CorpusRecord 147737

Punxsutawney School Board Voting Meeting, Tuesday, July 29, 6PM

A searchable transcript preserved as part of the Discourse Corpus. Passage numbers provide stable references within this record; verify quotations against the original recording when available.

Source
YouTube / Punxsutawney Area School District
Date
2025-07-29
Location
Jefferson County, PA
Material
Transcript
Extent
1,703 words · about 10 min
Collected
2026-06-18

Transcript

Verbatim source text

001Hands for the flag and silent meditation, please. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. As a reminder, all our portion of the meeting may be live streamed, recorded, and posted on the district's YouTube channel for the purpose of public broadcast. And according to board policy, the district disclaims any responsibility or liability for defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public. Any unauthorized recording or rebroadcasting of any video, audio, and or still image of this meeting is strictly forbidden without the written permission of the board or superintendent. Appreciate everybody's patience. We had an executive session from 5:30 until 6:10ish. And is there anyone and all uh

002members are in attendance? Appreciate that. Are there anybody signed up for public comment? >> There's not. >> Okay. We'll move on to our agenda. Um we have no presentations this evening. We have no unfinished business this evening. um in front of us or in our board packets, we were provided the minutes from the June 10th public meeting and the June 17th public meeting. Could I ask for a motion to approve both those minutes? So move. >> I have uh DD and DD. All those in favor. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> We had the athletic report provided um by um by Mr. gold and that includes a resignations and hires and a purchase order uh an acceptance of uh a very generous donation from Gelotti Magical Empire and then um the acceptance of the um

003the jerseys to be used at the special on those special nights that Mr. Gold went through. Are there any questions on items 1 through five on the athletic report? Hearing none, could I ask for a motion to approve items 1 through five? So move >> second. I have Trevor and Jessica. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. We had an uh transportation report provided by Mrs. Sulla with items 1 through eight. Any questions on items 1 through eight? Hearing none. Could I ask for a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Bob and Cindy. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. >> We have the buildings and maintenance report provided by Mr. Jet, we have um item one and then item two with

004multiple subsets for purchase orders. Any questions on items one or two or their subsets? >> Hearing none, can I ask for a motion to approve? >> Uh Dee and Jessica. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Am I going too quick? >> Nope, you're good. >> Okay. And then we had the cafeteria report provided by Mrs. Phillips. Um, and we did um edit the agenda um based on some feedback by Bob and the group uh to keep some of the um menu prices uh the same uh as as last year. Uh are there any question on that number one? Bob, do you are you okay with that? >> I am okay with it. I I still would like to see a projected budget for the year. >> Yeah, she's

005working on it. >> Okay, great. Um, we did we we didn't spend maybe the time that we should have on the because I looked back at the cafeteria budget. She did she had a 12% increase on her fees that we pro we probably should have xed out during budget time because it was only >> $8,000 on a $2 million budget. So, >> okay. Uh, but no more questions on one two. Um then the purchase orders on uh are three uh subsets A through F uh including a large uh food purchase from US food services. Any questions on one, two, or three or their subsets? Hearing none, could I ask for a motion to approve? >> Second. >> Bob and Cindy. All those in favor. >> Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay. We have the federal

006programs and curriculum report provided by Dr. Gaston. Uh we have number one which are some purchase orders. Uh the schoolwide affirmation statement is two and uh agreement uh title one agreement on three and an RFP on four. Any questions for Dr. Gaston? Hearing none. Could I ask for a motion to approve? >> So move. >> Second. >> De and Trevor. All those in favor. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Dr. Crane Balker provided the superintendent report with items 1 through 7. Any questions on items one through seven for Dr. K? Hearing none. Could I ask for a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Doug Indei. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Can I stop you for one second? Let's go back to the RFP for school specialists. I'm going

007to have that listed as being awarded to Sinclair. Correct. >> That was the recommendation. Yes, Dr. G. >> Thank you for the clarification. um the building principal reports. Um we have the um the handbook which we've been asked to hold off until uh probably a a special scheduled August meeting uh to make some additional edits. So we're going to um remove uh item A. Are we going to do remove all the handbook? >> Let's remove item um A or one A, B, and C. And the same thing for um section B number one A and B. >> Okay. Okay. Do you need a motion to table, >> please? >> All right. Could I have a motion to table, please? Uh, the student handbooks. That's item A, A1, and B1. >> Motion, >> Cindy and Trevor.

008All those in favor? >> Any opposed? The motion carries. That still leaves us items 2, three, four, and five on the high school approval. That's the uh student council rules, skilluer class or and the skilluer courses um for the special ed departments. Are there any questions on on those on 2, three, four or five? >> Six also. >> Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't see it was going to the next page. Um we also had a um a donation there as item six for those uh red zone t-shirts from the first and 10 club which we appreciate. Bob >> second and Dee. >> This is to approve items 2, three, four, five, and six on the high school. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? The motion carries. Next, we have

009the financial report provided by Mr. Robertson. Uh this is item one, our normal board reports that we get every month. And then two is the purchase orders. And we have many of them. Are there any questions on any of those purchase orders or the financial summaries? Then we have a donation where we pulled some money together for Dr. Lzneski's plaque. Um that is going to the A club. Any questions for Susan on items one, two, or three or their subsets? >> Just a comment maybe. Um yes, I I hope we will continue to pursue with our legislators >> the issue of cyber school and the cost of the district and you know limiting what our costs are to our own cyber school. That's one of the big that's one of the big items that's always

010on PSBA whenever I whenever I go through um the course that they have and the voting >> and it just seems like it goes on debut years but we're hoping that you know that this year that it's going to be taken care of. I mean it's on it's it's it's being it's in the house I think right now um to for them to do something. >> Is there a bill associated with it? you know, >> I don't want I'll look it up. I'll look it up so we can advocate our >> Yeah, I'll look it up and I'll send it to you. But there's Yeah, they're they're advocating on it now. So, >> thank you. >> It's an ongoing topic of discussions as part of the budget negotiations. >> But, um, we'll make a note

011of that, Bob, because that's a good point. I think that we're amongst many, many, if not all of the school districts in the state that would like to see cyber school reform. Definitely >> to approve the financial. >> Okay. Bob made a motion to approve items one through three in all subsets. Any second? And um Jessica has a second. All those in favor. >> Any opposed? The motion carries. Susan, would you like me to pull out any of the personnel items for voice vote? Do we need to do the union contract separately? >> We do not have to. >> Okay. Does anybody we have because summertime is busy with um hires and we also have the union contract here. Would anybody like me to pull out any of the uh personnel items to vote on

012separately? >> No. But Susan, do I have to abstain from the p the union contract? >> No, because it doesn't independently affect you. >> Okay. I didn't know my daughter if I had to or not. >> I believe so. Okay. >> Okay. All right. Um first number one we have a substitute list. Number two we have some resignations. Uh three we have uh individual uh support staff positions. And we have number four we have uh the professional positions. Those were provided the names of those individuals were provided in our um in our hire memo uh to the board. And then we have appointment for supplemental positions. Um, we also have we Okay, Ch. Yes. >> Okay, good. >> Uh, you can read through there. Items 7 8 9 uh 10 is is to grant tenure

013to uh we'd like to recognize Sharon or Shannon Carpenter, Nancy Forbes, Lexi God, Luke Prznel, uh Brook Stell, and Bobby Young uh for achieving tenure will be voting on. Um, and then we have um Mrs. Richardson that was uh a temporary elementary principal. And then I noticed that we have um our candidate for elementary principal in the audience this evening and uh would like to thank him for for attending. Would you like to make an introduction? >> Okay. >> Um I would like to introduce Mr. Gil uh who uh was one of our previous employers and or employees rather and is now going to be back as our elementary principal >> um at our our lead elementary principal at our elementary school. So, welcome aboard. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. We look forward to the

014to the vote here in a second and we'll all come over and all come over and say hi to you after the meeting as long as the vote goes okay. >> Then I'm going to come meet you. All right. And as we continue on, um I'm sorry, I don't recognize the assistant principal. She the person in the room. No. Okay. Didn't want to not go do that. And then um a big achievement for uh the bargaining team which was made up of Chad and Dee and Doug. Um hats off to them. We have um the union contract for for uh board approval this evening. Uh that's a big deal in any organization. and I'd like to thank them for all their time and effort and the union for for working collaboratively with us on the

015contract. So that's a lot. We are going to have to strike um one item which is um 4E that's the teched position. We need to reopen that um and hopefully we'll have a name for that at a special August meeting. Do you need us to set that to table first before I do the rest of this as a block? >> No, that's fine because we didn't list a name for that. I think we'll be fine. >> Okay. So we don't need to table anything. We can do this block approval of all personnel items. That would be items 1 through 14. Are there any questions? >> Hold on just a second. You had a question on three >> 3B. You said you take that out >> who we need to special ed. >> Yeah, we're just

016going to do the ones that we have names for. So, yeah. >> Thanks, Katie. >> Thank you, Katie. >> So, Katie remembers what we did 45 minutes ago, but I do not. So, we're going to strike uh 3B because we don't have a name and strike 4E because we don't have a name. Other than that, I'll be asking for approval of items 1 through 14. >> Motion, >> Cindy and Bob. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. >> Congratulations. >> All right. Um, we have, um, I think we talked about the Jeff Tech and IU6 both on Thursday. Anything new to report from our reps there? Nothing there. >> No, >> I don't think we have any communication since last Thursday. And then um payment of the bills will

017be uh items one, two, and three. And there we are starting to get some uh some bills for the playground coming through um including a pretty big chunk in this vote here. Any questions for Susan on the bills? Okay. Hearing none, could I ask for approval of all items one, two, and three, and their subsets for the bills to be paid? Moved. >> Uh, I'll go Jessica and Trevor. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Any new business items anybody would like to bring up? Hearing none, we'll move to adjournment. If I could ask for a motion. >> Katie has one. A new Kat, please. We're going to have a um mixer August 20th superintendent at all. >> August when is this? >> August 20th. What time? >> August 20th is a

018chamber mixture >> 6 >> for uh to welcome uh Dr. K and Dr. Gaston to their new positions. >> And everyone in the community is welcome to attend. >> Dr. Gaston's been in the area for a while, but Dr. Kay will get his groundhog tattoo that night. All right. Um, >> gobbler snob. Was that >> gobbler? Gobbler snob. Yep. Very fittingly a gobbler snob. >> All right. Any anything else? All right. If I could ask for a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. Second. >> And DD. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Thank you all. Moving.

This transcript may contain errors introduced by automated or source-provided captioning. Bracketed descriptions such as [Music] are retained from the source. Passage divisions are editorial aids and do not alter the wording.