Boyertown Area School Board Committee of the Whole Meeting: 2/10/26

001like to call the meeting to order. Roll call. >> Miss Katz >> here. >> Miss Nyman >> here. >> Mr. Brad upgrave >> here. >> Mr. Roger upgrave >> here. >> Dr. Weir >> here. >> Dr. Wy >> here. >> Mr. Broofphy >> here. >> Miss Connor >> here. >> Mr. Penella >> here. All present. Let's >> rise for the pledge of >> allegiance and a moment of silence to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The board of school directors held an executive session prior to February 10th, 2026 committee. The whole meeting, the topic was legal. The session lasted approximately 62 minutes. >> Thank you, Mr. Penerella. takes us down to our discussion items for the evening

002and we do have quite a list and we're going to begin and I'm going to ask Mr. Stout, assistant superintendent to the podium to introduce our guest for this evening who's going to uh be sharing about our all day kindergarten study. Thank you, Mr. Stout. >> Thank you, Dr. David Heiser. I first would like to uh truly thank the board for allowing uh the boyary school district the opportunity to really investigate the opportunity for all day K. Uh it's been a long uh couple years that we've had internal committees and uh conversations around it and I'm excited for uh the introduction tonight of of Dr. Cookenower. I said it correctly. Um I've finally got it. Uh we have met uh Mrs. Petri and myself have met with Dr. Cookenower uh many times over the past

003months to really talk about the details in this study. So, um, we're excited to show you tonight. In your weekly, you had the draft of the overall feasibility study and the presentation tonight is just a an overview of that information. So, without further ado, Dr. Cookenau. >> Good evening everyone and thank you for having me here tonight. Um, just to let give you some background information about myself and about the study. So, I spent 28 years at McKisport Area School District. Um, we're just outside of Pittsburgh, about 3,000 students, where I started out as a special ed teacher. I was then a principal and then I spent the last about 13 years in central office as their director of federal programs and a whole host of other jobs they gave to me. I retired a

004couple years ago and from that point on I joined my husband in a in steps to achieve where we do external evaluation services for a variety of school districts, nonprofits and for-profit organizations. So that's how we kind of got to this point. I first want to thank you for this opportunity. I I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project mostly because um education is at my heart and um kindergarten and full day kindergarten and prek are something that I've worked really hard for all my life. So I was really thankful to do this. So I really thank you for the time. With that said, um let's go ahead and get started. Oh, there we go. So I had to start with this first slide only because I we send a lot of surveys out. I have

005never had a response rate like this. This is incredible. If you can see, we had close to 1,500 responses. Um, there were really four surveys. The fourth one that is not up there was to the kindergarten teachers only and I incorporated that into the staff survey. But as you can see the numbers on the screen, you had 93 parents, 261 of your staff members and your community response was at 332. So, you had I just an an incredible response rate and you have the packet, but I'm going to go ahead and show everybody else um what we saw in the response rate. So, when we're talking about parents, sorry. Um if you can see, 8 over 89% were either positive for it or really did not have an opinion. They just remained neutral. And there

006was a just a little over 10% that had negative sentiments to it. Um I am not a person that likes to read slides to people. Um but as you can see we can see the top agreements and one of the things they really understood is the benefits of children going to school full day. When I was doing some research for this in the the full report that you have, you'll see that there is a literature review at the beginning and some of the things that I really took a look at was current book series that are out there and you current curriculums, book series, whichever you want to call it, really are designed for students to attend school full day. So that is something that when your teachers are if if your teachers move to

007full day, their curriculum, their book series already have that incorporated into it. it's just going to be a matter of them being able to execute it with the students being there all day. Now, there were some concerns and I think those are the concerns that we would think about is kids are going from basically 3 hours to 6 hours give or take. Um, how does that happen? Well, some of the things that we addressed during the study was it's not going to be let's beat education into five-year-olds for six straight hours. That would be craziness. We want to incorporate play into their learning. We want to incorpor movement into their learning. Things that unfortunately if you're only there three hours, you're really trying to jam a lot of things in. If they're there six, we're

008going to be able to expand that learning. Incorporate center time, incorporate tier one, two, and three level supports with our kindergarten students. All of those things, but learning through play is extremely important. So, when we talk about concerns with child engagement, I think some of that as we were going through um all of the comments, it was you can't have my child there for six hours and just beat school to them. They're not high school students. We're not going to do that. Um so, those are some of the concerns that parents had, but I think they're easily addressable with understanding how we teach kindergarten students. Um some benefits as you can see that parents came up with is child care cost people won't having to pay. I was unfortunately I live in a district where

009is still half day and I was forced to make a decision about where I send my own son and I ended up sending him to private school for kindergarten because I needed child care all day um and he was ready to go to school full-time. So that's some benefits, aligns with the preschool programs, reduces logistics, and then aligns with some of your neighboring schools. A lot of some of the comments I read during in the parent part was, "I had to go to private school. Now I can bring my child back to Boyertown." Um, that was one of the things that stood out when we were reading the comments. And let me say, of course, I had to summarize comments or you would be reading forever. um many parents provided comments. So that was not

010it was not like one or two like we're talking over 900 comments were provided um through the surveys. Any questions about the parent survey? All right. So then we had the community survey and as I said there were over 300 responses to there and again you can see on your screen 83.6% 6% positive or neutral. One of the negatives that did come out in the community survey to be 100% honest and and I'm sure most of you can guess it too is people were concerned about their tax dollars and understandably how much will this affect them? How much money will it cost? You know, I I'm sure we had some people that are, you know, I'm on a fixed income. I can't afford more taxes. So, that was one that came out to be 100%

011fair. But as you can see, I put the things um that came from the community regarding how positive full day kindergarten can be for for your students. I'll give you a moment to take a look at that. Any questions about community? And then the last one was the set staff. And as you can see, we're over 90% either agree, strongly agree, or are neutral on the fact of bringing in full day kindergarten. Again, we took a look at understanding the benefits of full day kindergarten, the positive sentiments, and then if there were any concerns. Um, staff understand, and this is where you're going to see this, staff understand that scheduling can become an issue. They understand there needed support. They understand transition. They understand the day-to-day operations of your school. Whereas, you're not going to

012see that in your parent in your community because they're not there every single day. But, as you can see, your staff is very on board with bringing full day kindergarten into the school district. Any questions? All right. So again, I talked about some of the benefits of full day kindergarten, and I addressed these a few moments ago, too. But we're going to be able to extend the literacy bar block to 90 to 100 minutes, extend the math block. The structure is going to be a full day structure. So they can ex implement that existing curriculum like I mentioned in its entirety. When we talk about the whole child development and the f final column, that's when we're looking at making sure that the way we teach full grade kindergarteners is developmentally appropriate and that we're

013addressing all of their needs. I'll give you a moment just to digest that. So now we're to what actually has to take place for you to have full day kindergarten. So what's on your screen there is how many additional classrooms will be needed in each of your existing elementary buildings for a total of 10 classrooms. So, keep in mind we're talking about a total of 10 classrooms regardless of how we get to those 10 classrooms, but that's kind of the breakdown on what is needed. All right, so steps to achieve prepared four options for the board when we're talking about full day kindergarten. The first option is basically leaving the students at the building that they are currently enrolled in and expanding from half day kindergarten to full day kindergarten in their current schools. Um,

014we interviewed all of your elementary principles in the process and your middle school principles. So, they helped guide this section quite a bit. Five of your elementary principles were very confident that they could go from halfday kindergarten to full day kindergarten in their existing building by moving a few things around. One of your principles, Boyertown Elementary, um is not able to expand to full day kindergarten. That's they're just at full capacity. So both option one and option two kind of address that. With option one, it is leaving all of your students in their existing schools as they are, but adding modular classrooms onto the Boyertown Elementary campus. And that is really what option one talks about. Now, let me say this for a couple things. Number one, modular classrooms do not look like they did

01520 years ago. They are not a bunch of trailers just sitting around. Um, I mentioned that we work with the Antidum School District and I many of you probably know the tragedy they suffered with their high school flooding and they had to maneuver around and they now have modular classrooms for their elementary. If you didn't know it was a modular classroom, you would have no idea. It is absolutely beautiful. Um, they are done very very well. So, in option one, that's what we're talking about. As you can see, I put in a cost of $3,925,500. That is actually middle of the road. In your packet, the actual study, there is a low cost for modular classrooms, a middle cost, which is what I put there, and then a high cost. The big discrepancy in how

016much it will cost to do modular classrooms comes with how much it will cost you to get plumbing out to them, get electrical out to them, get your site set up. Those are the costs that can either increase or decrease the cost of modular classrooms. So, I decided to go middle of the road when I did this. Um, of course, the biggest benefit to this is all students will stay in their home schools. Any questions about that? Option two is very similar. Again, all of the students remain in their home school. But the difference with option two is Boyertown would either have to have a cap on the number of students that could be in each grade level and then pass that cap. Students would have to go to a different school or there's been

017a proposal to move fifth grade over to West and put them in a wing by themselves. They would still be Boyertown Elementary students just being housed at West. They would not be middle school students. The Boyertown Elementary principal would still be their principal. They would have lunch themselves. They would have specials themselves. They would just be housed in a different location. So, option B, um, as I said, everyone remains in their own school, but at Boyertown Elementary, you would have to make a decision to put a cap or move fifth grade over to West. In our interviews with your middle school West principal, they said yes, they would fit very fine. There is a place for them. They would be able to have specials. They would be able to have lunch by themselves, and it

018would work for West. Any questions about that? So would the principal, the elementary principal would be traveling between the two buildings? >> So when we talked about it, we said that the elementary principal would ultimately be responsible for those students. However, the middle school principles would have to provide support as needed. So when we're talking about like a teacher evaluation, that would fall to the the elementary principal. But if a child is in distress, then the middle school principal would need to go over. >> Yes. >> How does the staff and principal of Boyertown Elementary School feel about that? >> They when the interview process, they seemed on board with that. >> Okay. And then I'm sorry, if we can pick back up real quick, the module classrooms for Boyertown. >> Yes. >> Is that

019a scenario where they're completely standalone? Are they somehow connected to the main school? So there's no going inside and outside or would that depend on how it could be set up? I guess >> the way I understand and understand I'm not an expert on this but I would think they could be connected and actually the proposal that I got for to do the pricing had its own um restrooms out at in with the modulars. >> Yeah, just to answer your question, Mr. interrupt group. I think we're in the day and age today where um we wouldn't go out to go in, right? Anything from a safety security standpoint, from a weather and condition standpoint, we would want those attached. So that you know that estimate um there's a lot of openness to what that estimate

020may be. I think we if the board were to move forward with an all day coated program were to select that as an option that would be something we'd have to then start with um an architect start land development start the types of processes and figuring out what's possible to be able to do um because I think we're at the we're in the stages in today's world where we want that we would would want those connected >> right and hope that I just wanted I felt the community would need to hear that because they're probably thinking >> trailers outside >> and actually when I looked at the proposal like that your current camera system and everything could be tied in to the modular classrooms. So, >> and in addition to that, you know, you have

021a five classroom modular if you have it attached to the building. Your restrooms are typically nearer. Sometimes those exit doors, so you often time have access where you wouldn't need to plum plum for um you know, your water for um restrooms and alike. And typically, you're not going to we're talking about kindergarten, we're talking about portables. Typically, this the the the kindergartens would not be the grade level that would go to the portables. they would be your upper grades. Um, and utilizing that since we want to keep those kindergarters probably more centric in the building, closer to the office areas, closer to other restrooms, uh, if they don't have them in their own self-contained rooms already. So, that would be part of it. So, there's a some unknowns and and these are more generalities of

022of some estimates. >> Anybody else? Thank you. Where we at here? Okay, so option three goes a little bit different. Option three talks about doing two primary centers. Basically, they'd be K to2 buildings in two of your existing buildings and your remaining three buildings would be 3 to five. Um, this reduces transportation time for young students if you have your two primary centers on both sides of your school. And then of course it would align with your east and west feeding patterns that you currently have. Um we try to balance the enrollment between the two buildings. So um designing a primary center is is option three. Any questions about that? Go ahead. That's still going to be long transportation time for some of those irregardless of how you look at it. It's going to be

023long transportation times. >> Yeah. Have those buildings been identified? Which? No. Okay. All right. And then option four is actually moving your fifth grade to the middle school and having middle school east, which would be grades five and six, and then having middle school west, which would be grades seven and eight. With the five and six, we would be using basically an academy model, more an elementary school model. And then in seventh and eighth, of course, you would be using your middle school model, departmentalized type of model. Now, there is some considerations with this. As you can see on your screen, you're going to have increased transportation cost and increased student time on buses because all students will be going to one location as opposed to two locations as it is now or with fifth

024grade, six locations. So those are some considerations, but there is the estimated cost associated with option four. And then this screen here is just a basically a breakdown of how I got to the cost um with your instructional staff that is 10 teachers estimated at $90,000 each. Your support staff pair of professionals is contracting 10 pair of professionals at $30,500. Um adding 1.5 specials people which is then 135,000. Furniture facilities operation your transportation cost. As you can see you only have really increased transportation on options three and four. The modular classroom cost of course is only on option one and then we put in some contingency cost and then finally the amount at the bottom. Yes. >> Before you had the modular classroom at higher than that. Now you came down it was 300 something

025or was that considering all of the other stuff involved? >> 3,925,500. >> Is that with that? Because I thought with the way you talked it was just for the modular classroom stuff. >> Oh, it's all inclusive. Yes. And to let you know, do they have a copy of the full study? >> Okay. So, in the full study, you'll actually see I have to change glasses if I'm actually going to see. In the full study on on page 16, I think it's on page 16. Let's see here. Well, it's actually starts on page 15. you'll actually see low and high cost of your modular classrooms and it finishes up on 16. And basically what I did was I chose a number dead in the middle of the low and high for the estimate. And there are

026it's definitely an estimate because as we said it's going to depend a lot on your what it's going to take to install them. Any other questions? And then actually I talked a lot about this on the screen before, but these are your factors to consider. Um, your instructional and support staff, your specialist, your instructional materials, which actually will probably not be much of an increased cost because you already have those. And then food service is is also to be considered, but of course you're already feeding your kids. Now you're just going to feed them an additional time. Um, in none of the buildings that we spoke with, we talked to the principles. did they foresee that an issue except again with Bertown Elementary just because of the number of of physical bodies there. And then

027here are just some other considerations when we're talking about full day kindergarten. And I really cannot stress the importance of this will ensure alignment to your current curriculum and your current programming uh special ed services and then any kind of compliance with state and federal guidelines especially when it comes to special ed services and of course there will be professional development to prepare the staff for full day kindergarten and any changes and then also making sure that everyone understands that transition from half day to full both parents, students, and staff. And that's it. So, thank you. Questions? >> Yeah, I have a question. Um, >> sure. And back to the say 1500 um parents that you interviewed for this. Um I was looking and roughly um there was like 20 almost 20% that weren't in

028favor of it. But uh my question is out of the 6,000 some parents that we have in the school, how many of them were interviewed on this or questioned on the survey? >> We So your parent response, let's go back here. Your parent response was over 900. >> Okay. But we have over 6,000 students in the school. Were any of the other parents in the school district besides the kindergarten parents interviewed on this? >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> Yeah. >> Because they're the ones that are the rateayers that are paying for this, >> Mr. Upgrow. So the um survey information was sent out across our Infinite Campus portal. So every parent in the district that receives communications through that portal would have gotten uh an an opportunity to access the survey. And out of those

029parents that were uh communicated that way, 93 parents um chose to participate. The outside community survey, we did a social media blitz, put as much information out as we possibly could, and then we actually ran an ad in the in the local newspapers to uh with the QR code that allowed them the opportunity to access. So the the the parent survey went out through uh Infinite Campus and the um community survey went out through social media and uh local uh local media. >> So while you're talking about that, how did you reach out to the senior citizens? Because a lot of them don't get the paper, don't have social media, don't have emails. So how did you reach out to them? >> Yeah. Um Mr. more do you want to? >> So to go back

030to even the strategic planning process, one one piece of feedback that we received um from the community and in particular um it was a surprising statistic is that our senior citizens point to social media and the newspapers. That's the feedback we received. But we did also in our communications out we did also ask that people share with neighbors and friends. We encouraged participation and I actually without going back and looking at it this is this is better than the response rate for strategic planning. So there's been improvement. We've offered multiple opportunities for folks to sign up to receive our newsletters and things like that as well. So, um, in terms of our reach with regard to this group of people, we targeted things that they responded and said, "This is where we find our information

031or where we'd like you to put it." >> Yeah. Yeah. I got a a question on here on the key findings. Um you have down 10.9% express negative sentiment disagree or strongly disagree but 8.4% remain neutral. >> Yes. So when I did it I did 89.1 is positive or neutral up on top. >> I did because typically when you look at a survey if somebody is neutral they don't really have an opinion at all. So we combine positive and neutral to come up with 89.1%. on your 800 or 93 response is parents response. Is that households or parents? >> So every response was from an individual person. I wouldn't know if like they did it with their husband or wife if they sat there and answered it together, but it was from an individual source.

032So could be many many less >> anybody who um in infinite campus signed up for communications through um the infinite campus all um so it could be multiple fam multiple members of a household uh we didn't disagregate that information because anybody who gets the you know the weather communications anything that goes out um it went out in that capacity. So, um there's probably families that have multiple um communication channels and then other ones that just the the head of the household would be the point of contact. >> So, wouldn't that skew your numbers? >> I would actually believe that it would >> I actually believe it would skew them higher because if my husband and I are sitting together, we're not going to fill out two surveys. I'm just going to fill out the survey

033for both of us even though it was both of our opinions. So, >> there's no guarantee of that. So initially two of both of you could could put in and say yes or both of you put and say no. >> Absolutely. >> So that that could possibly skew your numbers. >> Except there's still two individuals. So >> two individuals, one family. Come on. Let's not play word game. >> Questions Mr. Stout, would you mind um just kind of reminding the board kind of where we started with this study uh we do have some newer members that are on the board um that were not members at the time when we were charged with going out on this study. Some of the steps that have led to this study and obviously the some of the results

034that you've heard tonight, right, already. >> Yeah, you you've shared a little bit of that in your in your overview there. We started with an internal committee within the district that we uh took uh district stakeholders and um really talked about what a possibility of all day kindergarten would look like within the Berenary school district. Uh we had every everybody from human resources to uh transportation to our teachers. uh and we spent uh time really evaluating um currently what we're doing in our pre-K program and then how we would expand upon our practices within our kindergarten program to have an efficient and effective uh all day kindergarten program. And uh Dr. Coconau really hit on what a lot of the information that came out was very similar, ironically enough, with the feasibility study as far

035as where we landed. Um, so we took that information and then made the determination that we needed to look to a potential outside entity to give us an overview from um, you know, I'll say an unbiased uh, perspective and give us what we uh, need to do to make an informed decision as to whether this board is willing to uh, commit what needs to happen for all day kindergarten to take place. So, um, over the course of the past, oh my goodness, I'm trying to think of >> In November, um, really, um, worked, um, couple maybe every other week, we had a meeting or some conversation based upon information that had been collected. Um and when we put out the RFP for um outside entities to conduct the feasibility study, uh all of the elements

036that are in that RFP are what um steps to achieve perform. Uh including the survey, including kind of that curriculum analysis, the the research behind all day kindergarten. Uh and this is the culminating project. And what you was given to you in the weekly uh report this past week was approximately 40 almost 50 pages of information that really uh gave an overview and and like I said in the beginning of our presentation tonight. This presentation is really just uh the highlights of that study. The details are within the the almost 50 pages that were shared with you about what that looks like. So the board um and Dr. David Heiser will will look for um for guidance as to what the next steps in this process will be. So, in speaking with Mr. Stout. Um,

037one of the things that we would encourage the board uh to consider would be a March timeline of considering whether or not the board would like the administration to move forward with the planning for all day kindergarten for the start of the 2027 school year. Um much of which, as you just heard in the finance committee, we um are projecting and um as we did with with last year's budget, um projecting some full-time equivalency positions in order to plan appropriately from a financial lens to be able to have the affordability melded in across three years and three budget cycles to be able to afford uh the types of things that um are needed in us especially with with teachers in this type of planning. So we are ready to receive any inquiries or questions further

038things that you may have or need or want or desire in terms of um this project. Um Menour will certainly um assist us with finding any things that that you may need um in terms of further research or anything else. I think some of the data points that have come out more recently, you heard from Mrs. Petri in her latest comprehensive um um uh presentation um when it came to data. And one of the one of the data points that was stated in that conversation was that nearly 60% based on screeners that we did and completed with our kindergarteners within the first couple of weeks of the school year this year is that they were they 60% were below our average in readiness levels when it came to kindergarteners. So, um that tells us some

039things that uh obviously there's a need um the capturing of our students for 90 more school days. That's what a half-day program brings back to the to those those students are 90 more school days of instruction um that we believe can really enhance and help and promote our students um in the skill sets, social skill sets, academic skill sets, you name it. in terms of the types of environments that they're in for nearly three three and a half hours more a day in that and um give the opportunity for us to um increase the benefits for um some results that we're seeing already that um you know some of our students are not prepared for for kindergarten um at that point and we can help make up some of that close some of that gap.

040So, I I would encourage um if you have things you would like us to further investigate over the next two board meetings, our next legislative meeting and our next committee of the whole meeting in March, I'll put this on as old business and we can go back to it each and every one of the meeting times. If there's more things that that you want to discuss or there's things that you would like us to to receive from us or research, we can do that at that point in time and um and and we'll take your lead. um for budgeting and for the budgeting cycle, it would be helpful for us to consider um a for you to consider a a motion at the March legislative meeting to really guide us from a financial standpoint for

041this particular budget cycle for next year. Personally, I think we need a little bit more debate on this just based off of the data that's given to us. There's a lot of moving parts. We're looking at redistricting some elementary schools. Um we've got financial um implications with getting these modular systems again, site surveys, that kind of stuff. So I think in my opinion, we we need to have a you know bit little bit more deeper conversation about some of these like what do these modulars look like? Um, again, where where are we going to redraw the lines to make sure that, you know, we're not overcrowding a building? Uh, we've got Boyertown Elementary that is at capacity. So, again, a lot of moving parts. I I think the the debate needs to be there. Yeah.

042And I think we can probably get you a um we can get you a look into a modular to to understand what that looks like. most times um it's mostly the highly sought out classroom that every student will want to be in. Um it's the brand new looking and really uh today's version of a classroom setting for a modular is pretty impressive uh when it comes to that. So the board does need to take into consideration number one are you considering this as as truly kindergarten all day kindergarten program and then secondarily you need to figure out whether or not what what options that are being presented here to us. We can say that the recommendation from the administration if you were to move forward with an all day kindergarten program would be to our

043charge was to how do we bring an all day kindergarten program into Boertown and to stay focused on that. Um there's a number of options that have a lot of distractors to it that have other things that are implied in in terms of it. creating primary centers, creating five and six and seventh and eighth grade centers, which take us a whole lot deeper than just an all day kindergarten program. Our promotion to being able to provide this in the in the 2728 school year would would be to be focused on remaining these in the current buildings that we we have right now. And our focus would be to keep a an elementary together. That means to keep a fifth grade at Boyertown Elementary School, which would impart then having to place a five CL, you

044know, five modular classrooms on that. Those are estimated costs. What we don't know right now is whether it's applicable, can we do it, where can we attach it, and things of that nature. That takes design, that takes architecture, and that takes some time to do that as well. I think the big thing that the board needs to make some decisions on in again debate is are you going to move forward with an all day kindergarten program? Number one, the the option of whether you move fifth grade to middle school west or you keep fifth grade at middle at Boyertown Elementary School is pro in our recommendation would be the next decision you you'd want to make. And that maintains consistency for our families. It means cons consistency for our students, for our teachers, for everybody

045and our ability to bring an all day kindergarten program into the Boertown School District while not disrupting operations of everything else. All the other options tend to the other two options tend to do that. And we've now layered on multiple other things that we weren't bargaining for from the beginning. Also, you mentioned that we have a we're we're essentially adding 90 extra days to a kindergarten. Do we have a curricular plan uh set in place to to you know going from that 3 hours a day to the 6 hours? >> Yeah, we don't have that written in in in in stone, but we do have a plan of how we would get to that within the start of the 2728 school year. And you saw a little bit of that blocking of what that means.

046What does that mean for for middle school or excuse me, what does that mean for uh math? What does that meaning for reading and the core programs that are part of that? That's not to say an hour and a half of dedicated reading at a time for a kindergartener is appropriate, but how's that spaced out? And then what are our resources? Yeah. So, we we've already and Mr. Stout and his team have already started to look at that through some of the initial meetings that even took place over a year ago. >> Thank you. I do have one question. Reading through it, I liked option one the best. I thought it was the less the least intrusive to everyone. Um, but I do have a question. Why Why is it five modulars? Why not just

047two or why not just three? If you're going to put the how many we only have three grades for fifth grade, three three classes. Why would it just be a three modulars? >> You currently have five. >> Yeah, it was really to maximize the space in Boyer Townel as we talked about. um where town is full and and really to um from a special area space. Um they have a unique music room that is kind of like leveled and and whatnot. So their their flexibility of space that they even have in their building right now really is not I just said flexible again. It's not very flexible. So um we wanted to maximize the space. It certainly um would come back. um we were doing the ultimate like opportunity to to capitalize and if that

048if if if it only takes two and that's what we needed to do and we can squeeze it in the concern would be over time is that enough for what might bring to the building as a need um because currently right now um and enrollment you know is starting very shortly we do have to move students out of Bertown L and they need to attend neighboring schools like Colbertell and Gilbertsville because it's just there's there's not enough space so um we wanted to capitalize on the opportunity with that. And like Dr. David Heiser said earlier, don't envision all day K going to the portables. It's really going to be more of the what is the most effective use of that space to be able to capitalize on it. >> Okay. >> And that could in

049fact be your specials. Um it you know it that's going to come down to the planning phase. Is it possible uh for us to visit um some of the districts that have been successful with their kindergarten programming for board members to truly see in action the ability to have the the centers the ability to work with children in a way in the with the u kinders in a way that is beneficial uh to them throughout the day. >> Yeah. I mean, we have 37 districts across McGomery County and Burks County that we can, you know, make contact with. Um, and and see if we can schedule some nearby visits. We can see if, and I know Dr. Coconau, you've been working with Antidum. Maybe there's a wiggle room for us to go visit what a

050modular looks like um at Antidum to take a site visit there. So, we could possibly schedule something through that. Um, so let let me see what we can do in a in a short time period to to see if we can get you out and schedule some things. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Should we do a show of hands to see who wants to continue moving forward? >> I mean, if you have five people here like, you know, this was on >> I think it would be very very helpful for administration to see what type of support we have moving this forward or not. Um certainly if we're going to be scheduling out visits and and things of that nature. >> When I'm looking at the different costs of the four um the the one

051which sounds like the one everybody thinks would be the best would be the modulars. Um you have it broken down to a yearly cost for those modulars. Is that $2,260? >> Are we renting them? I'm just trying to figure out. >> Again, that comes that will be a decision you'll need to make later. Um, renting and leasing is a or I'm sorry, leasing or buying is a different cost associated with it. Again, at that point when you're going to be spending that amount of money, you're going to bring se several I can't speak vendors in and work with the individual vendors to get the best deal for your school district. Um, again, I could I did not go into all of that. I took some estimates. >> My question is why is it a yearly

052charge and not a one-time charge? Because the way I did it was like a a leasing charge to start with and then and then and you put a lot of money at the front and then it's lesser as you move forward. You can buy them outright. It depends. If you're going to do a capital project in the next 5 years that may put an addition on, and I'm making this up, put an addition on to Boyertown Elementary, then you would only want to have the modular for that period of time. So some of that a lot of that I shouldn't say some a lot of that would be a decision that would have to take place once you make a decision if that's the way you're going to go. >> What I would highly recommend

053to the board if the board wants to move forward with an all day kindergarten program yet is indecisive in terms of the options. I would highly recommend that we go out with a profess to a with a professional service uh an architect to help um give us more exacting numbers on what the the land development would be, the ability to attach to a building, some of the codes and permits, what's available, what are the prices, all of those are in the wheelhouse of a an architect that could help um you know design that for us fairly quickly. and give us closer estimated prices. >> Yeah. Feasibility of of attaching portable trailer, you know. Yeah. Portable classrooms there, right? Yeah. >> We have the project going on over Bertown Elementary. How is that going to hamper

054that? Well, we don't know because you haven't made any decisions in regards to all decay, but um I don't believe the two of those collide in any way because one is on the would be on the exterior. Um the roof is done this summer um and is in full completion. Everything else is really internal to the building itself after that. Um and should be completed by the completed at the same time that the proposed kindergart all day kindergarten would be eligible to start. >> Should we get a show of hands here guys for who would like to continue moving forward? What does that mean exactly? >> To look look into it. These are the people who might who have interest in it going forward. Us continuing to look into it. >> Well, I'm interested in

055continuing the conversation. >> Yeah. So, to continue the conversation, I need you to raise your hand. How many is that? Two >> six. >> Okay. Um what I would ask from the board if there is anything more specific you need us to look into. We will try to arrange and put together some visits, some possibilities of some visits to visit portables, but also some um area, some districts to which um you could speak with some kindergarten programs and um yeah, and from there we can go whether or not all day kindergarten is something that the uh the board would like us to continue to. I I pause at asking for permission to go forward with professional services and so forth without having an indication a real solid indication from the board as to whether or

056not um that's something you want us to to consider at this point. I don't know that we're there yet, but we in order to get you more specific Dr. where more specific numbers um land development and feasibility of doing such with portables. We would have to enter into a you know yeah some with w with an architectural service. >> You're probably spending another $100,000 for engineering. >> I I I don't believe it would go to that number. Um, but I I I really can't speak to that at this point. I think that would be a decision if we are charged with doing that. We could we could investigate that for you, >> Mr. Stout. Anything more? All right, we're switching to comprehensive plan item B. >> I'm still up. >> All right, we're gonna invite

057Mrs. Petri to the podium as well. So, the uh comprehensive plan, I have um Mrs. Petri up here and we're we're splitting our presentation tonight. And again, we thank you for the opportunity to speak on the comprehensive plan. Uh some of you had the opportunity to sit in our committee. Uh it seems like just yesterday, three years ago, we were working on the comprehensive plan. It does come up quickly. Uh so, this is a three-year plan and we are going to go into the specifics. Um I'm going to take more of the overview of the plan and and Mrs. Petri is going to talk about the the data that's part of the plan. The comprehensive plan steering committee, as you can see on the screen, is a pretty extensive group. Uh it encompasses numerous stakeholders

058within the district from staff uh to students to the board to community members to parents. Uh and it was an opportunity for us to collaborate on the uh on the plan itself. What's exciting about this is many of us just piggybacked off the steering committee uh for the strategic plan and uh we were able to utilize some of the information that came from that. So the conversations were fresh from uh just you know 6 months ago. So the comprehensive plan itself is really due to the state by March 31st and we're adhering to our our timelines in your weekly update for the past two months. probably have not really even looked at it because it's been in there multiple times, but we wanted to keep it fresh in your mind about the timeline of what

059is need needs to be considered for the comprehensive plan. Uh I'm just going to read the highlights every 3 years. Uh this plan is put in place. It is a professional education plan and it encompasses six sections. The profile, core foundations, asurances, needs assessment, action planning, and the plan submission. And um as with any plan, it's not a plan that's really supposed to sit on your shelf. It's a continuous process plan that is used to uh be driven by what the data in front of you asks you to do. Um the LEA is a boyary school district and really it's looking at um the opportunity to increase student performance uh through results, innovative exemplary uh researchbased programs coupled with staff development, focused and aligned resources and public participation in the planning. And that's what we

060just talked about with that large very large committee that we had together. Um with public participation are all of the critical factors in designing this plan. And again we just had the opportunity to do our strategic planning. So this was a nice flow into what our comprehensive plan and our strategic plan if you remember is 5 years in existence or in its total existence by the time it's completed and we're re rejuvenating that team again. This is a three-year plan. So the first thing we did was determining our educational values and again we had the opportunity in our strategic planning to look at these values. Uh just going to read some of the highlights. They're the core principles. Uh they're the values that create a moral compass for the organization and its employees. They help

061and guide decision-making. They establish a standard and they are an internalized framework of what is helping to drive the the school district. as our strategic planning process, we created a new vision. And if you think a vision is where we would dream to be, the mission is really the the the roadmap to get there. So, uh our vision that we have as a district is to foster a weling welcoming and innovative learning community that empowers all students to thrive in future career paths and contribute as engaged, informed citizens. The road map to get there is uh our mission is to cultivate curiosity, critical thinking, decision-making abilities, equipping all students to be future ready and resilient. These are the values. I'm not going to read them all to you, and we're going to get a little

062bit more in the weeds of the values here shortly. And as we've worked over the past my goodness um six six years uh on our portrait of a graduate we keep coming back to our real world knowledge our social emotional awareness and our composition of character as far as our portrait um qualities that we have talked about. So um these are the values that we um discuss as our educational statements. We did create value statements for each of our stakeholder groups. If you remember that large list we had earlier, we have our students, staff, administration, parents, and community. So, um, again, it's a lot for me to read, uh, for you. You've had this in your in your weekly, but our students created their own value statement, which was really exciting to hear our our

063students at the high school level. Um, I actually was, uh, observing our students driving our our group, which was which was really um, which was really cool to see. Our staff had the value statement that they created as well. administration uh created a value statement that they've worked on over the past uh couple months as a collaborative group. Our parents as part of our committee work created their own value statement and also our community because we had community stakeholders within the group as well. So our committee work digging into our committee work we determine the priorities uh analyzing data for goal setting and action planning as uh over the past I'm going to say maybe 10 years or so since the future ready index has been in place we utilize this as a data tool

064in fact the comprehensive planning process actually has an element within the comprehensive plan that requires you to go into that future ready PA index and take data out of the index and uh and put that into the comprehensive plan. I remember in kind of a a funny way the last time we did this they had not updated the comprehensive plane data. So we were actually looking in two years ago data um we are blessed in this time the state was able to get the current previous year's information in the index for us to to evaluate and within that uh future ready index are different elements that Mrs. Petri is going to go into as far as a specific data points. So at this point I'm going to pass the presentation over to Mrs. Petri. >>

065Thank you, Mr. Stout. So, really our work with our team, um, we had kind of three major steps that we went through. Um, at the district leadership level, we reviewed our future ready and local data to really look at some priorities and needs, look at what we are, what are our strengths, what are some of our areas that we might need some additional focus. And then our comprehensive planning team reviewed the future ready data, made some of their own observations, and we shared out some of our local data that the average person would have access to because we put some data compilations together for them to look at. We identified some trends and observations from all of those pieces to make some decisions on what we felt would be important areas of focus. And then

066our final piece was the comprehensive planning team identified three areas of f focus really based on the data trends that we saw and the conversations that uh that we had during those meetings. And I I do you know want to publicly thank everyone that was a part of that committee. Uh there was really some great robust conversations all surrounding how do we support our students? how do we help them move into be those vision and and you know thinking about how do we meet our strategic plan. So it really was some really great conversation with the teams. So our first priority that was identified is al is also directly aligned to a lot of the the things that I've been talking with you about um during my presentations over the past few months. But the

067priority one is really honed in on our curriculum review process aligning with our state standards and our MTSS framework to strengthen tier one instruction and ensure consistent instructional expectations and support datadriven interventions across all of our schools. So thinking about within that three-year making sure both our ELA and our math curricula are aligned to the state standards looking at the resources that are supporting our students needs and making sure that we are truly implementing and supporting our staff in that implementation and and thinking about that multi-tered system of support. So when a student does need additional supports, what are those pieces in place to make sure that they meet those needs? So if you look at the measurable goals for that really the only thing that changes from year our target year um one two

068and three is that the addition of by the time we would reach our target three both the ELA and math curriculums would go through the curriculum review process. The ELA curriculum is at the forefront of our review right now. That is for a couple different reasons. one being the data that we reviewed um has a high priority but also in staying in line with the act 135 um state mandates that we are in line with that curriculum review process and um resource adoption. Our priority number two is focused on foundational understanding of literacy instruction. So a focus on researchbased literacy instruction and resources with ongoing data analysis. So we here in this analysis we really looked at our state assessments related to our proficiency levels. So our students in grades 3 to 8. We're looking

069to um focus and and have an increase to 65% proficiency rate through the implementation of our multi-tered system of support and as well as the implementation of our revised curriculum materials. So you may be wondering where where are we now? Where are we going? 65% is that you know where we are. We're going to talk through those pieces a little bit. Um so if you look at this document and one of the things that I think is really important to recognize is that um the the the struggles that we are having with some of our scores are not we're not alone in that piece. So this data is a reflection of statewide achievement percentiles and what this is representing is how our students in comparison to across the state are are achieving. So our achievement

070growth if you look at the trends is increasing. The interesting piece about that is when we look at our scores over the past 3 years we have been pretty consistently around that 56%. So we went we were at 56 57 and then down to 55%. So what the previous chart shows us is that we are maintaining what we've been doing um but we haven't gotten to a point where we're we're doing that increase but it it begs to to wonder what is happening across the state as well. So our in comparison to other districts around the state we are showing that we're holding our own and really and continuing to maintain that. But we want to really focus on how do we make those that growth over the next three years increase over time. So

071if you look at our measurable goals um we pick small increments of growth because we looking at the trends from previous years. We want to be realistic about how can we um tackle our the challenges that we have and how do we meet our students needs. In addition to that an important piece is we are starting the curriculum review process with our ELA curriculum K to 12. So the implementation of a new resource or maybe a different strategy or different approach will be coming into the 2728 school year. So this upcoming school year, we're going to be doing some pilots of various um resources to making decisions based on what those implementation would be for the following year. Um really working on our professional development related to structured literacy and helping our staff be prepared

072for those shifts in the following year. So whenever you're implementing a new resource, it's not a a light switch that changes overnight. So it's really a building in that process and providing that solid foundation for that implementation of that additional resource. And then our goal would be that in year three we would reach that 65% proficiency for our grades 3 to 8. Our third priority area is an area that we saw um trends as something that we want to continue to focus on and that's areas of our two of our subgroups. So our students that have individualized education plans or IEPs and our economically disadvantaged students. We have seen um kind of stagnant results with them as well. Um and we want to make sure that we are supporting the growth and um for that

073population. So, if you'll note, you'll see that I've broken down the proficiencies that we're looking to grow in the different areas based on the data that we do have related to those populations um and the support needed. I think it's important to recognize if we look at our students um that are identified in special ed services or economically disadvantaged, those numbers have increased over the past um past years pretty significantly. So the the reason I want to highlight that is I think it's important that we recognize that um you know we are supporting all students and maybe that making sure that they might need some additional resources that they might not we might not have needed in years past. So we want to make sure we are um re meeting their needs and providing that

074additional support that may be necessary. This slide um I just want to point out just a couple things. when you think about how do we compare to maybe some other districts uh around our area. So if you look at these comparisons and I'm going to focus just on the far left at the overall those are rankings um within Burks and Montgomery County you can see for ELA math and science where we would fall. So if we look at ELA for example, um in the other districts, there are 18 total districts in Burks County and we were uh at number five. In Montgomery County there's 21 districts and we were number 16. So this is just an idea for you to have, you know, like I said before, you know, the the needs are not just

075here in Bertown. They're all over, but we have to focus on what our students need and what we want to do to help them continue to grow and and make sure that we're making those advances that we are planning for them. Yes. >> You said with Burks we're number five, with Montgomery County we're number 16. It seems like we're doing better in Montgomery, which I would think we should be doing worse and we should be doing better in Burks. So, um, there are 21 total school districts in Montgomery County and we're number 16. So, if you look at the top, number one would be where you would where we would strive to be, right? So, um, we're the 16th in Yeah. Yep. Not, it's not a Yeah. Yep. Thank you for asking that clarifying question.

076Any other questions about this these rankings? Okay. So, like I said, this breaks down our goals and this is based on the information of the previous data that we have for the student populations looking to boost that those proficiency levels in those targeted areas um over that threeyear span. >> Just just as a note, go back to that. >> Keep going. Keep going. There you go. Just as a note, when you look at those trends uh with the county with respect to ELA, math, and science, uh it's exciting to see that we were the the number one out of the Burks County schools in math as well as um in science. Um I think that's number two. Um I can't see quite that far, so I apologize. But um one of the reasons we prioritized

077in that uh that the curriculum review cycle our ELA and really with the structured literacy initiative through the state is really that's where we need to put our work at first to really start to help to improve our students. So that is definitely a focused purpose of what we're going to be doing as a district. Mrs. Nyman. >> Yeah. Before you go further, can we go back? I think it's one or two slides. >> Oh, the other one. Sorry. >> Oh, the the graph. Yeah, we have down the economically disadvantaged. What about the kids with IEPs that aren't economically disadvantaged? >> So, this that economically disadvantaged number is it is not necessarily a student with an IEP. That is any student in our district that qualifies for economically disadvantaged, >> but on the one slide

078you had the IEPs with. >> So, that that could be they could be a student with an IEP and economically disadvantaged. We didn't disagregate that data. So they that's just total students that are in special education. >> I just want to make sure I understand. So your goal is to increase the ELA proficiency 10% in three years and the previous three years we went down 1%. >> Yeah. So um it it is you can see that we've been kind of we've maintained that that 55%. Um, I think, you know, it is a a lofty goal, but it's a goal that I think if we take, you know, small strides, um, and really really hone in on each year, making those small steps, um, that's what we want to strive to do. But 10% increase over

079three years is a pretty significant goal, but we also don't want to just settle. We want to make sure that we are pushing and and and supporting our students for that growth. >> I think Mr. Panerello too the um the trend throughout the state really from an ELA perspective is why they put the structured literacy initiative in place to really help to support students. So I think the trend across the state is very consistent to what we see and if you go back to that slide that Mrs. Petri this slide here is an interesting slide. So even though our numbers stayed stagnant in the state rankings we had an upward trend. So I might hypothesize that other districts across the state actually had decrease in their scores. Us staying consistent actually gave us an upward

080trend in the state averages which is kind of an odd spin on things but that's why that initiative from the state is is put forth so that um all students across the Commonwealth can improve their ELA scores. Okay. Any other questions related to the data or need to see another slide for a little bit longer period of time? >> This is Petri, could you go back to the slide showing uh there? Yeah. The targets. >> Yes. Or for the curriculum >> here. One of one of my questions is is this slide here where >> uh the math and the deficits in math will not be addressed until 2027. >> So I would say not that the needs are not being addressed but that curriculum review. So the the focus on this current curriculum cycle, we

081are diving deeply into our ELA curriculum and looking at those resources. I'll continue to be talking to you about potential resources for adoption for that 2728 school year. So what we're doing with our ELA work right now, we will be doing with our math groups next year. And not that we're not addressing those needs. our teams are working diligently to use the data that we have and make sure that they are um providing intervention and supports. I don't want you to think that we're not focusing on helping students, but that formal curriculum process is not done at the same time because that's a lot of work and it's a lot of intensive. Um, and not that we couldn't do a lot of work, but we want to make sure we're doing it as thoroughly as

082possible so that when we're implementing, we're focused on one implementation, especially thinking about our elementary school teachers who are teaching all of the content area. We want to make sure they understand that resource thoroughly. they understand the science behind like especially um with reading instruction and that they're able to implement implement that with fidelity and not be trying to toggle between two things at one time. Um so that they're familiar with the math resources and math math curriculum we have right now and we're doing um various interventions at different levels. Um but that full review of the curriculum would be starting the following year. >> So and so presently here's my concern. I'm I'm under the impression that certainly the teachers are meeting trying to meet the needs of the children in the classroom. But

083for those who are not um gaining or those who are not proficient, there is no overarching intervention for math for those children and there won't be that kind of structured intervention until 2027. Is that accurate? So um to so what I will say is at each building depending on the resources that they have they have the the intervention teams between the reading specialists and the intervention teachers and I'm speaking for the elementary level now you know they they look at what the needs are their at their building they look at their schedules and they provide various supports based on that data um like Mr. Lent presented in the budget um presentation this evening, we are asking for two additional intervention teachers at the elementary level to start being able to build that support in across

084our buildings. And if you think back to my presentation in January, um you know, one of the things our goal would be would be to be able to add those resources at all of our elementary schools by the time that we are ready to implement our full MTSS system. So right now we are building those systems and hopefully with that with the budget we would be able to add that the the the personnel to be able to really dive into looking at all of those pieces and making sure we're not looking just at ELA but we're also looking at math. >> I hear what you're saying. I'm I'm very concerned about the math and to add one intervention person Right. That's not one at each school. Am I correct? >> At this this what we're

085asking for at this time is two intervention teachers at the elementary school, one at the middle school. So we're asking to add three intervention teachers to our system. And then the following year, we would ask for three more intervention teachers. Two at the elementary, one at the middle. And then the following year, two additional elementary teachers at the intervention. So that that way in that three-year span we would have all elementary schools with an additional um support within that intervention to be able to implement our MTSS system fully. >> Right. So that's over a three-year period. >> Correct. >> And my concern is presently that the students are not getting um that overarching support that is needed. looking at the data uh that is very much needed at the elementary level. So, as we're talking

086about uh full day kindergarten, we're talking about MTSS, which is again building this overarching system that's taking three years that the stagnant scores. And I I'm recognizing that, you know, uh you're saying that everyone is in that boat or there's a lot of districts in that boat, but we need to be about looking right at our children and looking to see what can we do now uh to move them forward. And that is by no means I'm not um complaining >> uh about the the curriculum driving and how the review system takes time recognizing that. But we also have an obligation um to look at what can be done in addition to this so that children aren't waiting 3 years uh before this can come to fruition. >> Yeah. And like it's a very valid

087point. Dr. David Heiser made the point earlier which is not part of our presentation but 60% of our incoming kindergartens are not at benchmark coming to us before day one. So if you look at an MTSS model where 80% of students should be successful in tier 1 intervention and we've already got 60% of our kindergarteners coming in not meeting that expectation, that benchmark before kindergarten even starts. 100% correct. We have to do what we can to to build that capacity within them so that they can be successful. >> Mrs. Diamond, >> how many intervention teachers do we have right now? Um, off the top of my head, I'm trying to think back. I can pull up my Give me a second. I'll pull up my presentation from any other questions while I'm looking this up

088that Mr. Stout maybe could answer. All right. Currently, and I'm going to go by building so that I don't have to do all the I'm not doing all the math in my head right away, but currently at Boyertown Elementary School, we have two intervention teachers and two reading specialists. At Colbertdale, we have one and a half intervention teachers and one and a half reading specialists. At Earl, we have one intervention teacher and one reading specialist. At Gilbertsville, we have two inter intervention teachers and one reading specialist. At New Hover, we have two intervention teachers and one reading specialists. At Washington, we have two intervention teachers and one and a half reading specialists. At Middle School East, we have one intervention teacher. At middle school west, we have one intervent intervention teacher and one reading specialist.

089At the high school, we have one reading specialist. And I do want to point out that we talked about our title one funds supporting those positions. So the reading specialists in our title one buildings are supported through those title one funds. Can you put that into our um weekly report so I have that information without having to write all >> Yeah, sure. Yeah, I and um I I'm happy to >> to put that in the weekly and it's in it's in a slide from the pre the January presentation, but I can put that back into this week's weekly so that you can review that. And again the the intervention teachers are addressing the reading issues >> correct for the at this time most of our intervention teachers I mean they're it it depends on the

090schedule in the building but they they are doing some math intervention but most of it is focused on u reading intervention. >> Thank you. Welcome. Any other questions? >> Petri and Mr. Why don't you walk the board just through the steps of the comprehensive plan? What's what's the next action steps and as this is a required PTE document? >> Right. So on the February 25th board meeting would be uh your opportunity to to vote on the comprehensive plan and then uh which is presented to you in your board do in your board packet the full plan. Um once you approve that, we can submit it to the state by it sits for public review for 30 days and then we submit it to the state. 28 days, excuse me. Um and then March >> 31st,

091um we would submit that to the state. So if I go back to that slide, our the plan is due to be submitted to the state by March 31st. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> So, under item C, our um being presented is the 2627 schoolboard meeting calendar. Um, Mrs. Moy, if you can just bring that up for for us. You'll see it looks uh fairly similar to what this year's uh calendar again looks like with having two two uh committee of the whole and a legislative meeting each and every month. Um in front of each of those meetings would be a u specialized committee meeting and again they would meet every other month in terms of those. So we are recommending to um move forward with that would be a consideration for

092you at our legis next legislative meeting. The um we were able to get you heard from uh Mr. Crumb at our last committee me facilities committee meeting in regards to his recommendation for addressing some of the detection of PFAS at Gilbertsville Elementary. You can see attached there there is an estimate for or not an estimate but um his proposal for services and again uh nearly 50% of the cost of this is really in professional services and permitting engineering services and for the the D permit um you know based on his presentations his expertise in the area um his work with the resin filtration systems to date and hearing from him most recently after getting all the results back on the multiple other things that needed to be tested upon. Um he he truly does believe

093this will certainly bring our detection levels down um closer to zero certainly inside of the four um parts per trillion which are recommended for 2031. Um, and I would uh really highly recommend the board to consider moving forward with this as quickly as possible. I'll ask for you seek your approval at um our legislative meeting and moving forward with this. We can issue POS um separated out for professional services and separated out for the equipment themselves so we can move quickly on this. The estimated time is to install is probably inside of a week. It's the long period of time is really more about the permitting uh with D and we will try putting as many calls into those needed folks at the levels that we need to to try to expedite this as quickly

094as possible. Um Dr. Beer, >> just a quick question on the uh the the installation and and permitting. Did >> did he give us a a time frame last time in his presentation? Did he say a month or >> so? The the the time frame for installation I think is really inside of a week to do it actually do the install. It could be upwards of four to six months on the on the permitting themselves with D. Um so he was recognizing that you know he believes with with moving on this as quickly as possible we could have this up and operating in time for the start of uh the 267 school year. We did move forward and I've given authorization to facilities to move forward with a PO with Mr. Crumb on. We talked

095about the two bottle fillers and putting the um on-site uh filtration at those two bottle fillers as well as believe there are four or five other fountains. The estimated cost was going to be under $5,000. And I told him to already move forward with the purchase order for those to get those moving as quickly as possible. We're probably going to need to do some creative plumbing on site with th those things to be able to address those as quickly as possible and have hopefully have those up and running in not too long a time period. >> Now, is this considered a capital project or is this coming out of >> No, this will be general budget. Yeah. Okay. Item E. Um at our last again our last facilities committee meeting there was discussion in regards

096to the stage rigging system and its need for um some changes to it. Back in 2022 there was a an evaluation and safety inspection. Believe the board took took um authorization to address some of the pieces to this. The other pieces that were not addressed are these pieces that we are now bringing forward. Um from a from a sense of there there needs to be updated um work on these most especially many of the roping systems that hang a number of the riggings for drop downs for backgrounds and scenery and all such um things and many of the locks with regard to those. So Mr. Ramsey also spoke at that committee meeting um as he is point with many of our shows and many of the other shows that take place throughout our community that

097uses the auditorium and it is really highly recommended that we move forward with a system for that. We did receive some some estimates on um on this and some quotes on this. We will need to make sure that we are getting the necessary quotes and making sure that we are getting the lowest um estimate of proposal for these current systems. Uh but it is highly recommended that the board move forward and we would like to do this through the summer months um in time in which the most of the most of the auditorium is down in terms of shows and so forth. This is too busy a time right now. As part of that, could you also have them inspect the rigging, the uh framework going up the wall? That's what the problem was before

098they were actually pulling out of the wall. And we had them reattached and also the flooring underneath of it was uneven and had to be repaired. So, if we're going to go back in there and look at all this stuff, we actually should reinspect all that. Also, >> yeah, I would agree. That's good to know. Um, on those two items, >> we have the name of the company that did it at that that time. and we brought a special company in. >> Um I think Mr. Bramble had mentioned that. I can't recall who had done it the last time. >> Was Sapris Sappis? >> I don't remember. >> Saps Saps Sapsis I think it was. >> Yeah, they came in did a pretty good job pretty fast for us. >> Okay. >> Uh because it

099was a high safety concern. So >> I think it is Sapsis who again was the one back. >> So they'd have all the records for what they did. >> Okay. Okay. >> And that's really what we've been going off of as well. So we can do that. Um there is a considerations for an alternative transportation service agreement and again this is for uh we have a number of students that need transitional services for um vehicles out of district. So for students that um that fall within Mckin Vinto that are named homeless a number of our our surrounding districts have already partnered with these service agreements and um it delays the process that we don't have a an agreement with this same organization as well since it delays where um the sending or receiving district needs

100to pay in full. we need to then pay back the school district where it's a lot simpler for us to be able to be dealing straight across with this actual um uh transportation service agreement. So it's uh considered first alt. It is actually a subsidiary of the larger transportation system called first student and um it is just an alternative transportation service. um the contract and in my former districts I've worked with we've utilized this service already and uh with high success rates most especially for those long distance runs one runs that may take up to an hour um outside that might be singular in nature with regard to a student and um many of whom are going through different types of transitional things um in their lives or with their family with regard to residency

101and so forth. So, um, we bring forward and we would like the the board to, um, um, we're seeking approval on this particular agreement for those those particular services. I believe currently um Upper Perky Omen I think Potts Grove Roberts Spring for a number of others that we often partner with when we're dealing with transitional home services with with students because of McKin Vento um and homelessness um already aligned with this company and would really streamline the process for us. I'm going to turn it over uh GH and I to uh Mr. Lent. >> Thank you, Dr. David Heiser. Um, so G is the Burks County Intermediate Unit um mandated budget. It represents a 3% increase. It covers the mandated core services that are provided to districts um by the IU. Um the dollar amount

102is determined based upon a number of factors um including our average daily membership and our market value um come together and in the formula and the information that's presented and this covers the services that they do with regards to um management services um specific school related services uh job alikes um curriculum leadership services um act 48 um and other um support services for entities these as core um services that we do not pay for outside of this budget. >> Mr. Brophy, >> go ahead. >> Oh, sorry. I saw your light on. >> Oh, um no questions on that. Uh next is uh lease agreement between uh Bertown and Burks IU um with regards for classrooms at Washington Elementary. Um it is um an annual renewal. It covers the 2026 to 2027 school year for an

103annual amount of around $6,300. And just a note for the board, if the board were to consider um an all day kindergarten um and which obviously would impact Washington, this would be a lease agreement that we may not be able to offer due to the spacing components and utilization of of classrooms. Um, we certainly would have additional spaces um in alternate buildings that we could uh discuss with the IU um in including Pine Forge where there may be some additional spaces there for them to move um this class to that as well. >> Was this an increase or did this stay the same? >> Same. Okay, see no other questions. I um so this is a required resolution. Uh one of the components of the approved state budget is that schools have the ability to

104apply for facility improvement grant. Um and in particular um for projects that we have already in the works. Um the Bordertown Elementary HVAC and roof system um is applicable to the needs assessment for these funds. They specifically seek to address improving infrastructures uh systems uh for um buildings. There's a maximum grant amount of $5,000, which is not um a problem to meet given the size of the work that's already scheduled to be done. And this resolution just authorizes Dr. David Heiser and myself um to actually submit that grant and then sign off on um anything that we may need to with regards to that submission and the receipt of the grant that we would be notifying the board that we uh were awarded um based upon their review. >> Is that 5 million or 5,000?

105>> It's 5 million. >> Okay. Correct. We we apply for the full five million knowing that we have to have a 25% match to that and we do because of the scope of the project. But yes, they have a budget that's to be allocated statewide. Um it will be reviewed and uh decisions will be made at the state. Um there is not a published rubric or anything for those. Um but usually it does consider um need um necessity for the project and the like. >> I think you said 5,000. That's why you questioned it. >> Sorry about that. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Lens. Under item J, there was a settlement agreement. The board had received that um in your weekly packet regards to u the student number listed. And item K, overnight

106trip for your consideration for our youth and government. And you can see the number of students, 75 students approximately be attending teachers, how the pay would be distributed among uh participants and the district alike. So that will be placed on your um itemized list for consideration next board meeting reports. BCIU Mr. Broofphy to pass this over to you, Dr. Dayer. This is a the little portrait of the uh picture that was pushed into for the contest by Georgetown. >> Yeah. >> So, >> Yep. Got it. >> I would I would have bought you a little a little uh stand too, but I don't know if you wanted that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, um I'll be representing >> your wife. I'll be representing the BCIU down at a conference for I guess it's it's

107something for educational. I'm not even sure what it is yet. So, they haven't really told me, but it's down in East. They said, "Will you go?" And I said, "Sure." So, I think they're going to tell me later this week what I'm going to actually be going there for. I >> I I think it's it's directed towards student services and and Q&A with regard to to it. >> It's nothing like learning when you get there. you get the you get the show if you can dance fairly well or not at all. So, pretty much that uh there once again there's a lot of BCI there's a lot of federal laws coming out a lot of stuff going across the table federal and the state uh some things you would think that we wouldn't have to

108send for legislation like that schools will be allowed to offer whole milk and dietary options. You would not think that we'd have to have a law for that, but we do. Just to keep in mind, uh immunization schedules are looking at those again. There's once again dietary guidelines. U the the state the transgender bands and all they're being looked at. So, it's still out there and that's at the federal level. Statewise, not too much that I can say that would be of interest at this point. Just some things are carrying on and continuing. But pretty much that said, not not a lot not a lot else for us. >> I think one of the things that's it's hit the media most regular is um the consideration of cell phone bans, right? That's now um coming

109around in Pennsylvania. Um you know, our and and what are those considerations with regard to that? I know our high school has taken steps over the last two years with reducing the amount of time um you know a complete cell phone ban in schools and you know some of the challenges that may exist with some of that. So we'll have to see where that goes. That's I know it's it's being under consideration right now. >> That's one of the things we've been looking at here for the last couple years. I think we have some cell phone restrictions in ahead of it, don't we? So yes, at the high school um well middle school and elementaryaries it's pretty much you know they're null and void. Um at at the high school level uh really have done

110a nice job. It's really um times the of usage is still in some of their free time like a study hall or open campus area or hallway travels. During any instructional time periods there's complete shutdown of of any types of phones. >> Yeah, I think some of the stuff coming from this from the state are going to be a total ban. But I don't know if that's how it's going to eventually come out because I'm sure they'll negotiate that. >> Yeah, I think that will be and you know whether it does get resolved to move forward into law or not, we'll have to see. I think we like I said, we've taken some steps. You know, there's some challenges of you want to completely ban that from schools and what's that mean? And you know,

111right, in today's world, um, you know, there's challenges with with banning that from adults at at times. So, >> I'm worried about parent input if we go to that one. >> Yeah. Um, you know, it doesn't mean that, uh, they can't have it on them. They just can't have it out, right? And becomes the challenge of just monitoring all that. >> Not an easy. >> Mr. Upgrow, BCTC. >> Uh, the only thing I'm working on right now this month is a budget for the upcoming year. We're still working on that. >> Okay. Public com period number one. Dia Savage come comprehensive plan. >> Good evening. Great presentations tonight. Um last week I attempted to express my excitement about the planetarium/arning dome proposal mixed with my concerns about its timing and funding. So in retrospect, I

112don't think I was very clear. So this week, I'd like to focus on the concerns I have for our school district. I speak as a resident who believes in the vision for public education and sees the connection between strong schools and strong communities. Um, we saw our comprehensive plan presentation tonight. Um, and before I came, I looked at the comprehensive plan that's in place right now, which spans from 2023 through the end of this school year. The priorities there included a clear focus on overall growth in ELA across our elementary and middle school grades, setting a downward spiral. An overarching goal was that by 2026, and I'm quoting 77% of grades of students in grade three through 8 taking the ELA, ELA PSSA will score on the proficient level or higher. This will be an

113overall increase of 20%. Now, we know that that is attainable because that was the level at that our kids were at in the 2010s, but we know we didn't attain that. Um, so I looked at the publicly available PSSA ELA scores by grade from 2015 to 2025 on the PTE website and you, as you would expect, there was a significant drop of 20 to 25 points after 2020, the COVID year. But what I saw of greater concern was that, and we heard this, our district hasn't been bouncing back in the way that we'd been hoping. There hasn't been consistent or significant improvement since that time. And I I put together some graphs to illustrate my point that I'm going to email to you guys later. But I've also done some spot checking, just spot checking,

114I'll say. You can dig a little deeper on your own that indicates that some of the districts around us have bounced back. So, what are we doing? So, um, so what I'm hoping to see is that administration asks for what we need. And tonight, we heard that. We heard we're asking for extra positions. We expect to ask for more next year and more the year after that. And I hope to see the board see this as an urgent problem that we don't want to become a crisis and to support those recommendations and I don't want to see anything get in the way of that. So I see it as an urgent all hands-on deck situation that should be occupying a lot of your discussion time. And then when we're when we're satisfied that we have

115a plan and that we can afford it over the years, then let's talk about ways that we can further enhance the education of our kids beyond teaching them to read and do math. Um, so I want to also make sure that you recognize and Mr. Lens gave a great financial presentation that the way the budget looks this year looks somewhat favorable but part of that is because for the past several years expenditures have been overestimated and um income has been underestimated artificially. So this transition into being more realistic and more responsible is making this year look easier. but make sure you know what next year and the next year are going to look like as you're planning this out. So, I just wanted to express this concern and see our kids improve to where they've

116been in the past, where we know they can be and make sure that we're giving the resources, not just materials, but humans to make sure this happens. So, I really thank you for listening to me tonight. At this time, we're looking for the approval of the February 3rd, 2026 legislative meeting minutes as presented. >> I approve the minutes. >> That was That's a motion. Who's going to second that? Okay, let's all jump in. Miss Katz, >> yes. >> Miss Nyman, >> no. >> Mr. Brad, upgrad. >> Yes. >> Dr. Weir, >> yes. >> Dr. Wy, >> yes. >> Mr. Broofphy, >> yes. >> Miss Connor, >> yes. >> Mr. Penelloo, >> Yes. Eyes have it. >> Under superintendent's itemized agenda, we have two items. One of which is we just discussed a few minutes ago

117was the uh suburban water technology um operator agreement and um the administration is recommending approval of the suburban water technology water system agreement for Gilbertsville Elementary School as uh presented. >> Panora moves. >> We are seconds. >> Miss Kutz, >> yes. Miss Diamond, >> yes. >> Mr. Brad, up to Groof, >> yes. >> Mr. Roger Upgroo, >> yes. >> Dr. Weir, >> yes. >> Dr. Wy, >> yes. >> Mr. Broofphy, >> yes. >> Miss Carter, >> yes. >> Mr. Penello, >> yes. >> Eyes have it. >> Under item B, personnel administration does recommend the approval of the personnel agenda as listed. >> Panella moves. >> I'll second. Um questioning again why we have a resignation uh the supervisor of curriculum after 12 and a half years. >> Need to go in exact. >> We're not

118going into it exact. You could have asked this question prior. You've we've had this since when? Friday. Excuse me. I have to raise you now. >> You do and you could have asked that question three days ago. >> We've been here since 5:00. We're not going to executive session. I object to that. >> Okay. >> I'll call the rule. Miss Katz. >> Yes. >> Miss Nimman. >> I'm going to abstain because I don't have the information. >> Mr. >> Thanks to Mr. Perell, the president. >> Yes. Mr. Roger Upgroo. Yes, >> Dr. Weir. >> Yes, >> Dr. Wy. >> Yes, >> Mr. Broofphy. >> Yes, >> Miss Connor. >> Yes, >> Mr. Penello. >> Yes, >> Eyes have it. >> Old business. >> Sorry there. Yeah. Item A, old business. There is none. Thank you.

119>> There's no one signed up for comment period number two. So, it's board comment. >> It's very disheartening when a board president won't give out information. Doesn't matter when we got the information. I'm I'm a board member. I'm supposed to be have the information. Very disheartening. Nothing at this time. Thank you. >> I would just like to reiterate my concern uh about the data that we are seeing about the um lack of proficiencies that we're experiencing in our young learners. Nothing. >> Um, I just want to bring it up. I asked a question a while ago about how many teachers we have retiring this year and it's like 16 teachers are retiring this year and they're all teachers that have been here for a while. But um the fact that we got to replace them

12016 teachers that already put in their retirement papers. So I think everybody ought to take that consideration when we're talking about doing other stuff that we're going to need 16 very good teachers. >> Thank you. >> I have nothing further to add. So, uh, upcoming meeting dates. Um, our next, uh, policy committee meeting will be meeting on February 24th at 6:00 p.m. here at the education center, followed by our legislative meeting at 700 p.m. >> Motion to adjourn. >> We second.