forums at Moravian University. Um and on the

071next slide, you can see some of the other things. uh a partnership with Lafayette College where they did a forum with our football and girls lacrosse student athletes. Um they uh continue to do some some team building activities with our girls lacrosse team in the spring and you can see some photos of some of those different activities there. So they're hard at work with um providing all kinds of supports to our student athletes both during the school day and afterwards. Just a couple months ago, we added Mr. Cole at the middle school serving in this role. So he's been um hitting the ground running with over 40 meetings with our students in about the last six weeks. Um we hosted a mental health presentation from St. Luke's with those student athletes. Um and he's continuing

072to um build those relationships with our student athletes at the middle school level. We continue to have an extremely strong agreement with and partnership with St. Luke's. Um we continue to host our physical exams at the high school where they provide the doctors for them. Um and you can see just a little bit of the services that they provide in in addition to um interns and and training the next generation of athletic trainers or those in the sports medicine field. Um you can skip to the next one then Gina. We uh have scheduled our ceremonial collegiate signing for our student athletes that are going to move on to the college level. That's going to be June 5th at 1 pm in the high school gym. Um and we have a quickly growing list of students

073that have committed to compete at the next level. So that's always an exciting day. We'll also have that live streamed for anybody who is not able to make it. What day? I'm sorry. June the 5th. What time? One o'clock. And then just a quick update on our revenue through the end of March. Uh so far this year we've grossed um in revenue uh over $287,000 through athletics. Um with special events um those things being our food trucks, playoff games, um things out of the ordinary ticket sales at over $48,000 so far this year. So far, uh, without having a a completed contest yet in the spring, we started tennis on Saturday, then the rain came in. So, um, we're in the middle of a tennis match with Philsburg. But at this point, um, we have

074already clenched the fact that that trophy will not cross the Delaware this year, um, with an overall record so far of 11 and three this year against the state liners. So, that's the winter report. Does anybody have any questions? All right. So, the next two items on there, u the first one is an agreement that we'll bring forth to the board for approval um at the next meeting, which um will allow the the parents of football players to purchase their own football helmets should they choose to do so. Um, I will say that this is a change and the reason we're bringing it forward is it's a really a change in procedure for us as a district that um, although other districts both locally, statewide, and nationwide have done this for some time, we have

075not gone down this route. Um, however, reaching out to our other school districts and seeing some of the agreements that are in place, we felt comfortable with providing this opportunity based on the procedures that will be in place as part of the agreement so that we can ensure that they are reconditioned regularly, um, supervised regularly, checked out just like any helmet we would own. Um the difference being in the end when someone graduates or withdraws from Eastn High School then they can take that piece of equipment with them at that point. Um but otherwise it would be under our care, our supervision in the meantime. Um our solicitor has already reviewed the agreement and and is comfortable with where we're at. So um and I've met with our equipment managers to go through those procedures

076moving forward as well. So really just providing an opportunity that is out there in other areas and in other sports that had not been on the football end. Um and then letter D is just a quick update on um a proposal and a shift that we're going to make with the junior high wrestling program. So, um, as most of you are aware, we currently on the boys side have a junior high red and a junior high white team. Um, with the continued growth of girls wrestling, the next, um, logical step to grow that program and that we're already seeing within our conference is to have a feeder program for the girls side. Um, we have had our female wrestlers compete on what was our junior high white team in the past. However, if they're competing

077on a boys team, that can make scheduling a full schedule or full opportunities for our female wrestlers a little more challenging because of the way that we are locked into a only a set number of competitions with each team. So, we'll be looking to transition our junior high white team to an official junior high girls team moving into next year. So, we'll maintain our three programs on the boy side, which would be varsity, junior varsity, and junior high. And then we'll be in full alignment from a title nine perspective and an opportunity perspective on the girls side with varsity, junior varsity, and junior high on the girls side as well. Um this actually was supported by our junior high boys coaching staff as well feeling that it was the next logical step to provide um

078those opportunities in the program. So um that was an encouraging thing on that side too that they they were in support of the the move as well. Any questions on any of that? All right. I promise this is the last thing. Um so over the course of the last several years um one of the things that we have come across in the athletic department is there's a number of different uses of our logos and the different marks that teams want to use that booster clubs want to use in regards to our Eastn brand and our logo. Um it we've also come across and I've noticed um and you may have as well that sometimes there can be inconsistencies with the reproduction of um our current logo in that it was drawn by hand in the

0791950s and when you try to recreate that with high quality in vector files, electronic files, embroidery in 2025, you don't always get the level of quality that you'd like. Um, I also get a lot of requests from our teams and programs on can I do this, can I do that, can we use this logo? And I'm kind of a stickler for no, we have a logo and it's one of a kind and that's what we should be using. So, um, in an effort to kind of bring all of those things together along with the idea that we really have no official word mark um, or other items like that. Um, I was having this conversation with a vendor of ours who let me know that by the way, we can develop a brand guide for

080you completely free of charge if you're interested in working with us. So, um, Mrs. Piaza, myself, and Mr. Hess began working with VIP branding, which is a branch of BSN Sports, um, to create what is a guide for us. But we also used it as an educational opportunity that each one of these tweaks or um I call them kind of like a a digital facelift on some of our logos will provide an opportunity or talking point to educate our community and our student athletes or any of our students on um some of the items in our our community and our history that are very unique to Easton. So, as you scroll through, you might not even notice looking at that right there that we've made a couple little tweaks where we're just making some lines

081a little bit thicker and more um defined so that the reproduction of this logo can be more consistent. Um, if you look very closely there, you'll notice one of the mandates I gave to our branding company was the block E with Eastston was drawn by hand by an Eastston alum in the 1950s. So if you're going to create a font for us, I want you to make a unique font out of that block E that will only be East that can't be reproduced in any other way. Um so the red rovers that you see there is the font that they came up with that was built out of the block E that has been with our our Eastn logo since the 1950s. As you continue to scroll, I mean, some of this is semantics on

082what we would provide to um our different vendors. Um, but you'll see there's a full body bulldog there. There's a story behind that. And if you continue to scroll um there'll be a couple more logos that we'll get to. And this is kind of right here where I think right there. Gina, scroll up a little bit. This is what I think is the the most unique part. And then as we go through you can see some of these elements. So within the the face of the bulldog very subtly you can now see when we really zoom in the arch with its keystone is built into the jawline of the bulldog logo. So that regardless of what happens down the road, it's a talking point with our student athletes to and all of our community to

083educate them on what that means in the first line of our alma mater. um that we really do see it as a unifying symbol within the Eastern School District that pulls our diversity together to make it our strength. Um I was able to sit down with Jay Golden. Jay actually is an East grad who is the person who created the original logo. Um so he was, you know, on board with the things we were doing here and his big thing was as long as we're moving away from that bulldog and that block E, he's on board. um and met with the varsity club as well since they commissioned the original logo. Um and they're they're supportive as well. Um the the word marks all incorporate that new font. Um and the the circle mark that

084you'll see actually incorporates the eight point stars from the city of Eastn flag um to pull in that historical and and traditional aspect of the East School District. Uh the the full body logo actually dates back to a painting that there's a copy that's sitting in Mr. Guyger's office at the high school and a copy of it that is in my office in the uh in the athletic department but has been in the athletic director's office since it was originally presented to John Maitelland in 1962. Um, so when we first met with the the branding company, it was actually over my shoulder in the Zoom meeting and we looked at it and said that's got to be part of what we do. So, um, as you scroll forward, you'll see just some of the the

085updated logos. So, that's, like I said, it's really just cleaning up what we've had before. Um, as we continue to go through, you'll see the the six total marks that we have. Um, it's important to note that the the underscript under uh red rovers and uh east in the first in logos two and three, the word marks there are completely um customizable. So that could say red rovers with Eastern Area High School, Eastn School District, Department of Technology, Special Education, whatever we need it to say, it can say. So, it will allow for moving forward with a consistent, you know, potentially um letter heads and everything that comes out from the district and have a very consistent and clean look. Um, and then the following pages really just outline for anyone exactly how those logos

086need to be used, whether it's placement on different colors. Um, if you're going to do things in two color or three color versions, which I think might be within the next couple of slides there, Gino. um the official PMS colors for people uh to match as they go through um and just placements on on different backgrounds. So um this will be available on our website. Um thought the timing of this was great for rolling out with some some new website features in the coming months. um and just an opportunity to um provide a consistent look across not just our our athletic programs but across the district as a whole. So if somebody wants to use this, do they have to get permission? I they can reach out to me and we have those logos to

087provide to those different organizations that would be within our school district. Yeah. I just think that one with the bulldog standing, he looks awful. He He's He's He's fit. He's athletic. He needs more. It's like a puppy version. So, um I don't know if there's any other questions or otherwise it's great. No, I just was thinking like if I go on Facebook and somebody is selling a product. You're saying that in order to use those logos, they have got to get permission. Well, the only way that they're going to get those files in the highest level of um graphics that they would need would be getting it directly from us. Got to be clear, Susan, they're they're not under any legal obligation to do so. We don't own a trademark or the logo itself. Correct.

088Yeah. So, I just want to take a second to thank Matt and um Greg for this. They certainly did the lion share. Matt especially did the lion share of this work. I followed along with them um and interjected with with Matt on occasion, but really he um he did he did the heavy lift on this and the creative design on this. And so, I certainly want to thank both of them and in particular Matt who did most of the communication. So, thank you for that. Thanks. Um, so all in all, we will have the just a couple items for approval on our next meeting. Um, and if there's questions on anything else, I'll be happy to answer them. Nothing else then. Um, guess is there public to be heard on athletic agenda items? Okay, seeing

089none, um I guess we'll be moving the helmets agreement. And do we need to actually vote on the changes for the wrestling? Wrestling. I don't think that needs to be voted on. I think it was just a recommendation that the teams were in favor. Making sure we had to vote on that years ago. So, just want to make sure. Um, okay. Next, we've got budget and finance. Mr. Trent, thank you. The business office has six agenda items for the April 29th meeting. The first is the senior citizen property tax rebate program, which is an annual uh motion to approve. Next is a new student activity account, the cultural connections club at the high school. Um, we have the life and add renewal. ADD stands for accidental death and dismemberment. So that's through Sunlife and that

090uh remains neutral from the previous agreement and it's neutral through 2028. So we had no increase with that contract. Next is the Capital Blue Health NRX which also maintained at 0% through from the last contract through this one. The one stipulation is we shifted to weekly billing rather than monthly billing and that's why we maintained that level. Um and then the last is the Delta dental renewal which went from $2.72 to $2.81 administrative fee per person. That represents a 3% increase. And I think I missed one which was the school lunches. Has to be in here somewhere. They're stuck together. Uh the school lunch meal prices, they went up by 15 cents for breakfast for students and 10 cents for sorry 15 cents for students, 10 cents for adults. Obviously with free breakfast that doesn't

091impact the price increases. It's really if somebody wants a second breakfast that's where the uh the impact would be. Thank you. Um, so I guess my question is, is Delta Dental? Yes. Is there anybody else that we might look at because I've heard a lot of um dentists aren't taking Delta Dental anymore because sometimes they don't pay the bills. Sure. So, I've had those conversations with our our health broker and I have asked also to see alternatives, but the recommendation is still to proceed with Delta Dental as far as the pricing goes for the district. Okay. Is there any other questions? Is there any public to be heard on budget and finance agenda items? Seeing none, summaries, we'll be moving all of those items forward for the 29th. 29th. 29th. Yes. 29th. 29th. All right.

092Next, buildings and ground safety security. Dr. Zatic. Thank you, Miss Hass. And good evening, everyone. for the students in the audience. We're almost we're getting to the ends pretty soon uh watching you out there. Uh the the operations team will have three items for recommendation for approval at this month's board meeting. Um the first one is rather simple routine item but if you remember we did enter into uh some work with the high school pool about 2023. Uh that work is pretty much all but done. Uh and they are issuing us a credit change order in the amount of 23,745. So, that's a positive. Uh, that'll be on the board agenda for approval. Um, you know, we're happy to answer any questions with that, but that's a routine item. Letter C, uh, is an elevator

093update. And we do have a couple things we want to, uh, share with the board at this. So, about two months ago, it may have been even three. We brought the recommendation to the board uh, to uh, award a bid to Reading Elevator uh, and but we wanted to do it in two phases uh, because of the the lead time to get the work done. Uh the first phase we awarded not a problem. Uh but if you recall we did have a conversation with the board about how to approach the second uh phase of that work and there was some work that we wanted to uh see if we could do in-house or if we had to you know go bid or go out for some service and we we agreed internally that we need

094to do uh to go out for some service. Um the the information that you see on the the board ag on the board agenda this evening um is a quote to do that work. What I will say though to be fair to everybody is when we added this to the board agenda uh we the the company did let us know that uh given the current uh landscape of you know tariffs and other things going on in the world uh there they were having some issues with their with some suppliers. Um, so they did let us know that they would be providing us a new update because they were going back and forth. Um, we at 5:21 this evening, we received that brand new update. Uh, so we did not have time to put on the

095agenda, so we put on the previous one just uh to be, you know, open and honest. Um, Mike Deabwin from CHA is here this evening. He can kind of speak to the work that we're looking to do. Uh, and Mike, I know you have the new price as well and the alternates. Yeah. So, to get uh all the pricing together through we're doing it through Co-Stars. It's really what Co-Stars is set up to do with using a vendor and uh installing specific equipment and supplies. So, uh we have the contract through Reading Elevator already. Uh that's all signed and completed with the work happening this summer. And this is for the additional electrical and HVAC work. Um a new mini split system for the cool the motor. basically every everything outside the cab and everything

096outside the motor. Um uh the original price that you guys have was about $45,000 with the the two alternates and the one that we received just today was $55,000. Uh so that's would be the final price for the uh end of April board meeting. Yeah. So we'll be bringing forth the new recommendation and that is about $10,000 more in total than what was originally quoted on this agenda. Just to quickly add, you know, it's still within the budget for the capital improvement plan, so that the price was still um as expected. Thank you, Mike. Any questions before we move on there? We just want to make sure everybody was on the same page. 12,000. You figured it out. There you go. You figured out that quickly, Susan, huh? Um, yeah, true. So, thank you, Mike.

097I appreciate it. Ken, anything else you want to add there? Okay. Uh, and then the only other item on the agenda, uh, I just want to welcome Chief Ramali, uh, just to say a few words about the Red Cross facility agreement. Um, and what I will say as John walks up to the microphone is, uh, I just want to say thank you to to Officer Ramali and his team. I know John's been working over the past year or two to improve the communication pieces with our 911, our dispatch, and other organizations within the community. uh and also to have some reciprocal uh agreements in place for when we need to use other facilities uh as as an emergency, you know, protocol. So, just want to say thank you to John because he's really been a

098steward of this process. Um and John's here to talk to us about the Red Cross agreement. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Zatic. As many of you probably know, um twice within the last three years, we've been requested to um provide shelter to members of our community through um the Red Cross down at Paxinosa Elementary School. One of them was for the fire that occurred in the 900 block of Ferry Street and then most recently for the fire that occurred at the Lafayette Hotel. Uh both those were short-term uh sheltering arrangements where they had to take care of a a handful of of uh displaced persons from both of those events. The uh Red Cross has been looking at our middle school facility as a possibility for use in the event of a largecale uh natural disaster

099or anything that we would need to shelter a number of um residents or number of people for the long term. Uh the facility is ideal in the fact that it provides both cafeteria uh shower and restroom facilities and a large enough space to provide temporary housing for a long period all on one level. So it's very very compliant with ADA regulations. Um, I know we're looking at a very kind of generic uh contract between us and the the um Red Cross that seems to spell out a lot of questions or a lot of concerns that folks might have. Uh, one of the things they did include with this uh contract and the fact that it would be a long-term type of sheltering facility is the pet addendum. And all that basically spells out is that

100we would be providing uh an area where people would be able to maintain their pets. Um certainly are there's some regulations that go along with that. Uh it doesn't pertain to service or uh guide animals. They would, you know, be able to be housed with the um their owner in the general population. But this is just literally the run of the day every you know people are displaced and they need to care care for their pets. This is providing that that uh opportunity as well. So John the only thing else I'll add is a it's been reviewed by our solicitor. Um so we had had that reviewed. Uh two this is only in regard to some you know regional crisis that uh we would be looking to use the middle school not on a you

101know not on a whim for example. Well, no, no, it wouldn't be. It would be for a pretty significant disaster. Probably a regional event. Um, as Dr. Zatic and I both spoke, uh, it would probably be an event that would probably put us out of commission for a while, too. So, it's not looking as if, you know, we'd be impending or impeding on our uh, children's educational opportunity. There has been provisions that we did look at that had, you know, the case arised where we would have to utilize the school for educational purposes and still shelter people that have been displaced, we are able to close off that portion of the building and still maintain the shelter. Um, part of the contract does indicate though that it would be upon request and if feasible. Yep.

102So, those are some key terms there. Yeah. And John, just bring that up because the request is only for the middle school. Um, and it's not for other schools, but this is for some, you know, a big event. We'll continue to support, you know, the Red Cross and other organizations, uh, should they request and we can do that within house like Paxinosa and other buildings, but this request is only for middle school. This is specific to the middle school and having been um kind of point in liaisoning with the Red Cross on on the other two events. Um the organization is is well manned. Um when they come and and set up the facility, they bring just about everything that's required. They take care of a lot of the logistics. Um, you know, Ken has

103been very very helpful in both occasions in planning for custodial services while they're in the uh the facility. Uh, my officers have been very helpful in setting up rotations to maintain security uh on site while they're there. And in fact, the Red Cross even reaches out to uh local law enforcement as well to make sure that they're available and they know they're in the facility at the time as for uh in the event that that you know a law enforcement response would be required. So those are three items that we are recommending for approval. John, I'll just say thank you again to how responsive that you and your team have been to those emergencies. Um I know you're always available and we thank you for all of that. I appreciate that and just the entire

104district has been absolutely helpful. Um so again those three items will be recommending for approval uh in 3 weeks. Um and that's all we have. There any questions? All right. Is there uh any public to be heard on buildings and grounds agenda items? Okay. Seeing none. And next we move on to uh educational technology and student supports. Sure. Mr. Reicho. I think both items this evening are from your department. That is correct, Dr. Zak. Thank you for pointing that out. So, both of our um our items have been on our board briefs uh actually for the past two months uh for looking for board approval. The um the first one that I have on there is the St. Luke's uh group agreement. There's no cost to the school district. Our doctor, Dr. Rodriguez, is now

105in the St. Luke's network. So, we have to have this approved. Um, it is retroactive to uh September, which is this school year. We've been in discussions with St. Luke's for uh the entire school year in terms of how we're going to kind of solidify this. No change to the agreement except for that he's under the umbrella of St. Luke's. And the second agreement is for theou for Valley Health Partners. Um the one that is on here currently was last updated on Friday um in the afternoon. So I'm going to get the new one on for the next board approval. Just some minor language changes um that need to be updated for approval for this month. But again, that VHP is no cost to the school district. Just really um how we are going to

106partner together to be best serve our students. And thatou has been already reviewed by Kingspry. It has. Yes. Thank you. And those are the two items we have for approval underneath educational technology and student supports. Thank you. Is there any questions? Okay. Is there any public to be heard on educational technology and student supports? Okay. Seeing none, we'll be moving those forward. Okay. Is there any other business from board members? Miss, just a quick question. We had talked back in January, I think, about a resolution from the board regarding the warehouse proposal, and I was just wondering if we could get a status check on, you know, where we are in that process. I'm passing out the um the city planning commission, the Scanel developer properties people have for the fourth or fifth time put

107off their presentation for for the following meeting. So the they aren't meeting until um the May planning commission meeting. So that um I was going to testify at that planning commission meeting using the information from Benjamin's presentation here in January and also quotes from you all that I have transcribed on this thing that's passing around um with your blessing and um and then I can draft a resolution to be presented um if I can draft it give it to you all to to approve and then print it on on letterhead and distribute it. Is that cool? Sounds great to me. And I'll do that before our next meeting in 3 weeks. So, just for point of clarification, you're going to draft something and look, so it's coming from the board. You're not looking for me

108to draft something necessarily, but the you'll draft something for the board to then approve. Um, what we will do with King's Prize approval is have them take a look at it as, you know, Jonathan take a look at it as well, just from a language standpoint and latigious standpoint, but then we'll bring it forth for the board to review that. So, you can send that directly to me or Ally and we'll make sure it gets moved forward. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Jen. Yeah. Okay. Is there any other business? All right. Public to be heard on non-aggenda items. Okay. Seeing none, if I have a motion for adjournment. Motion. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Have a good evening.