001good evening everyone I'd like to call the meeting of the Mal Union Area School District Board of Directors to order please stand for a moment of silence followed by our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with Li and roll Mrs McLure here Mr whitel here Mr Gart present Mr H here Mr ker here Mrs Jackson here Mr Martinez Mrs Meyers Mr Shields here could I have a motion for the approval of the minutes from the February 24th 2025 meeting is presented do I hear a motion Mo do a second second all in favor I opposed M Union area Board of Education held an executive session on Monday March 10th for personnel matters for
002information the safety committee meeting schedule for March 13 2025 minutes are to be given to the board members for their information at the April board meeting the M Union area Board of Education did not hold board committee meetings during the month of February March 2025 could I have a motion for the approval of the district office petty cash report for March 2025 and the nurses report sorry d right recommendation to accept the treasures report for the month of February 2025 is presented do I have a motion Mo do I have a second second all in favor I oppose approval of the bills for payment for March 2025 is presented for paid and to be paid for the general fund in the cafeteria fund and for the paid for the activities fund with the understanding there
003are no capital reserve funds or scholarship trust fund bills paid or to be paid for March 2025 do I have a motion motion do I have a second all in favor oppos dway now do we have the approval for the district petty cash report for March 2025 and then nurses report for February 2025 is presented do hear a motion do I have a second second all in favor I I opposed moving on to public comments is there a member of the public present that would like to address the board with any item that's on the agenda you're limited to five minutes please come forward state your name and your residence hi I'm Gran KRA I live on MAR Street in Mount Union I'm also the elementary Dan inquire director um good evening the National Association
004of music education and pmea which is the Pennsylvania music Education Association recognizes March as music in our school's month uh it's a good time for all of us to stop and take a minute uh to appreciate the music that is all around us every day uh sometimes it's easy to um forget in the hustle bustle of our daily lives especially the hustle bustle of resing a school district um that music is around us quite literally it is the soundtrack of Our Lives um I've kind of said this before in different uh venues but uh it starts from the moment that you're born the the lullab that your mother sings to you your birthdays as your growing up are filled with people singing Happy Birthday to You school children listen to our national anthem 2,340 times
005during their day-to-day uh schooling think back to your high school graduation and your high school perceptional uh think about your school Spight song the music you dance to it PR music was influential in all of those big moments what a par without a marching band uh and not to mention every holiday I mean today I I will spare you playing a jig for you but I mean it's St Patrick's Day and let alone Christmas there's Christmas music and more Christmas music and even more Christmas music even mundane things about our daily lives whether it's going out to eat um shopping at the mall or grocery shopping there's always music in the background even in those elevators and who can forget the movies what's a Disney movie without a good sound soundra especially right now all
006the Good Wicked Music out there music is also present at our deck from the Taps that are played for our local service members to the hymns played at our funeral masses music is quite literally there from the day we were born until the day we pass why do I bring attention to all that music well without being taught in all of our public schools that music starts to slowly disappear music itself is a craft that has to be taught studied lived practiced practiced more any of my my kids are listening they need to go practice more as well and all of that starts in your public schools without teaching it here it would cease to exist outside of these doors all of that commitment can be very trying I know for a school district uh
007to fund school music programs in regard to time to finances and to even the Staffing that's required we at Matt Union have been very lucky that we've had committed people around to keeping that music in our schools your commitment and appreciation to school music program was demonstrated even this past year with all of the Esser band instruments General music instruments and coral robes and we were already seeing the benefits of that commitment this school year the choir Roes have been displayed not only in our district but also at our district festivals um we had five students uh at the district choir festival and then two that were selected to go on for regional chorus uh just recently our elementary school school students have thoroughly enjoyed all of the new African drums which some of you
008saw at music grade and and Christmas programs as well as some of the new curriculum that was able to be purchased and finally I know all of you and my husbands are tired of hearing about those es band instruments but truly there are not words to express um how Monumental that has been for our students the variet instrum something I personally will never forget either and yes there being able to hand seven newu to seven little players as they left my room that day was unbelievable I have two and our have a lot more students and TR open possib sh in the spirit of music and appreciation so thank Youk you thank you greten thank you for sharing your love with music to our students is there anyone else that would like to make a
009comment at this time Brian would you like to recognize the champ yes I'd like to recognize champ um just a little update on champ that just wrapped up and um the community never ceases to amaze me how giving our community is especially when we have families that are um in need and they have health concerns and they're in need of that extra support so um with that being said Mount Union came in second place uh for the jam cup and they raised uh in excess of $39,000 which is pretty impressive uh for kids to take on that to go out in our community and how gen generous our community is um this is the second uh highest amount Ever Raised um by Mount Union and then next year Mount Union will host here at the
010high school champ so that's important to note uh I do want to take a minute to of everybody's time to recognize that we have uh several very involved advisors that I think need to be recognized so I'll list those and then the captains who who uh spearhead this and make this happen for our for our families and and go out into the community and do different things to raise that these funds uh I apologize in advance if I butcher a name I'm not the best sometimes with names so uh advisors our advisors include Marie dashball Stephanie Han coock stains Tim Hicks Kelly Hicks and Gretchen Krauss um of course this this all started with uh Jeremy Krauss and his uh he envisioned this for our community so he he is he he needs to be
011recognized as well and then the captains uh Gracie Smith Cali Treo Jenna Richie Adriana Miller Emma swag swagner Julian re rich rck thank you uh Dylan Scher Lily Hicks Delany Ron Katie Payne cydney Harris Isabella Yokum stie wise adri Adriana Simmons and jasine inch everybody um was was a team player with this and we we greatly appreciate everybody's uh support with champ so thank you anyone else all right moving forward could I have a motion to accept the retirement of Dr Amy Smith is superintendent of schools effective June 30th 2020 and to authorize the board president to sign any necessary paperwork to effectuate save do I hear a motion motion do I hear a second second we have a roll call D Mr Hoover we're taking a roll call oh yes Mrs Jackson yes Mr
012kzer yes Mr Gart Mr gains Mr Martinez yes M Myers isn't here Mr Shields yes Mr whitel yes yes is yes motion carries motion to approve Michelle Dutro is interim substitute superintendent beginning March 18th 2025 through June 30th 2025 at a predium rate of $500 per day and pending receipt of all required legal documentation do I hear a motion motion do I hear a second seconds we have a roll call J Mrs Shields yes Mr whitel yes Mr yes Mrs Jackson yes Mr ker yes Mr Gart Mr abstains Mr Martinez yes Mrs Myers is not here Mrs Mula yes s's motion carries for those of you that may have not met Mrs D yet she is seated in the front row beside Mr Bruce Smith and after the meeting if he would like to say
013hello and welcome her to my union moving forward moving forward request from Dr Diane Thomas director special education to offer a summer esy through the Tusk Roar Intermediate Unit number 11 beginning June 30th 2025 through August 1st 2025 at the ma un kler Elementary Shirley Township Elementary and the senior high school do I have a motion motion do I have a second second all in favor all I opposed request from Christian McLure to attend the Pennsylvania federal program coordinators conference to be held April 11th to the 14th at the Hershey Lodge with cost to the district for registration of $550 and lodging $629 37 for a total of [Music] 1,179 37 do I hear a motion motion do I hear a second second all in favor I opposed I am stay requests from Amy Foster
014and Donna mcfay to participate in the safety care recertification training to be held at the tiu on April 16 2025 with cost to the district being for substitutes of $87.50 each in registration of $7 each do I hear a motion motion I a second second all in favor I I opposed abstain abstain request to participate in the safety care two-day training on April 29th and 30th at the tiu 11 from Tammy Fisher Brook Brook boony and Jill Curts with cost to the district being for substitutes at $87.50 cents per day for two days for Tammy fiser and Brook boony at $120 per day in two days for Jill Curts and for registration $7 each do I hear a motion motion do I hear a second second all in favor I opposed abstain abstain recommendation to
015either approve or disapprove the SC intermediate units number 11's General operating budget for the 2025 school year in the amount of 3,793 33 with the district's cost for the IMs services at $425 per student for a total of $4 4,675 for the 2526 school year K I have a motion to approve okay I hear a second second you have a question Dwayne procedure this is that yes it say 15 just Expediting is this separate from this no it's the same you said it's said April 15 I know it was approved at the last IU meeting I just want to make sure they need it back by the 15th of April our next meeting is O the 21st yeah do that answer your question no you still have to fill it yep okay all in favor
016of approving the budget I I opposed abstain and please fill out your ballot and turn it into D then approval of the minutes of the February 11th 2025 meeting of the Huntington County Career and Technology Center is presented do I hear a motion motion do I have a second second all in favor I opposed moving on to the consern ENT vote approval of the consent vote agenda items has presented items 11.1 to 16.3 do I hear a motion do I have a second second please take a minute and look down over them if anyone has any questions or comments e any comments or questions all right moving on we have a motion in a second all in favor I I opposed moving on to public comments does any member of the public wish to make
017a comment please come forward state your name and address you have three minutes anyone good uh Bruce Smith not um I had to kind of go through this a little bit and um a lot of questions I had but I just wanted to be AC um good evening board members community members School administration I stand before you tonight not to create a conflict but I'm calling for transparency and accountability something every taxpayer I believe in this District deserves came to my attention not through an official statement not through Community or but through Community discussions that Dr Smith would no longer be employed by this District lack of clear communication fueled speculation and if you ever don't know what you're doing in a small town everyone else does um when questions go unanswered rumors fill the
018gaps I didn't want to speak on the matter until I had a little bit of clarity none was ever provided inste more people had reached out teachers community members one we District staff um everyone with their own brand or of concern about how decisions were being made and how transparency is lacked for years we've watched this District struggle financially and I've been up here countless times saying the same thing uh we've asked questions over and over again but why is our district always on the edge of financial crisis why do similar districts manage so much better and why do the numbers never seem to add up myself and probably about 30 others have gone through our district finances over the years with questions after question after question and we never get answered the district repeatedly
019made errors and we've we've been given excuses Charter School expense Rising expenses of uh like or of insurance uh the shifting State funding now we're told there's another Factor possibly app play which I have no real confirmation of this point but I'd like to get some answers this District repeatedly has made errors in its financial reporting which and apparently is a form that we have to file with the state every year form pde 363 which calculates the amount that we pay Charter School tuition over the years apparently incorrect filings led to significant overpayments this point it could be estimated in the million but no one has a clear answer due to State policies from what I've read and I could be wrong most of that money is apparently gone you have no ability to get
020it back all due to gross negligence and mismanagement this mistake wasn't caught by past leadership we've had how many boards that have sat up here over the years and these issues have been brought to your attention countless times we're still having a conversation it was it was it wasn't addressed by Financial oversight until made a hire in November from what I see um it took that consultant and the district's current business manager to identify correct this raises serious concerns especially in my eyes of how Financial reports have been handled in this District we went how many months without a financial report a few years ago Treasury and it was just accepted as standard operating procedures how often have errors has been overlooked and do we have the proper safeguards in place to prevent this from
021happening again because at this point our taxpayers have taken the Brun I'm asking the board to provide some real answers but I'm not sure how how we can go about this but can they confirm that this was the case can they confirm the exact amount of money that we overpaid due to these errors if that's possible at this point did any of these funds be recovered what safeguards have been put in place to ensure Financial reports are accurate going forward will the public ever have full access access to the financial record so these mistakes are no longer hidden from taxpayers mistakes happen I get that and I see it constantly in my life but I'll tell you what matters now is how we choose to move forward with it and how we handle it will
022we ever see true transparency or real accountability or will this be just be another problem potentially brushed into the rug PR not but just know your Public's watching taxpayers are watching most importantly our students deserve better thank you is there what anyone else that would like to make any comments since some of this is a Personnel issue I have a few points that I'm told that I can say to address your concerns we as a board sharing your concern as it relates to the financial and operational health of the district we wish to be as transparent with the Public's questions while balancing and adhering to the rules governing Personnel issues at this time we know there have been several financial matters that e that either resulted in loss funds or potential loss funds we also
023are aware that there were tasks that either were not completed incorrectly completed or not completed in the required time frame some examples of financial concerns relate to our besser funding medical access billing and our Charter tuition rate while we know that the district has lost funds to date and had the potential to lose further funds had they not been corrected we do know we do not know the extent of those losses the board ask our educational consultant to review these matters as part of her Improvement efforts the consultant sought outside assistance from other educational professionals currently in the field as well as officials from pte and other agencies to ascertain procedur confirmations and to explore our next steps the board of directors is taking this very seriously it needs time to sort through these concerns
024and see if definitive numbers can even be determined the issue is compounded by the frequent turnover we've had with experience in our business office which has left that part of the business and disar we will continue to work on it and to answer your questions that's all that I can say at this time do actual investigated with someone inside was when we hired our consultant there was concerns prior to that among board members anyone else you're welcome I'm told that it depends on the outcome and whether there are repercussions to it and other with the outcome of it so we don't know at this time I'm told that by our solicitor it's the subject of a either a criminal or a civil investigation under the open records act uh would not be able to the
025board would not be able to divulge that information till after all of that's done and given what uh Mrs mcor has presented that could take some time so it's not a question putting you off it's a question it's involved and they want to make sure that they look into everything as deeply as they have to to get sound answers most importantly for the board of birth and then once they have those answers then at that point in time that public but that may not be under the open records that correct and there is still some uncertainty with some of the records and the turnovers whether those will ever know down to an exact figure anyone else the workshop for April will be April the 14th at 6:30 and I understand we will be having more
026budget presentations our regular board meeting will be held Monday April the 28th at 7 o'clock uh the date was changed because of no school on the 21st we'll move on to our administrators and superintendent reports how about starting with you Casey um the onsite portion of the cafet administrative review had to documents on March 11th they will be in Shirley Township for week of April we have submitted the documentation for the food service contract renewal um I worked in conjunction with met for current Food Service management company there will be a motion on the agenda and de for your approval we uh ladies in the business office and I explored cost savings um for our copy paper the district uses approximately 650 cases our current vendor gave us a quote $40 a case I had
027Mrs miles reach out to another company they came back with the price of 3159 of case our current vendor wanted to do that quote they then came back with a price of2 969 a Cas so when it was all said and done we will save between $5,799 and $6,700 for the dist budget so that's a win for us um first round of budget presentations as you all knew were a huge success physical plants technology and virtual will be presenting on Monday April sure Kristen sh director of curriculum instruction assessment for grades 6 through 12 on Wednesday March 5th our elementary and secondary skills leadership teams attended the special topics a training at tiu1 and then on Thursday April 4th April 3rd do my math um our teams will attend the steel special topics B training
028which was approved this evening um in preparation for p ssas and keystones I'll be attending the faculty meetings to um help prepare our test administrators at Shirly Township Elementary Wednesday March 19th and at our senior high on Wednesday March 26th and I would anticipate our Junior High training will probably occur in April once Mrs Palm is back um this Thursday Christian McClure and I are going to meet with our new teacher induction group and focus on formative Summit of Assessments and I'd like to give a big thanks to uh two of our members who are here tonight from the junior high Tory Ry and kayy get are both here girls and um the building principls and the directors of curriculum presented our preliminary budgets back on March 10th and that went pretty well at our
029Workshop thank you good evening Dawn Shields um looking at our Cyber Charter enrollment we currently stand at 156 uh that is four less than last month we hosted our annual eighth grade parent meeting um with pen Highlands on the 13th that was well attended applications um for those incoming nth graders are due on the 15th of April uh good evening Alicia Yokum principal at ker Elementary School uh just wanted to mention that ker Elementary celebrated read Across America Monday March 3rd through Friday March 7th they had many things going on we had Daily Dress themes mystery readers um we had character Bingo hidden green eggs all sorts of things that the kids really seem to enjoy uh we had a culminating activity on Friday which included a hat parade where the kids were able to
030create and make their own hats similar to Dr Seuss and we had a book activity the students were able to sign up for the book of their choice and go to that classroom and uh take part in activity and uh uh read aloud from that that teacher we just had an act 80-day there was great conversation had especially at the grade uh level with within the colleagues just discussion on goals for finishing off the year strong as well as continued discussion on strategies to continue uh to have our students show growth and success and finally uh well not finally I'm sorry this Friday we do have our third quarter celebration for PBIS we have two presenters coming in one of them being the reptile man and all of his slithering creatures that I know the
031students are really looking forward to but not necessarily all staff members um and lastly today opened up the online enrollment link for kindergarten registration so anybody that has a student age five or will be five by the end of August you can begin scheduling that online um the dates for that will be April 9th and April 10th we hold those at ker Elementary School uh those appointments are between 1 o'clock and 530 in the evening and looking forward to all of those new kindergarten faces that we will be seeing next school year hi Briley Benson this past month our FBA chapter found out that our first ever chapter project will be competing at States held in Hershey from April 7th to 9th members are working incredibly hard in preparing for States they are continuously meeting
032with outside judges in order to clean up their presentations and speeches this Cooper is also working with the objective test students by preparing study guide two of our members competed in event where the test is taken at the home school they did this two Fridays ago and we are now waiting for that April date to see if they'll move on to the National level we continue our fundraisers fundraisers in order to help with the cost of States NHS completed their February community service event at a variety of nursing homes we went to the Shirley home and Woodland on a Saturday and then two homes in Huntington on Sunday this is the first time our chapter was able to do this in a few years due to co I can speak for personal experience and say
033that this was a very eye openening event for me and it changes your perspective on a lot of things seeing the people there um this month we were trying to get in touch with the Senior Citizen Center in order to hold our annual rockathon I did not get in touch with FFA to get a report from them this month and this is my own fault I forgot to remind Katie the president of FFA until this morning that I needed a report and it's the end of the marking period it's been a little busy around here so she did not get that to me but I do know that they had a few student students compete in public speaking events and Thursday did they did their Story Hour at the library Dad held a Junior High
034dance and Senior High lock in in which I unfortunately was unable to attend from my knowledge everything went smoothly that also held a winter formal for the senior high where we crowned a boy a girl from each grade our winners were Jaylen Peterson Tyler simple T whitel Dorian loner Jason K Cara Benson atly Moore and Jacob K that same night we held a junior high lock in and other than a minor hiccup around 400 a.m. the night went well drama club has started their rehearsals for this year's production will be acting out The Adams Family on May 1st and 2nd we invite everyone to come out and see this production as the cast is excited and working hard if anyone is interested in tickets feel free to reach out to me Miss Corson the drama
035club Facebook page or any other actress or active the baseball team is excited to have a successful season they started their season off with a scrimmage last week against Forest Hills cheer tryy outs start tomorrow for the fall season the 25 26 school year softball has started their season last week with the scrimmage and played again today the girls are ready to have a wonderful season and I'm excited to see what they do this school year like um I don't remember who mentioned it but someone talked about champ already so I will leave that out and lastly The Clash trip I would like to personally thank miss hoppel miss glunt and Mr horn for shaoning the trip to Florida we had a wonderful time with no issues whatsoever everything from the bus ride down to
036the bus ride back was phenomenal phenomenal and I couldn't have asked for a better trip so thank you for allowing us to go on this wonderful event although we all came home sick from Florida and Disney this trip was one of a lifetime so thank you again also as an additional note student organizations clubs specifically are being charged for use of facilities on days school is not in session for example when the student council held homecoming back in October we paid the janitor fee which clubs have always paid but we also received a use of building fee which is new I have recently found out about it and thought I would bring it to the Public's attention I'm involved in around six clubs and president of three at our school all of which have a
037limited number of resources due to the fact that we do not get funded by the school like sports do so as someone who is not an athlete but rather someone who is interested in clubs it is incredibly frustrating to be charged for the use of the building that these clubs are facilitated at so I appreciate that Mrs schields left me a brief talking point we did meet uh this evening as a team to talk about our cats program business and a um gearing up for um updating the plan andf frcp did I say that right okay and um we will be working on a program audit uh for the 2526 school year and then other than that the day-to-day grind of completing teacher observations and IEP meetings tend to keep me pretty busy good evening
038um Mrs Rick abub from Sher Township Elementary I just wanted to say we had a bus evacuation drill last week and I wanted to compliment the high school students um was probably one of the better jobs they've ever done when they get out of the bus in the back they actually helped the children down they actually put their hands on their shoulders and pulled them down so I wanted to say thank you for that uh Mrs Krauss had music on Parade on February 27th which successful we had our PBIS assembly the mass singer performance and um our finals are in the the month of May it was a lot of fun the Kanas Club visited our school last Friday for and they read to our third graders for do Sue spring pictures were taken and
039their online for order now uh Friday we had Act 80 day I'm sorry quanas Club was there Thursday Act 80 day was Friday and there were two points I wanted to make we were able to review um our next steps with our tier 2 and tier three students and also the teachers had a chance to collaborate with each other and come up with some plans and some ideas of things that we can do better uh for next year cafeteria audit we're practicing we started today practicing better habits um and good practices psss trainings and preps were done and today we did March appreciation week and we really wanted to shout out to our teachers all teachers in the district how much we appreciate them things do not go unnoticed even if they're not told on
040a daily basis and last but not least I do want to shout out to our Bachi team even though we're a small community there were over 400 teams in our region which constructed of eight different regions and mount Union's team was number two going in out of the top eight we ended up fourth out of 400 teams we got fourth place for the bot team in Mount Union so pudos to them and we also came in last week and I had the team walk around with me because part of the deal is to share what inclusion really is all about and so they went around with me because they sent me a box of goodies um sunglasses water bottles wristbands uh fidgets and we passed them around to teachers kids anybody we saw in the
041hallway some of the administration that was at a meeting um but I just went shout out because I'm really proud of the bot team so thank you very much good evening everyone most of the talking points I had were already mentioned by someone who came before me um so I'm not going to reread all of those same points um the the one thing that they did not mention was that we have three of our um new teachers from the elementary here this evening um one of the requirements for new teacher induction is that they must attend a Schoolboard meeting um throughout the school year so Ladies If you three would please stand and I'll give a quick introduction all three of these ladies are from Shirley Township Elementary um the the furthest one away from
042me is uh Miss Reagan wood she is a fourth grade teacher at Shirley Township Elementary and then moving up we have miss Emily Walters who is a fifth grade teacher at Shirley Township Elementary and then we also have Michaela widler who is a also a fifth grade teacher at Shirley Township Elementary so thank you ladies thank you for coming okay I want to respond to miss Ry Benson uh our high school budget next year does include monies going towards all of our clubs so yay yay yay clubs um all right also on Friday I want to invite the board to our career day um so March 21st Friday in the morning we are going to have a career day in which we're going to have 45 presenters mostly um Mount Mount Union alumni coming in
043to present to our students so that um they can um ask them questions or or give them a sense of what um they're doing out in the uh in their careers um so you're invited to come and see that or or or visit with some of our alumni I have also been judging some of our fbl talent uh which is proba is one of those um got to um listen into their speeches and their presentations and um they're they're polishing them up they're looking good but they they uh Miss Miss Cooper is a is a is a Taskmaster so she she yeah don't don't look at the scars on on bry's back because she she's she's she's she's do she's putting in the hard work there she's gonna she's going to come out um very
044well there in the state competition um we are going to be getting involved um uh we were once involved um but when it through Co um it stopped it is the um Huntington County youth leadership through the Chamber of Commerce um this is a threeyear program that starts with our 10th graders so this year's ninth graders um and I've been putting it out uh to to them to see who would want to um be involved in this this is a program that will develop leadership potential in Huntington County's future Workforce work with the academically diverse group of students from various educational programs and instill a sense of Pride and ownership in the students for their community so I'm looking for um future 10th grade students that would want to get involved in this program to
045be um part of Huntington County Youth leader ship um so you can put that in the paper there Deb there and help me advertise thank you um last but not least I I want to recognize I I think this is this has been put out to the all staff so I think I can share this that uh we are going to be losing one of our um long tenure teachers Adam glasow um 23 years in the district he is taking a job at Huntington as an assistant principal um so um in may he will be leaving us so I want to um wish him luck and congratulate him and um hopefully people will be able to uh uh P him on the back and be able to see him in the future so I just
046want to wish him luck thank you e e for