001e e e [Music] okay I'm going to call it's 702 a little bit later thank you for your Indulgence while um Mr Whitman was connecting uh call this reorganization meeting December 3rd of the eastn area school district uh board of directors to order uh if everybody could rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge ALG flag United States stand indisce Al do we have a r call uh thanks for joining us today it's my one time of the year where I get to run the show and thankfully for everyone it's a very shortlived tenure um the purpose of tonight's meeting uh is held in accordance with sections 401 402 and 404 of the Pennsylvania school code and is for the purpose of electing a president and vice president to serve for a term of one
002year and for consideration of any other business that may be properly presented my one and only role today is to immediately assist in the election of a temporary president to hand over the Reigns so pursuant to section 402 of the school code a temporary president shall be elected from one of the holdover members which in the current state of this board is every member uh Susan Hart ra fininger Jody hes nikisha Robertson me sayago Michael Setta Brian Snyder Dion Wellington William Whitman or Jennifer zando Dennis so with that I will open the floor for nominations for the role of temporary president I'd like to nominate Brian Snider is there a second second any other nominations I'd like to nominate Jody Susan harrath excuse me for this is for the role of a temporary is there
003another nomination for the role of temporary president Susan harra okay is there a second okay Susan declines okay Susan declines so with that I'll close the nominations uh all those in favor of Mr Snider serving as the temporary president by saying I I any opposed all right Mr Snider it is your meeting okay thank you okay moving on to agenda item four before we get to our uh open nominations uh is there any public comment regarding agenda items only and agenda items uh for this segment of the meeting are relation to the election of the board president or vice president okay seeing no public comment we will move on to election of President item 5A uh we need a motion to open nominations to select uh nominees for president do I have a motion motion
004second okay I have a motion in a second all in favor I any opposed okay now nominations for president are now open I'd like to nominate Jody second okay we have one nomination are there any other nominations for president okay hearing none we have a motion to uh do I have a motion to close nominations for president so moved and a second okay I have a motion in a second all in favor I any opposed okay item 5c um being as we have one nominee do we need Jonathan to cast votes still as well still work okay okay uh for item 5c we have one nominee for president um I think would be best probably to do a roll call vote if Mrs Ramirez could do a roll call vote please and I'm uh give
005your intention for an i or an A when your name is called depart yes Yesa yes Mr yes yes Mr W yes yes okay thank you m rire can we confirm that that was a a nine to zero tally is that correct okay that being said we have elected our president for the year uh item six election um I'm sorry election of President is now closed uh being with procedure the meeting will now be turned over to the newly elected president miss jod Hess congratulations congratulations congratulations thank you okay we'll move on to number six election of Vice President I'd like to open nominations for vice president I'd like to nominate nikesha Robertson a second that okay do I have any other nominations Mike [Music] Setta do I have a second mic is declining okay
006so uh can I have a motion to close nominations second okay call for cast the votes motion to cast the ballots to approve nikesha Robertson as vice president M Ramirez can you take broll call yes I yes congratulations okay with that we'll call for adjournment of the meeting motion to adjourn second okay all in favor all right okay with that we'll move on to our regular board meeting since we've already done the roll uh the Pledge of Allegiance and the roll call no roll call has changed we'll go to number two superintendent's report Miss pza thank you this evening I just have a few um thank yous and shoutouts for uh for this evening first I'd like to acknowledge excuse me Dr Draper who right before the holiday was acknowledged um by the African-American Business
007Leaders Council from the Greater Lehigh Valley um Chamber of Commerce as African-American business leader of uh of the Year award um so we're super proud of her we had the opportunity to celebrate her few days before before the Thanksgiving break um and it was certainly a nice you know nice honor for her and good company and we're you know obviously very proud of her as part of our team here so congratulations to you for that [Applause] um I'd like to obviously congratulate our football team and coaches and everyone who had a hand in in those efforts certainly was uh made sitting out in the cold that day worthwhile um but beyond that I want to thank a number of people who helped us quickly pull together the alternative activities you know starting first and foremost
008with the high school principal Mr guer um his support network and Mr cuck and everyone else you know here with that and his teachers and of course the students themselves who came up with the ideas for alternate plans um part of the planning was to build floats and that came together within about a week's notice and so I'd like to acknowledge Dave Culver Frank pbone the rizolino family Ryan Kon our East maintenance team um and Mario pulini who quickly pulled together some floats for the kids to decorate donating their time and energy to to allow the kids to utilize their floats but also pull them in the parade certainly East in transportation for all their shuttles that they ran back and forth um and then another thank you out to a handful of folks who
009sponsored and paid in in the entirety the contract that you see on the agenda tonight for the laser um show and that was King spry um Arif fil through cha family connections of Easton Randy gallato of al5 and E the Easton um education found Foundation here um for the eastn area school district so thanks to them we were able to have that presentation entirely paid for without District funds and so I want to thank them as well there are a number of other people who obviously should be thanked but I'm just going to say you know publicly that we're super proud of our community our students our staff for pulling together and what was you know um you know a challenging time having to break in Tradition a little bit um but the kids came
010up with a great idea and the adults made sure that it happen and so I'm super proud of of all of the the folks that supported that and um the quick work that came that came together on behalf of our students and Community um I also um want to just wish the the board a happy holiday it seems kind of odd just coming back from Thanksgiving and wishing you a happy holiday for December but we will not see you in a formal capacity between now and then so small token of our appreciation here and we wish you all and your family a a happy and healthy holiday season thank you um the last shout out I have is um really can wait till after the holidays but I'm not sure that we see you is
011January 9th is law enforcement appreciation day and so no better time than the presid to thank our district and local law enforcement for all that they do um certainly in uncertain times in the community and Across the Nation uh we appreciate all of their effort and their tireless um sacrifices so thank you to them and with that um we'll move move into reports we don't necessarily have reports listed specifically on the agenda tonight Jody but I knew we do have a few folks here to give the reports so why don't we start with the public library good evening everyone I'm Betsy Walker from the board of directors of the eastn area public library um it's a crazy time at the library after the book sale everything is in Holiday gear and we have programs for
012every age starting with cookies and Santa and my most favorite one this year holiday medit I think that's for all the people who are trying to provide the cookies and the presents for the children um in addition we are also continuing with our Giving Tree um at the Palmer branch that um donations from that tree benefit children who go to Palmer school and so um it's always been a nice way to share um those who have with those who have not um this year the library was selected by the GD to be the eastn Main Street um ornament it's a beautiful ornament of our Carnegie building which you own and so um if you want to buy one they're available either at Maine or at Palmer also at many downtown Merchants for $20 um in
013addition we have added two more museums to our Museum passes um Boyertown mu museum of historical vehicles and the Philadelphia Magic Gardens there are 11 places that with your library card you can take your family for absolutely nothing and this is one of the many program programs done by the friends of the East Area Public Library the ones who help with the book sale and help us raise a lot of money now for there's so many program right now programming is just crazy there's every kind of craft every kind of book club those you sort of expect at a library but there are journaling and writers block and all kinds of stuff but if you don't want to leave the house there is a wealth of digital programming and a lot of people say well
014we know you have ebooks but what I didn't know is that some of the um digital programs bring you movies television programs not my top but genealogy and all kinds of financial advice pronunciator for people who are trying to um learn a foreign language and one of them that will come to be of great importance as The Express Times is ending its paper um addition um the library subscribes to both the express time and The Morning Call in addition to the New York Times and other libraries you can through your library card access the digital copy of The Express Times for nothing so um a freebie another freebie with your free public library card thank you I wish all of you a happy holiday and um congratulations to the new officers thank you an EAA
015Mr Capone on behalf of the entire uh membership of EAA we just want to wish everybody a warm and happy holiday season thank you and and finally I was remiss in saying I do want to take a moment and step back and thank Meg for her year of service certainly appreciated your leadership in that capacity um and enjoyed working with you in in that capacity and we want to congratulate jod and nikisha back for your new roles and look forward to working with you as well thank you and Mrs Hess I'll turn it back over to you for the rest of the agenda okay all right thank you next we'll have four um public to be heard on agenda items any public to be heard on agenda items seeing none we'll move on okay executive
016session report exe executive session was held on 1119 and it was for information in personnel and legal matters next we'll move on to six Personnel take a if I can have a motion motion to approve affiliation agreement as presented second any questions or discussion all in favor any opposed next we have B new position motion to approve two additional athle academic athletic coaches one for the East N Middle School and one for the East ner High School salary not to exceed the total amount approved by the athletic Foundation have a motion second any questions or discussion yeah I was just wondering Dr B if you could talk a little bit about the reason for the additional at this point is it because we're using it so much is it so successful what's the so um
017two number one we were able to obtain additional funding so the grant increased from 7500 to 12,500 for the year um over the course of the first three months our two um athlet coaches at the high school have met with over 138 student athletes to address everything from the the range of attendance concerns through academic NCAA eligibility um things that might be behavioral concerns throughout the school so I think it's all of those reasons um they've been wildly successful to this point really pleased and kind of exceeded expectations to this point additional staff will just allow us to do even more at the school the addition thank you okay any other questions okay all in favor I any opposed okay next we'll take c and d and e and F uh C motion to approve
018the following resignations as presented D leave of absence motion to approve the following leave of absences as presented e administrative transfer motion to approve the following administrative transfers as presented F motion to approve the following tenure award as presented have a motion motion second any questions or comments all in favor I any opposed next we've got g h and I G motion to elect the following support staff as presented pending receipt of all forms and documents required by the district H motion to elect the following coach as presented pending receipt of all forms and documents required by the district and I motion to approve the following changes to the contractual contractual eped stiens as presented so moved second any questions or discussion all in favor I I any opposed okay let's take um all the
019items for academics education technology and student supports a motion to approve the field trip request as present presented B motion to approve the purchase of iPad cases as presented and C motion to approve faces International contractor agreement for diversity equity and inclusion consultation and professional development services to be paid by the pccd grant as presented motion any questions or discussion I have a question on C can you uh elaborate a little more on the purpose of that and I know it's being paid by grant money but I looked at the exhibit and it investigation to extract information join our leadership um attend meetings to create a structure we already do we already have a structure and all that or this is to enhance it and I was just wondering if there are other things on
020the pccd grant because I know we have administrators that are doing this diversity I mean I don't want to end the diversity uh Me by any by any stretch I just didn't know if the could be distributed elsewhere while we have staff available to continue what was started sure so we um initiated this conversation with faces International last year they we did a little bit of work with them consultation and then as we are trying to um I don't want to say reboot but kind of um enhance kind of enhance where we are with our diversity equity and inclusion work last year we took a bit of a Hiatus from our um from our diversity Alliance as we were all getting grounded in our new roles and so working with them to kind of help
021us um Camp canvas the community to see exactly what their needs are for us to concentrate on we have a good sense of that but often as an educational system we make assumptions about what people need rather than asking directly um to individuals what they need around the community and so part of that is helping having them help us canvas some of those um pieces through focus groups um part of that is working with our leadership team to move the work forward in terms of um our professional development Creations our our work with individual teachers there's also a fellowship program that will be part of this in which we're partnering with Bethlehem Area School District as well for um 14 teachers or 14 staff members to part of a um a Consortium Fellowship around diversity
022Equity so it's a train the trainer model um with that so really it's consultation as we're trying to enhance and re reinvigorate the work okay I saw that Bethlehem is going to pay some uh share is there any additional cost from the district or is it all paid by the all paid through the pccd thank you for that explanation yeah this and this is a this money has to be spent by next December uh December 25 um so it's a year a yearlong process with them thank you you're welcome I have question on another item on that block it was under the field trip requests the girls on the run um is that correct just one student participating in that no actually actually um chest Elementary School they have a group of girls who will
023be participating along with the coaches um staff from that school who will be serving as coaches and the Middle School the middle school is not listed here because they do not require um transportation um but Middle School um girls as well as um girls from chest elementary school will be running this Sunday um this Sunday okay okay yeah I'm familiar with the group and I saw one and I saw that they were didn't know if that was a typo or not so okay thank you for the clarification absolutely okay anything else all right so we have uh all in favor I any opposed okay next we'll move on to budget and finance we'll take a b and c and d a motion to approve the attached resolution indicating that the district will not raise the
024rate of taxes for 2526 School District budget above the 5.1 indexed or request approval from pte for referendum exceptions B I'm sorry B motion to approve the request to establish two new Student Activities at eahs namely the Rover coffee cart and the agricultural Club as presented C motion to ratify the contract between LV events production and the easd for Thanksgiving festies festivities as presented the cost of this contract will be covered by generous Community donations and D motion to approve the request for the CFO and the assistant CFO to attend the annual pasbo conference from March 11th to March 14th 2025 at no at a cost not to exceed $2,000 as presented any questions or comments yeah um on the Rover coffee cart it says financial dependence it says it has the yes Mark there
025but there's no explanation for that I don't know if that's a typo or if is missing information for the financial dependence item seven this organization require Financial from the general fund it's marked as yes Mr cook do you know anything about that one yeah yeah my understanding as Mike is looking is that it is through patronage that would then turn over their product so they're um I'm guessing that there's a little bit of startup cost to get them going but I I'd have to look into it a little bit more closely myself so right now um I'm sorry I just had to check what number seven was I didn't memorize it many AG as the high school principal um so right now the r cart functions we have a group of students who work with
026a teacher through vocational skills to provide coffee throughout the building um now they're accepting funds so they're going to be starting an activity fund so when the box is checked there it's because we do utilize one of our cookie Labs um as a district and we do use a staff member who teaches the course that corresponds to that dependency so it isn't the district has to purchase coffee or any of those other items the students now reimburse that through the collection of funds as they Cofe to staff okay thank you unrelated to this uh Club per se um could we bring this form into 2024 and not have it be a handwritten anymore and maybe make it a little bit easier on everybody to read it and transmit it thank you okay is there anything
027else okay all in favor I any opposed okay next we have policy we'll take a b c and d and as far as I can tell these will be final adoptions for all of them first readings were all on November 19th so first one is a motion to approve policy 918 title one parent and family engagement as presented B motion to approve policy 254 educational opportunity for milit military children as presented C motion to appr approve policy 12 Schoolboard committees as presented and D motion to approve policy 8.1 organizational chart as presented motion any questions or discussion I just have a a com comment or an observation um and looking back at the organizational charts over the last several years I just just noticed that there's a an additional level or increase in the administrative
028supervisory director uh positions and I just want to caution that you know as we're looking at the budget and the finances um and we're going we're not hiring professional staff through attrition um that I think we need to take an opportunity to look when appropriate or where uh when the uh uh possibility arises to look look at that increase and maybe make some decisions um I just wanted to just lay that out there that I which should be doing one and not looking everywhere so thank you oh yeah and just um just real quick I just want to make sure I but the one major change i' had seen is the director of Athletics with the change in that um just a just putting it out there were there any other substantial changes on the
029other one I couldn't I didn't notice anything else from comparing other things I just wanted to make sure that that there was nothing else in there there's nothing in there that was really a drastic change other than moving the director off Athletics up from below the principal or according to the principal is that correct yeah there are no substantial changes um I don't have it in front of me but the major change would be the title of our transportation the transportation manager that did not exist prior to that in terms of supervision um Dr zic supervises Who he always has uh with the exception of principles now who are entirely supervised by Dr Draper um athletic director still falls under direct report to high school principal um and then to the Dr zatic as well
030okay Brian just to clarify um that has not changed over the years the athletic director has always reported to the high school principal um that's part of PIAA regulations as well um but he will be you know from a district level he'll Matt and I work together on a district level through you know through K through 12 issues ETC that are Beyond just the high school um so that's why on the organizational chart He's listed there okay does that make sense uh kind of I mean the title I mean I see how the titles aligned I know that that's that's the way it it should be it just just makes it look like you know maybe I'm just not maybe I'm not a good chart reader I guess but it it just looks like it's
031right directly to you I know it's under your umbrella as a whole but it kind of looks like it's not you know going through the principle but you know I don't know got it we'll take a I'll take another look at the schema and see if we need to make any yeah I mean changes I I mean I'm actually okay with that believe it or not and Jody had made that case to me years ago that that maybe the director of Athletics should be up a little as opposed to reporting to the principal but I don't know if there were other factors like you said maybe PIAA rules on that I have no objection that at all as far as if that's a change like that as a director level and looking like it reports
032directly to you but it is how it is on the current work chart yeah maybe it's just something I missed before and didn't think about it before so okay I know does anyone else um I'm gonna say one of the questions that I've had before too and not to give Dr Draper anything or to take anything away from Dr Zia but um I'm looking at like the pupil services and the other the special ed part in I always question of that being under the operations group versus the academics group so I'm just putting that out there also so that's a conversation we have often actually um and I don't know if there's a right or a wrong answer to that uh Jody it is one that we've talked about and one that we look at
033every year to decide whether where it fits best one of the requests that we've had from um our Personnel is that they be under the same director because they work so Clos together as departments um certainly student services is the one that's a little bit trickier in that it it uh straddles both lines of operation and um and academics and so there is not a right or a wrong to that it's just one that we review every year to decide where where is it best um positioned okay does anyone else have any questions or comments and certainly if you want to table this I will take another look in make sure that that alignment is correct for athletics you're welcome to do that I does anyone feel we need to table it I don't think
034we need to table it but I did have the same question about especially um special education wondering where it should go so I mean I'm fine with how the or chart looks right now but you know maybe um another conversation to have for the upcoming school year to decide like how does it look for the rest of this school year and where it should go should it stay where it is or should it move for the next year right that's an annual conversation okay there's nothing else all in favor I any opposed okay next we move on to 10 other business um we'll do a b and c a motion to approve the expulsion hearing waiver form for student number 40147 under the terms as presented B motion to approve the expulsion hearing waiver form
035for student number 53735 under the terms as presented and C motion to approve the expulsion hearing waiver form for student number 5 6582 under the terms as presented motion second okay all in favor I I any opposed okay next we have D motion to approve and I don't know if we've actually discussed anyone to serve as the psba Lea as presented I don't think we have but I'd like to nominate [Laughter] Jen I mean I think we can it does not have to be decided right now but I don't believe that we've had a psba Le on actively I think it's been I had done it I don't honestly I don't know if I still am to be honest with you uh there really much to it from what I remember I I remember when
036I first pointed it and I I had met with Mike baseto who was president of the psba at the time talk to him about some things but never really anything came up and I'm never able to go to the conference because it's always the worst weekend of the year which is usually the first weekend in November which is soccer tournament Garlic Fest uh uh scouting for food uh you know Boy Scouts it's like I got five things that weekend and Garlic Fest i' I've been to once in my life so it's like I can never go to their convention because it just doesn't work for me um I mean I'll do it again if somebody wants there's not much to it but if somebody else wants to do it are you yeah Jen you had
037expressed a little bit of an interest about yeah yeah that's fine I I have no problem if somebody else is interested um if we want to take that motion now that's fine if we have to get it done before the end of the year um yeah it's up to are you interested okay then I'll second motion that okay all right so then we'll make a motion to approve Jen uh to serve as the psba liaison as presented motion I'll second okay motion all in favor I any opposed okay congratulations Jen all right next we have public to be heard on non-agenda items anyone to be heard on non- agenda items no okay uh 12 any other business from board members um so when I got on the board about a year or so ago we
038were being inundated with survey results and all these emails about surveys and I haven't heard anything about it the results how much it cost I mean it was probably approved before I got here but uh like what what doing with that are we going to we did not here we did not renew that contract it was about a $60,000 contract so we did not renew that we get results and have a report on what they did for 60,000 um I can certainly pull certainly pull something together it's all the information that was shared forward as you were getting those emails but we can pull reports from that from the company no we did not get an official report from them um but we can certainly pull you know so what was the purpose of the
039survey just for it was the board had requested to do a survey of the community to find out their um thoughts around culture and climate um the board to review within and that went out through the staff the intent was then go to go out to the community and the students and that aspect of it never came to fruition and so that's something that I'll be working on here with our team in the second half of the year to do our own internal surveys of our continue with our staff and then students and community Through you know Google surveys and other mechanisms focus groups so it was part of that because I saw a number of times where there was responses there were responses from the administrators was that part of the the process the
040plan so each time a so first of all it was an anonymous survey so as the PE as the staff members replied and that could include Administration any staff member as they replied to the survey questions um their response was Anonymous meaning their name was not attached to it but their comments were seen um and they were disaggregated by um School building or building so it could have been the athletic office it could have been maintenance you know school and the administrator of that building responded back to the prompts um what happened was I'll use ch in school as an example if somebody wrote a comment a staff member wrote a comment it came out so that the administration could see it at times the board depending on the setting um could see it and
041then the building principal could see it um if appropriate and so then myself or the building principal would would respond back and say um you know I'm happy to hear that or I'm sorry to hear that let's talk more about it or give me some more information and we can explore that further um that was a little bit tricky because people didn't necessarily want to have their ident identity known to have that conversation necessarily with with a you know an administrator but would often reply back um to give further context to their thoughts uh one of the things that we found is that there was um not a tremendous amount of um um not a tremendous number of people who actually replied to the survey um each time it became less and less it was
042a bi-weekly survey that was going out and so what we you know kind of garnished were some really good pieces for us to consider and think about around how um our staff were feeling about certain issues um whether it be work life balance whether it be salary whether it be diversity you know a whole host of topics that were addressed so we did get some information but we also could see that it might have been 2% of a school percent you know um answering or 12% of the district answering and so I in terms of surveys I don't think we had a ton of you know survey results I think it was the people who were dedicated to answering answered most most often um so no summaries I me $6,000 I mean what did the
043board the board wanted this and not doing anything with it or not reporting back to the board other than what you read we we talked about it a little bit throughout the year but not you know not a ton we did have one meeting with a um I guess professional development person or one of their one of their folks to um talk about some of the survey results with us but it never went anywhere from there they changed um Personnel mid Midstream um so I personally didn't find it Terri valuable after the first you know after the first couple of surveys because they were very redundant in the questions I think we can do a better job here on our own no survey wasted thank you I just didn't know I thought we would see
044something either a summary report or something some kind of results something that what we paid for yeah so Mike I'm going to tell you because this was partially what I had requested and we had all agreed as a board I don't remember if it was the $60,000 but part of it was that because it had the real time data so we didn't get a summary and because we could collect the data and continue to go with it that was what was the intent of it so satisfied am I satisfied no because I don't think that we took it to the extent into the capabilities that it had um and I think there were a lot of responses and we can still pull that data and we can sort through it so I think that's something
045that still a possibility Tracy even though the contract has ended is it possible to you know since yeah we spent this money can they make a report for us is that is that something that's possible I think we can probably pull information out of the system I don't know that they I could ask but I don't know that they'd be willing to write a report because you they would have done it by now and that wasn't part of the contract I thought it was that's what I we still we have a copy of the contract we do we do and I'm sure if we reach out to them they would be willing to help us pull what information we want and yeah don't forget they need references when they go for other surveys or other
046work so I just want to say I'm not sure it's their fault I mean I I think that the way the system and I I was not in favor of this company just to put it out there but and this was why because it wasn't a one-time thing it was supposed to be ongoing theoretically board members could log in I you know wasn't at the professional development session so I didn't get that training so I've never seen whatever it looked like you know when you logged in but that's that was the idea behind this company was that it was periodic rather than a one-time survey with a report at the end so I'm not sure that they didn't fulfill what they had told us they were going to do no you can it can't hurt
047to ask I look at the contract and I think it can't hurt to ask not Rel okay yeah just uh closing comments just want to congratulate um uh Jody and Nisha for uh being elected to lead us for the next year so I look forward to working with everyone again as as I say every year for the next year hope we have a a productive year and a um and a good year that's all I have and that's it is there anyone else from the board okay if not we can call for a Jour all in favor I any opposed meeting is adjourned thank you and have a nice holiday everyone