Boyertown Area School Board Committee of the Whole Meeting: 6-10-25

001[Music] I'd like to call the meeting to order. Roll call. Mrs. Kratz here. Miss Nyman here. Mrs. Scott. Mr. Mr. Brad Upgove here. Mr. Roger Upgrove here. Mr. Zawatada here. Mr. Brophy here. Miss Dro present. Mr. Panerella here. If we could all rise for a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. 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. The board of school directors held an executive session prior to the June 10th, 2025 meeting. The topic was informational. The session lasted approximately 60 minutes. Good evening everyone. My name is Dr. Scott Davidiser, superintendent. I'd like to welcome all of our inerson guests here this evening and all those watching uh virtually as well. Welcome

002to our committee of the whole meeting for June the 10th, 2025. We're going to begin under the discussion and information section. We have uh some end ofear programs that we really do want to share with you. Um we have uh two different topics. One is a fishing rodeo that was held um toward the end of the uh school year. And I believe we have Mr. Hal here from Bertown Area Senior High School, one of the assistant principles who also helps lead this initiative. And I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Hal to share with you some special moments. Thank you. Uh we've had the opportunity to hold the special needs fishing rodeo for the fourth year, I believe, uh since I've been here at BAS. Uh this started I believe in 2022. Uh so

003kind of in conjunction with the Boytown Rod and Gun Club, Lester Luff who runs the kind of the fishing part of the organization along with at the time Stacy Terry uh and Mrs. Torscher really kind of pushed to get this started. Uh and since then it's kind of taken off. Uh Stacy Morton is the Boyertown representative that helps run this program. But I thanks to Dr. David Heiser, Mr. Stout, I know Mrs. Bartman, uh Mr. Sparks who support this. It is it's a pretty big initiative. We have over 20 students that were able to participate this year along with over 30 members of the rod and gun club. Uh so this was a really nice event and just have some brief pictures here of the event itself. Uh so it took place on May 23rd

004and some of our kids here in action. It was a little chillier this year. Last year was really nice weather but all it rained a lot before. So we were fortunate when it actually took place that it was it was actually dry for the most part around the the pond. So, it's a really good opportunity for our life skills students and our autistic support program students to get out and uh you know get a chance to fish and have a good time with the rod and gun club members. There's a lot of laughs. My favorite pictures towards the end. I think that's that was my favorite one there. Um, but the the event, the rotten gun club goes above and beyond for this event. I mean, they stock the pond. Uh, they feed the students,

005they provide them lunch, they provide them t-shirts. Like I said, at least 30 members, and those are just the ones that are present there on that day to help support this event for us. Uh, and it's something that they do uh basically out of kindness of them. So, uh, moving forward in the future, what we'd like to do is look for, uh, we actually have a new class next year at the high school called the sports inclusive leadership class. So, one of our goals initiatives is maybe incorporate some of the students in this class to go along with supporting this to have some more students given the opportunity to participate. Uh, and again, a big thank you. Uh, sorry, this is the logo and the t-shirt they had this year. And then just there were

006a lot of people that helped support this. Uh, so I just wanted to make sure they were, you know, recognized on there. Obviously, Lester and the Roden Gun Club and all their members. I know Scott Grove and Gibblesville Athletic Association put a lot of, you know, resource to help support the event along with the other donors. I did want to while here take a quick moment. Uh if you notice the last one there, it says Dave Ritter and family. Um I I briefly knew Dave, he was a longtime member of the rotten gun club and he recently passed away and I I was able to talk to his wife Elanor and his son Bruce at the event and I wanted to note uh in his instead of lie of flowers, donations could be made to

007the special needs border town fishing rodeo. And I just thought that was a really neat gesture to help support our students and kind of goes to the character of Dave and his family. So Thank you, Mr. Hal. And I know Mrs. Nyman, I know as a board member, you've been a a big proponent and sponsor of this for a number of years since this got off the ground. Any comments? Yes. Uh, in fact, I was the one who after Mr. Panda came to me and uh, our past superintendent would not do it, went to Mary Beth and said, "Mary Beth." And she was tickled pink. So, we got it on board, which was excellent. I so I think it's been like four years we've been doing it. They do an excellent job. All their men

008are certified for everything. I think they have their background checks. I think everything. So, it's a great organization. What I would like to see is starting to bring some of our elementary kids over also. I mean, afford them the opportunity, especially if they've been doing good. Gives them something to work for. If you tell them, hey, end of the school year, you do good. you know, we can take you on this fishing rodeo. And I know those guys up there, they clean the fish. They get them all ready to take home for the kids. I think they one year they even gave him fishing rods. I don't know if they're still doing that. I mean, it's awesome what these guys do. So, big thank you to all of them. Thank you, Mr. Hal. just a

009second um end of year program that we wanted to obviously on Friday we we hosted the largest celebration of the year and that was our graduation ceremony. So we had 490 graduates of the class of 2025 had a wonderful ceremony um and um recognizing their their graduation. So I've asked Mr. uh stout to share with um with with you as a board. Uh just some pictures. One of the traditions that has has taken off here in Bertown as well as other school districts has been graduation walks in which our graduates come back to the buildings. They're sending buildings to which they once were as elementary students and middle school and take have an opportunity to do a walk around for those teachers and for those students in those buildings to to really look at and

010and and celebrate them as graduates of those particular buildings. So, we do have some um uh some pictures and a video of a unique change to one of the grad walks. Well, multiple elementaryaries that um you know, we wanted to share with you if you haven't seen this already out there on social media. Thank you, Dr. David Heiser. Um if you have the opportunity to see the Let's Talk Tuesday, there are a lot of awesome pictures that are representative of our graduation, I'll call it week because there are so many great events that happen. Um I'm going to ask uh Kyle to just scroll down a little bit. Some of these pictures are from our graduation walks from our building. That's Boyertown L. Um this does happen in um all six of our elementary schools

011as well as our two middle schools. Uh see some individual pictures here. Truly the enthusiasm that happens in each of the buildings for uh not only the uh seniors to come back but for our our current elementary school and you can stop right there, Kyle. um our current elementary school students to see the graduates and see that Carolina prestigious uh event that's going to take place. Uh for them to actually have the ability to to see that whole process is really cool. And um the enthusiasm is just is truly a positive intensity. And on top of all of it, the teachers that uh truly have had the students that have been, I'll say, around long enough that when the students were in elementary school, they get to see them and they say, "I know that

012face. I know that face. That's Mike Stout. He was there so many years ago." So, there are a lot of really cool moments that happen for um our our our students and staff. It's been around for many years. It's been a tradition. Um I I I thank the the process when we missed it um last year um just because of the way the school year ended. Uh we were able to resurrect it in a unique way. Uh maybe wasn't quite the same, but um when you when a tradition needs to happen because uh you realize when it doesn't, then you know you've really got something in place. So one of the things that Dr. David Heiser was sharing was a a twist this year. And of course, as you you do events, you you try

013to make them uh more efficient and uh you know, maybe make a little uh a fun event out of that. So, Kyle, if you can click on the the new handover tab at the top there at the very top. There you go. And then just make it full screen. Um don't press play yet. So, uh th this is a really cool visual to see. It's a minute and 37 seconds. It doesn't have any uh audio with it. It's just the visual representation. So, I'm not sure exactly where the idea got generated, but numerous elementary schools uh took this into play this year. So, it is really taking our elementary school students and uh one time only morphing them into seniors. So, uh go ahead and click play. Oh, it does have audio. Sorry about that.

014[Music] Your little hands wrapped around my finger and it's so quiet in the world tonight. Your little eyelids flutter cuz you're dreaming. So I tuck you in. Turn on your favorite nightlight. To you everything's funny. You got nothing to regret. I'd give all I have. Honey, if you could stay like that. Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up. Don't you ever grow up. Just stay this little. Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up. Don't you ever grow up. You can stay this simple. I won't let nobody hurt you. Only no one break your heart. And no one will desert you. Just try to never grow up. Never grow up. [Music] So again, one representation, numerous elementary schools did that this year. Uh it was kind of a a unique spin on our graduation walk. So

015uh we want to keep the tradition alive and and it it seems to be very enthusiastic and and something people look forward to. So Thank you, Mr. Stout. Appreciate that. It was a great way to close out the school year and congratulations again to our class of 2025 graduates. So that takes us down to item B. Um that is New Hannover again. New Hannver roofing project and uh proposal. This is something that you heard about back when we uh shared in March the capital planning uh aspects and on that capital planning um um timeline was the new Hannover uh roof project. We do have representatives from TMCO here this evening and we're going to ask them to come to the podium to share information in regards to this project at New Hannover. Good evening. Thanks

016for having us. My name is Randy Fleing with TMCO and I have our intern Evan Heb here, finance major here to experience this evening. Turn the mic on. Oh, is it not on? Let's push it down. We good now? That'll help. Sorry about that. Did you hear me? Yes. Okay. So, I've worked with the district. We and our team has worked the district for many years. Just a little references really surround you. All the districts work with 300 other 500 districts. It's roof asset management we've had in place with the district trying to push out all those replacements as long as we possibly can and use restoration and repairs to lower your overall cost of roofing. We've been watching New Hannah for quite some time. I was involved in a project there about probably about

01715 years ago. We did a replacement on a section. It's under warranty until 2035. The bulk of it is the foam roof, the sprayed urethane foam roof. And we've been tracking and chasing leaks. It's currently leaking right now. we're trying to hang on to to the project. You'll see a scan that was done in 2022. We've done several scans on the roof. The most recent one was 2022 and all of the red marks that you can see there are wet marks that are in the system. Uh they're all marked up on the roof. We're going to scan it again before it starts and all wet will be removed. So it sort of looks like the moon. You see the photograph, the largest photo. It's got bubbles and blisters, moisture trapped into it. So the scope

018of the work would be to take off scarify the top two inches and it'll be gone. We've done this now at Washington Earl and Gilbert'sville successfully, but they'll scarify the entire top of it. Then they'll reoam two inches of new foam. They'll prime it and then we'll put down a tan. We've using a tan coating, a silicone coating, and we've embedding with silicone sand or sand throughout the entire surface for fire ratings and slip resistance. And it's worked. It's been very very successful. Uh this project all also involves masonry work through wall flashings that are not performing and we're going to be raising some of the foam to get the water to the drains. We're going to do drain work as well. Um it's a large project. It's going to take quite some time to

019complete it and I'll go over the timelines here in a minute, but it is time. It is due. We do not want to lose this roof to replacement. It be complete tear off down through the foam through the old builtup roof. So it is it is at the end of life. This shows you what it will look like. So there on the left is the foam roof that'll all be scarified like I said and to the right is what you currently have at Washington Gilbert'sville and Earl old foam roofs that were in the district for many years. Any questions on that? So depthwise when you're when you're doing your check uh you're saying two inches down is far enough to get all the wet material out from underneath. Well, we're scarifying where it's dry. Where

020it's wet, we go the whole way down. Yeah. and we'll be up there with moisture probes and we're we're going to do another nuclear. The one that you can see here, it was spread out pretty well, but we know that's grown. So, we'll have somebody up there watching it with moisture probes and so forth. So, you will go down. We'll go we'll go the whole way down until it's completely dry. Okay. But as a basis, the the first two inches is coming off. Okay. Thank you. Good question. Yep. As far Oh, another question. Oh, sure. Yes. How long would that be guaranteed for then? This is a 15-year guarantee. 15 15 years. And at the end, what'll happen is you'll just code it. So, you can see from the photographs, you're gonna have 15 years.

021Maybe 15, 17 years, you'll watch it and then you'd scan it again and you do that same process. Only you won't you don't need to scarify it. It'll look like it does to the right only the coating will be wearing off. So, the cost will be much less that second time around. And it's not 15 years on the button. It could be like I said 17 20 just have to monitor it. We get if we just replace the whole thing now. That area that you're talking about. Yeah. If you if you replaced all the wet and that'll all be refilled in maybe if we just replace the whole thing instead of repairing. Oh, that could be a 20-year warranty. 25 year warranty. Is that what that would be? Yes. Probably be about two to three

022times the cost. You have an old builtup roof underneath of it. So, it would be a nasty tear off down to that deck. The cost of this project as um they have recommended is about 1.74 million. So the full tear off would be two to three times that. It's a large area. Any other questions on the scope? So the timing of it we're here tonight presenting and if it's approved on the 24th, we're going to need to move quickly. It is disruptive. It's noisy. Um, so we know that we have to be finished with the scarification, the wet removal and want to get that foam back on top. If you've seen it, they're in they're in white, you know, they got masks on, respirators, so it's a little scary looking. That's just to protect the

023people spraying it. We can't do that when the students are here. So, we've been talking to JJD. They're the local contractor to be doing the work. They're going to they're planning on bringing a a a big crew in here. They've got to get the disruptive work done before the students are back. uh when they're back then we do non-disruptive work. It will be the coating and you know distribution of the sand. Did you say uh JJD local contractor and they did do they have done all of the work. We have looked there aren't that many foam applicators out there anymore. Uh you're one of the few districts that still has foam in the district and I will say that we were concerned that we would not be able to restore them. We would be replacing

024all of them. Uh we did Washington. it it worked extremely well and we've continued with with your other buildings. But uh we it is temperature restrictive. So the plan is to get as far as we can into probably the end of October and then it's you know 40 degrees and rising. You know all bets are off when we hit the end of October. So we would shut it down if need be and then pick it up in the in the spring. But the plan is to complete it this year before the end of the calendar year or really the end of October. What is the total time you're looking at start to finish? It's they're going to try and double crew it. So that it depends probably a three to four. It's a fourmonth project

025really. Okay. That's weather dependent also. That's weather dependent. So if it's windy they can't spray. If it's raining, if it's so much humidity, it's really restrictive when you can spray that new top coat back on. Okay. So you're only planning right now one shift only, correct? Yeah. The right now they may scare. They've been pretty aggressive in the past working weekends. uh they've really gone at it hard. They know they have a timeline, so they'll put a lot of men at this and and and hit it hard. So So they are open to working extra extra hours to try and meet a a time schedule. Yes. That meets the school's needs. Correct. And and then we would plan to be weekly meetings. So we'll be having weekly meetings. We have somebody on site. So if

026we find that we're going to be up against it with rain, if we end up with a month we just had, we don't want to scarify and get stuck and not be able to foam it. So, we'll be watching that and that'll be a weekly uh you know, part of the weekly progress meeting. Okay. We don't have any activities at New Hover over the summer. Nothing's in that building. I don't believe so. I don't believe so. I think we're clean. Yeah. And we'll have somebody there. You going to make sure it's coned off, but you don't really don't want many people in that building when that destruction is going on. Any other questions? Thank you for your time. Have a good evening. I would just like to add that when we're working with TMCO, as

027the district has had for many years, um we do rely on them a lot for the um following school code, they do a tremendous job at following prevailing wage pro um protecting us from any bid requirements, any of those things. So, beyond just looking at a roof, helping us with that plan, they are following school code completely, and we don't always see that with contractors that we deal with. So, that's one of the true benefits of having this long-term relationship with TMCO. And that's on the chart already be expended. Which account is that taken out of or has already been capital reserve has it already been taken out? It would not be taken out until it's spent. That's in the assigned assigned capital already. Any other rooms on there? Thank you. Good. Thank you for

028your time. Did we put this out for bid at all? We um followed state cont a competitive state contract. So we did not have to go out to the public bid. We used an alternative means. Thank you. That takes us to item C. Um this is a donation for Gilbert Elementary School kindergarten playground and its renovation. And um we have Mrs. Petri here, a current principal, not for too much longer, at Gilbert'sville, moving into the director of OTL. And I believe we have some representatives from the PTA from Gilbertville. So I have my um home and school um president Steph Ber and my um our vice president as well. And I have Steve um Compo from um the company that's going to be um doing the work. if you have any specific questions around the

029the products that he can answer them more specifically. So, this project is for our current um kindergarten playground. So, if you look at the images, you can see it's been out of commission um pretty much for this whole school year. The slide at the bottom is broken, which is not safe. Um and there's some other areas. The decking is worn off and rusty and unsafe for children to run and play on. So that current structure has a lot of limited play availability. Um so I reach I reached out to our home and school association and you know just seeing the presentations already tonight um thinking about our support from our community. Um our home and school association has been a tremendous support to our students um to really make sure that they have safe opportunities

030a lot of um incredible things. So they do a lot of hard work to raise money um and that money goes directly to the students. So um I approached them about taking a look at some options. Um we did look at um replacing the slide and decking. The company that we had worked with for this initial um product. Um the cost to do that was not far off of completely replacing. So we talked about what's the longevity, what's the plan. Um and we reached out to Steve and he shared um a lot of really great things. So, we looked at the play space um with the focus of it being a kindergarten play space and we're able to add two pieces to our um area to increase the opportunities for play. So, this design is

031for younger students. So, again, it's focusing on our kindergarten play area. Um there's a lot of imaginative opportunities, things for them to touch, move, um hide in the tunnel and a little house. Um to just do a lot of different type of imaginative play. Um we still have another structure at Gilbert'sville that has a slide and some climbing things on it. So this would be adding two different types of opportunities for the students on our playground. Um the play capacity is 22 students between those two items which which is about a a kindergarten class size in addition to the extra space that students would be able to to play on. So when we looked at the cost analysis and and the process um the plan at this time is to have the removal of the

032existing structure done by um our maintenance um department. the purchase of the and installation of the new equipment is $38,000 and that donation is being completely funded by our home and school association. Um, and the one of the pieces and if you have questions about I'll let I'll let Steve answer more specifically that really led us to this decision was their warranty. So, they have a protection plan for a 20-year full warranty. So part of my recommendation to the next leadership at Gilbert'sville is regular playground checks um to make sure that there isn't a little crack somewhere or something, you know, going on with the play equipment out of normal wear and tear of playground equipment. But under that warranty, it would be that piece would be able to be replaced and then that warranty

033for that piece if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, Steve, is then starts over again. So, let's say we had to replace something on that equipment, that 20 years would then apply to that new item that got adjusted if there was normal wear and tear on the product. Um, so as a group, we really felt like it was um the right direction to go in order to expand the opportunities for our kindergarten students in their their play time. Is there any questions about the Yep. Okay. You said this is for the kindergarten, correct? I guess my fear is, can anybody else get into there and be using it that could damage it for Gilbert'sville? Yes, that's a great question. Um, during the school day, kindergarten students are the only ones that use that play facility. Uh,

034one of the challenging pieces about any of our schools is that after school hours, other community members may come across the playground and play on it. So, is that an opportunity for that? Yes. Um, we do have part of our camera security does show that side. So, if we did have damage, we would be able to hopefully identify where someone came from and be able to figure that out if we needed to to do that. But it is a fenced in. It is not fenced in. No. So, this if you picture at Gilbert'sville, we have the access road. So, the playground is right outside of the kindergarten classrooms along that access road. Um I I would say um typically because of the baseball field there has been times where I've seen just on looking at

035camera footage that there are students that um play on that that space. Um the other thing if I go back to the images of it. Um, part of the other reason that we went with this these pieces were that even just the height of it for safety reasons, it's not quite as attracting to older students that might want to play, climb, jump on things, or not be using it appropriately. It really is targeted for younger students. Um, and we felt that that would be, you know, help keep that space safe and and less attractive to older students that might misuse that equipment. Yeah, we just know how older ones like to abuse things. But thank you for willing to put up that kind of money. That's not y small change. It's significant. So, thank you.

036And that's a lot of hard work on our parents' behalf and it's um greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. That means I can't go play on them. You can go watch. The joy of watching children play is amazing, too. Even the big kids. Yeah. You you you said one thing about hiding. I heard the word hiding. Yeah. Um, could you give me a little more information on what that means inside the Yeah. So, if you look at the Yeah, I'm looking at that. That means somebody could hide in there and you couldn't see them. Oh, no, no, no. Like, if I'm asking That's a great question. The structure isn't a long like you would be if you looked on one end to the other, you'd be able to see, but if students were playing like

037hideand seek or something, they could hide in there for like a game. Yeah. Yep. Yes. No, we would we would know where children are. Yes. Yes. You were following my question. Yep. Got it. Yep. Yes. If you guys still if you guys still do your basket raffle, please include me when you start that up. I love going to those. Yes, that has been a I'm a donator. I'm not a winner usually. I'm usually a donator. It is a tremendous fundraiser and that is a huge undertaking from our our parents for sure. Please, if you do want again, please reach out. Yeah. Any other questions? Right. Yep. Oh, Roger. What are you going to do with the existing stuff? Is it so that it's my understanding that it would be go to scrap. So, um when

038I spoke with Mr. Sheil about that in the the spring, the understanding is that it would be given to to scrap to be whatever we could get from that structure. So, that's one of the things we're going to need to assess. um you know there was an option to um include in the uh new structure the removal of that um I think that was evaluated by the facilities department and and thought that they could handle that themselves. So that's going to be our next step. Um we wanted to make sure that you were okay. You have accepted the donation already. uh you've so you've approved the acceptance of that $38,000 and we wanted to make sure that um this equipment could be shared with you. The next step now will be for us to get

039with the facilities department to work out a an evaluation to see whether they can truly handle that and dismantle that safely and move it off, which sounds like to be to go to scrap or if that needs to be something that we need to bring somebody else in um in order to to handle and manage and so forth. Mr. I think at the time when this was was being talked about a a few months ago felt like facilities could handle that. So um you know I'm I'm pretty confident that is and it's just a matter of where do we work that into the schedule. Some of that's going to be timing on when the equipment is going to be able to arrive. Um and maybe you want to give a little indication to the board

040when that could happen because we'll work backwards from that. Correct. on the dismantling because if we have to start the school year and the um you know with with that still in play then then we're gonna have to work around that a little. Steve, can you answer the the lead time? Can you step? So currently our lead times beginning of the year our lead times are about five weeks. So we're pretty much a industry leading as far as that goes. But as we all know, every school district wants their playgrounds done from July 1 to end of August or school starts. So we're currently about 10 weeks out right now, but we expect that to start dropping somewhat rapidly. So maybe it might be eight weeks by the time we place the order in the

041next week or so. And then once we have a ship date from the manufacturer in Wisconsin, they'll tell us when it'll uh be ready to pick up. and it's a two-day uh ship to uh locally and then we will schedule our crews to install uh once it arrives and we'll have to coordinate that with u facilities to make sure that the um the area is clear for us to do the installation. So, we'll have a we'll have some time. Okay, good. That'll give us time to work out a plan with dismantling the current. Mr. um how do you how do you plan on fastening that on the ground? Is it footers or you just is it something that questions? Yes. Uh they are footers. Uh so every piece of equipment will have footers uh dug

042as we have or we will be doing over at uh Boyertown Elementary School this summer as well. So uh we will move the existing mulch to get to subgrade and then we'll install footers, build that uh base up and then uh put the mulch back. And then Scott said he would top coat it, whatever was needed. Uh to um her point, the fall height is about five feet max. So it just needs five inches total of uh engineered wood fiber. Thank you. Any other questions? So the area that you're taking the other playground equipment from that's faulty, what's going to be there? This new stuff is going to go in its place. Oh, I thought you were moving. Okay. I'm trying to visualize. Yeah. So, so we we evaluated the space and given the use

043zone of the equipment that's going to stay, we knew how much additional space we had to work with. So, that's why we picked out these two structures financially, but also to fit safely in the play area. So, we were um according to specifications and certifications. So, there is I'm going to stay. Yeah. Okay. I'm just getting confused. Sorry. Yeah, I can um just clip. So, we we currently have um two structures and I don't I apologize. I don't have a picture of Can I scroll up just a little bit, Mr. Yeah. So, this is this is one of the structures and if we were facing it as you're looking at it to to my left is another structure that's not being um taken down. So, there is another opportunity for play that's um like a

044climbing. No, that's still kindergarten. It's all just a kindergarten space. So, our upper playground or our older um one to five playground equipment is down on our lower side. So, if you think about our loading dock area at Gilbert'sville, there's the there's two larger um spaces for the upper grades to play on. So, they don't play in the same space to give kindergarten kind of their own their own area. Okay. That which one's near the butterfly? There isn't that there anymore. Uh that that butter that nature trail is there, but it's very nature filled right now. Um that is that is the upper grade playground. Yep. That's down along kind of like the swampy area of the fence. Let me ask Mr. Stat was looking for something to do this summer. It's a very natural

045environment down there right now. Good. Well, thank you, Mrs. Petri, and I thank you Gilbertsville HSA for your your wonderful donation. Thank you. Thank you. So that takes us down to item D. Um, and this is the uh middle school east musical anything goes recommendation uh proposed budget. Uh, Mr. Mayori is here this evening. And as you're well aware, our uh, middle schools rotate uh, every other year and hosting the musical. Middle School East um is up this year and we have a balanced budget being proposed as well as the anything goes uh youth edition as such. If there's any questions, Mr. Mayori be can answer. You're going to ask me to sing a number from Yeah. Yeah. Are you gonna dance too? I think we'll move to item E. All right, item E, the

0462526 food service uh fund budget presentation. So, I'm going to invite to uh the podium our director of food services, Mr. Cheryl Clinton, just to give a brief overview of the budget for the 202526 and some aspects of our food service program. This is already good evening. I'm here to present the 2526 food service budget. Um part of the agenda tonight, I'm just going to share a food service overview, a brief explanation of what the school breakfast program and national school lunch program are, uh our student enrollment and personnel numbers, the number of meals that we have served this year and then u move on to the 2526 budget propo proposal to include revenues, expenditures and recommended next steps. Okay. So, for our overview, uh the National School Lunch Breakf School Program, lunch program and

047school breakfast program, uh they're federally assisted programs that operate in public and nonprivate residential care institutions. Um both programs are administrated at the federal level by the USDA division of food and nutrition and at the state level they are administrated by the um local education agencies. Um so we have an annual agreement with PTE to operate um as local school food authority. Um who can participate? Any child at a participating school is entitled to purchase and be served a meal through the school breakfast program and national school lunch program. The nutritional requirements for the school breakfast program and national school lunch program uh must meet applicable recommendations of the dietary guidelines for Americans and they're designed to ensure that students are wellnourished and ready to learn when they're in school. The meal pattern for school

048meals includes fruits, vegetables, whole grain rich foods, meat, meat alternatives, and milk. The meals that we serve are also uh limited and restricted in sodium, calories, saturated fats, and trans fats. And additionally um coming up in the 2526 school year, there are going to be additional limitations for added sugars in foods. Uh how does the USDA uh division of food nutrition and PTE assist schools participating? Um, schools are supported by um receiving a cash reimbursement for each breakfast and lunch meal that's served in compliance with the established meal patterns and other uh required guidelines. A quick overview of enrollment. Uh this enrollment number is um slightly different from uh the enrollment numbers presented as part of the regular budget. Um these students um do not include our dyen enrolled students or homeschooled in student homeschooled

049students and they it does not also include our students that are placed outside of a school within our district. Um so you'll see our elementary student enrollment secondary and we do have three prek count classrooms uh two at the Washington elementary and one at the senior high school. Our total employees at this time um is 66. Um and you'll see the breakdown of administrators, one full-time support staff. We have uh nine managers, so they're the nine the 10-month support staff. And we have about approximately 55 part-time support staff. And we do have a contract with Kelly Services for approximately five cafeteria substitutes. um and moving to bring in some uh substitutes back under the school district umbrella. Um this is just a total of our meals served and this was as of May 31st. Um

050to finish out the year, I do have um just through uh June 6. I do have updated numbers for that just to give you um our totals for the year. Our breakfast meals uh total served was 221,284 breakfast meals across all nine buildings and lunch meals our total was 503,148. Okay. And then moving on to our proposed revenue um our local revenue um is comprised of those um categories on the right. student meal sales, student allocart sales, adult sales, catering sales, and interest. The second two numbers represent the um funds that we receive from the federal state and federal government for our claim reimbursements for the meals that we serve. The local revenue includes a 5-cent increase in lunch prices at all levels for the upcoming school year. Okay. And then uh proposed expenditures. Um

051that's just category of employee costs, salaries, benefits, food supplies, our operating expense, equipment, repairs and maintenance, um our tech and software license fees, contracted services, professional development, which includes annual training that's required by the school district, as well as ongoing um reertifications for our managers uh for ServeSafe and miscellaneous. Um, as part of the salaries proposal, uh, that does include the $1 an hour increase for our support staff. And you'll see on the chart that the majority of our expenses go to uh, salaries and then food costs and then um employee benefits. And just a breakdown of our uh food service budget. The fund balance um as of the numbers are there as of uh June 2024. Um non-spendables include a supply chain um allocation that was received by the district uh from the um

052state and federal government and that um some of that is what is being paid down over this rest of this year. and then meal account balances that uh remain with the students from one year to the next. Um and then just looking down further what the projected fund balance will be as of June 30th this year and our non-spendable committed and assigned um expenses moving forward. Okay. and the next steps um here this evening to um make the presentation for the budget and then on June 24th um move to adopt for the 2526 school year. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Clinton. As Mr. Han refers to it often, Cheryl runs nine restaurants here within the district on a daily basis, serving, uh, multiple meals every single day. So, um, well

053done, Cheryl. Thank you. So, that will be placed on the agenda for your consideration in two weeks. So, um, our item F, 11th grade government and economics online textbooks presentation. With us this evening is our secondary uh curriculum supervisor, Mrs. Town, and she's here to share with you um uh some recommendations of some open-source textbooks um and um adding to our government and economics classes. So, take it away, MS. All right. Good evening. Uh tonight we'd like to recommend the adoption of two new online resources for the 11th grade government and econ classes um for approval at the June 24th meeting. Uh so the kind of the reason why um we're looking at this new resource as you know uh the state of Pennsylvania has adopted new um personal finance standards and at the same

054time they also updated standards for economics uh standards for FCS and those related areas. So with the new standards coming from the state and the need for additional horizontal alignment in the government econ class, we're looking to implement this new resource, these new online textbooks to really create that consistency um and also to meet the new uh economic standards. The implementation of those standards would be the 26 27 school year. So with your approval, uh the teachers will begin really that alignment work. They've done some initial alignment work, but they will really dive into that over the next school year um to ensure that it's a resource that's meeting the standards and the expectations for um that course. Uh the the really wonderful thing about the the resource that they found that was aligned um

055is that it's an open educational resource. This means that it is freely available to our teachers and to our students. Um, and it's a it's a high quality resource. Um, this comes out of Rice University. Uh, it's a nonprofit initiative. So, it's a it's a resource that is high quality, it's up-to-date, it's relevant, and it's aligned to the standards. So the two resources that are that we are recommending uh is American government the third edition and principles of economic also the third edition. Uh you have access to that link and I believe you've had access to the link over the last several weeks. Um and our teachers our team of teachers at the high school who teach this course have really done the initial look at alignment and um the expectations that um will be

056supported with these textbooks. Uh so we do believe that this is uh again a resource that will create consistency for our students. Um it will support differentiation in the classroom and will support that alignment to our state standards. So yes, did we check with any other schools if they're already using this and what they think of the program? So the um government textbook is one on the recommended list for college board. Uh so it is recommended by a a uh really renowned source. Yes. First of all, thanks thanks for the information. Thanks for the presentation. I I you know I appreciate it. I guess when I'm thinking of process and thinking how we're trying to move to a more committee based system, how come this didn't come through the curriculum committee before it came to

057here? because we're establishing those committees starting in August and we wanted to make sure that we could bring this through to you in a timely fashion so as to bring this into uh the teachers fold prior to the start of next year. So does that mean the present curriculum committee doesn't exist? Well, the curriculum committee does not necessarily exist in any fashion nor has it this year. Okay. It's so what I'm looking at is in the future to follow the committee system something like this would come through the curriculum kit committee 100%. Okay. So the administration would meet with curriculum committee get a presentation together. Not not this is fine but but also to to present it to board members and say here's why we want these books. We looked at these books. Here's the

058content of these books. First of all I'm not an academic. So telling me to look at a link and examine a book is probably not a good idea. So uh and so I'd rather hear from the experts or the people that are going to be using it and here's the specifics on why I want to we why we want to use this book. This is going to do everything we need. And I also think our public would also like to see something like that that more like we're going to put something in the curriculum that we've really looked at it and we can recommend it wholeheartedly. I I can guarantee you and and tell you that our um our department members did take the opportunity to already do a lot of those alignment pieces. They

059identified gaps um and then especially with the econ book, there are chapters that are not necessary because they're not aligned to the standards. So they did before bringing this recommendation forward and then and then also I did that same check um to ensure that alignment. So I do wholeheartedly recommend it and I understand what the process that you would like moving forward and absolutely respect that. I'm not trying to intimate you didn't do that first of all. Not that's not my what I'm looking at is in order to be showing that we're doing it and out to the public that we're doing it and the board's on board with doing it. We have to do a better job. Okay. Thank you. Yes. We used to get way back in this day and age. We used

060to get a copy of the textbook as board members and that way you could I'm a touchy feeling person. I I could read all day on a computer and not know what I read. I need to have the book and they used to give us a book the company you were dealing with and we'd have it for a couple days or a week or something and give it back. I'm not looking for free. Don't they do that anymore or is that something you don't ask for or for this specific? It's an open educational resource so it's free online. Uh and so they don't really provide that like pilot opportunity or samples like they used to do. Um you can download the text which would I mean Dr. David Heiser we could do something like that.

061We are able to download the text but we'd have to print it. So, it is a downloadable text, which is another way we're able to differentiate for students who do need that paper um copy, but um you know, so that would be a resource that we would need to create on our own here. We're not buying the book, we're just buying the rights to use it. We're not buying it at all. It is free for our use. It's a nonprofit initiative. Um open educational resources have been around for many years. Um but more and more districts are starting to utilize these um because of its cost effectiveness um and and they are created and supported by experts in in the in the areas of both of the books both of the books same same um

062open educational resources I guess I have to say thank you for looking at well I'll thank the department members for you I I just like to look at my Yes. Are are those books uh certified or looked at at the Pennsylvania Education Association? Uh I don't know if it is looked through PTE, but I do know College Board has supported that. And again, you know, they College Board does all of our AP um classes. So, we know it's a it's a good resource if it's being recommended by College Board. Um and we've also done the alignment work, initial alignment work with our teachers. So, we do know it's aligned to the the Pennsylvania standards. I don't know. Um I don't know that specific, but I can look into that for you. Thank you. All right.

063Thank you. Thank you, Miss D. Okay, that takes down to item G. And this is a continuation of our discussion and thought processes when it comes to the uh proposal eventual proposal of an all day kindergarten um system here in Boyertown. So this evening, Mr. Stout's going to share and you as a board gave two months ago approval for us to continue in the investigation of all day kindergarten. One of the things we talked about at that time was the next steps. One of those steps was the possibility of an RFP for looking at uh the facility needs for an all day kindergarten program. And one of the things that came out of the committee that was established was was that um the finances and the facilities were of two of the be biggest concerns

064related to it. So this evening uh Mr. Stout's going to walk you through and have a discussion in regards to this um recommended RFP. Okay. Um thank you Dr. David Heiser. Uh just to reflect back to what Dr. David Heiser uh spoke to. It was back on April 8th. It's hard to believe it was a couple months ago that we presented, but I wanted to uh pull up the information here from the presentation. And by the way, the presentation um has been in the weekly for uh the past week. Um but we really focused on the new four S's of consideration, staffing, space, schedules, and supplies. Um as you as a school board allow the enrollment study to take place, um that's a key component to what we're looking at here. Uh the next four

065elements that were of of significant consideration were really that of space. Um schedules and supplies was another component of that. So I just kind of wanted to to reflect on what we had talked about a couple months ago. Um and also go back to our timeline that we had discussed back on uh the early parts of April. So um I don't need to read this to you all verbatim. Um but we're trying to stay as close to our timeline that we um presented to you. uh the enrollment study um really is is moving forward uh and the information will come back from that to really give us key statistics to look at our enrollment across the district across our six elementary schools and the Burks and Montgomery County sides. Um and then part of the

066uh process that we had looked at was really looking at the um putting a feasibility study in place. So um I'm going to take two seconds to do my dual roll tonight and flip to the RFP. So you have had this RFP in your weekly packet and I just want to highlight uh this is an RFP that um just follows a typical protocol that we would go through um when we're looking for a request for proposal. Um some key pieces to really focus on. I'm going to focus on letter D which is really the timeline. Uh we're looking for approval to move forward with the issuance of this RO R RFP in in June of 2025 and um following with a uh a supposed optimistic hypothetical timeline. We're looking for getting our responses back by

067the end of the summer of our RFP. I'm doing the presentation of proposals kind of like we did with our enrollment study uh a couple meetings ago uh to have that be in the October November timeline for uh the upcoming fall. and then looking at putting the uh the approval of the firm. Uh sometimes looking sometime looking at the early late part of fall, early part of winter and then looking at the completion of this enrollment study uh really to come about uh sometime in the uh early parts of spring of of 26. What does the the RFP the specific considerations that we're looking at uh what does that entail? Um, and I'm looking to section uh one, the basic services. There's a lot of information in this RFP, but just to kind of give

068you an outline. And if we look back to what we talked about in our our kindergarten all day kindergarten committee structure, uh, we'd look at stakeholder engagement. Uh, we would also be looking at our facility assessment, which I think is super critical. As we talked about, do we have the capacity within our current structure of our buildings to be able to support all day K in all six elementary schools. We'd be looking at this RFP and the study to be conducted to have our operational impact, the assessment of that, the impact of transportation, food services, scheduling, staffing and other operational aspects. The financial analysis which obviously is a critical uh big part of this process. what is the detailed financial analysis outlining the estimated costs associated with this particular process. We'd be looking at the

069RFP to be giving us the imple implementation plan development to be thinking about what is the phased implementation plan for transitioning to an all day K program including timelines, key steps, and potential challenges. We'd also be looking at um having a comprehensive report come out of this feasibility study and that would give us the written report summarizing all of these findings and and having a summation of all of the information and then finally a presentation to the district based upon the information that would be compiled by the uh the firm that would be decided by the school board to move forward with the feasibility study. So it is a very comprehensive look at um taking our enrollment information that would be coming from our enrollment study and then compiling that with a feasibility study to

070not only look at what are our trends across the district from an enrollment perspective but also looking at the feasibility for us to be taking into consideration utilizing all day K which you gave us the thumbs up to move forward um a couple months ago with the the next steps. Uh in my mind, without some of this critical information, we would be making an an uninformed decision uh based upon what we could or could not do throughout the district and uh the obvious significant financial impact that the board would commit themselves to doing in moving forward. Um so that's what we have with our RFP proposal. Any questions or discussion from the board? Was it Der? Um I'm getting confused with all these studies you're going to do that. Aren't we getting a feasibility study

071done now? Um, you're having a demographic enrollment study being done right now which looks at enrollment u projected out over the next 10 years. Right. Well, wouldn't that cover how many? Wouldn't that cover the kindergarten ones coming in? Well, that that will give us projections as to numbers. What the fees? Go ahead. That's what this would do. No, that's not what this would do. This is a study that would look at the feasibility of taking on those projected numbers and what the needs and requirements would be from a facility standpoint, from a busing standpoint, from a services standpoint. So it's really looking at do we have the capabilities of operating a full day kindergarten in the physical environment to which we currently have and if not what are the options available to us that would

072make that possible and if you look under tab two I think it is tab two scope of work and approach it's tab two written in the document And under it, it's the under number one under tab two, scope of work and approach. Under number one, the second bullet looks at facility implications. And it talks about how will you assess the current facilities and identify potential space needs, modifications or additions required required to accommodate a full day kindergarten program. Consider a multiple uh minimal of two to three options to fully utilize all district owned facilities including reorganization of grade level configurations if necessary. So it's asking them to look at the facility. It's asking them to look at the operational when it comes to food services when it comes to looking at scheduling. Um so it

073it has more than what you've just already approved for an enrollment study. Enrollment the demographic study just simply looks at numbers of students expected in the in the district throughout the next 10 years. and it breaks it out in a variety of different ways by grade level and totality etc. We already know we don't have the space. We don't even have space for prek kindergarten to be where that should be. It's at the high school. Well, it's the it's it's partnering with and that's why we are recommending to put a request for a proposal out there to have experts uh in the field that look at this to determine based on the number of buildings we have, the spaces that we currently have. Are there things there that we are not seeing or that can

074be modified in order to allow for an all day kindergarten program to take place? Thank you. So, yes. So, the important thing is that it's the options, right? So, not they're not going to just be no you can't do it or yes, you can do it. It'll be a lot more detailed. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And and that's why we've placed in there some examples in that language for consideration, modifications, space needs, additions required to accommodate full day kindergarten, um multiple options to f fully utilize all district owned facilities. Um, you know, one of the things that that is in the district and the district has partnered with Burks County on has been the Pine Forge facility in the elementary building there. That is a district-owned property. So, you know, I I assume that if you

075were to move forward with looking and partnering with an organization to do a feasibility study for the sole purpose of all day kindergarten planning, that um that building would have to be taken into consideration, if you so chose it to be um when looking at it since it is a district-owned facility and whether or not that continued partnership to to rent it as a space or to utilize it as your your own space and inclusive of that. So, those are some things that you'll need to consider and I'm assume that any organization that would bid on this type of project would would be certainly looking at all all angles and facilities available. Miss Diamond, there's not many here when we close Pine Forge. I know Mr. um Sultanic was here. Mr. Grophy came on board.

076Mrs. Derof was here, I believe, at the time. I was here at the time. You want to bring back Pine Forge and take that away from the BCIU? I don't know that I would want to be sitting in your seat. So, hold on a second. with the carrying on that we had and we couldn't use it for our students that they were going to close it and we had to downsize and now you're talking about possibly bringing that back and redoing our district. I think you better think long and hard before you do that because you're going to have a lot of people that you don't possibly want on your bad side. Well, I appreciate the the commentary with regard to that, but my job is to make recommendations as to how do we make

077continuous improvements inside of this school district. I didn't say that Pine Forge was going to be part of a plan moving forward. I would said that if an organization were to bid on a project like this, they would be taking into consideration the usage of that building and as to whether or not its needs uh would be required or as an option to you as a school board. And if you saw inside the RFP, I've asked for multiple different options. We've asked for multiple different considerations and options with regard to that. So, you know, as a board, I think, you know, we one of the big purposes is to look in totality at the magnitude and the options of certain things that are available to a school district and to make settled decisions that we

078feel move forward the district in a positive way and a in a way that improves the district. You as a board gave us the opportunity to investigate this. This is a next step in investigating that. Enrollment study was number one. Although it it's going to help beyond just simply kindergarten. It's going to help us as a district in totality. But step two in the kindergarten targeted process would be a feasibility that really focuses on how do we um how can we access the district in its best way with multiple options to present back to a board for consideration as to whether or not there's possibilities from a spacing and from an operational standpoint. So, we're in some infancy stages with regard to that and certainly understand the fact that Pine Forge was brought back by

079the IU in regards to um their their their needs and their desires and and you acting as a landlord for them as a district and renting the space to them. You still own the property. So that is some considerations that you you you may be presented to you at some point if this study were to be approved. I can tell you I've been here through that. I've been here through uh portable classrooms which did not go over very well. Um, I think we're putting money out that can be used more wisely for our education, which is where we need to bring our our money, our finances into our education and get our scores up before we try to do anything else. Well, respectfully, Mrs. Diamond, this is part of that process. Our job is to

080try to create solutions, make recommendations for continuous solution is that all day kindergarten is going to make our grades better. All day kindergarten is a step in terms of what we feel will assist our school district with again I'm going to say with bringing our students to the levels to which they we we hope them to be more time with our students in an all day kindergarten in a structured environment for us we do believe will assist our school district in the future. in everything I've been looking at and researching, once you get to third grade, everything levels off. So, there's going to be no significant Well, I think there's studies on all all on all sides of that. And and and I think for some of that is how much have you spent on

081intervention leading up to that in order to try to get students to a leveling up point that you may not have had to intervene if you were at a hosting an all day kindergarten level. So I think there's arguments all around that. Part of the job that we have in front of us is to investigate those solutions, possible solutions to some things that we have interest in. So, um that's what we're presenting tonight. This is simply for you to um look at a possible um proposal for a study of the district as it relates specifically to all day K. More next. Yes. Um I question that too. Uh Mike, a while ago I asked you about you interviewed interviewed the uh parents of the kid that have our are in our halfday program and you

082said something about like you asked them if they would be willing to put their kids in all day and I think if I'm wrong I'm wrong here but I thought you said none of them said they were. So are are is the fox chasing the tail here on this? I I don't remember specifically saying that. Uh Mr. Up the Grove, uh the the overwhelming uh majority of people that were on our initial committee to look forward with this and part of what that RFP is really looking at the stakeholder engagement, looking at, you know, the pieces and taking that into an analysis component. Um we we it wish it would have happened multiple years ago. it wasn't something that um was something they were resistant against. There there absolutely will be families that would be

083looking to continue a half-day environment. Um but it it it seems to be that that is where they you know the the community in general and our staff specifically want to move towards all day for all the reasons Dr. David Heiser made mention of. Uh you you indicated staff and not our residents. No, I said residents. We did not put out the specific community survey. That's part of what our um this RFP would be about is really, you know, looking at the whole big picture with respect to that. Um truth be told, there are there are many uh issues in the start of a school year with uh parents with an all with a half-day program trying to find um child care and what to how to support their students for the second half of

084the day. Um and we work very diligently to try to provide them some resources to be able to do that. So while the minority of our student of our uh community population would be in favor of maintaining half day K, uh the part of it that is the the extreme piece would be the majority would be um more than satisfied to have an all day K environment. One quick question. First of all, your the use of minority majority is very subjective there. It could mean anything. But aside from that, Mrs. Nyman and Mr. G bring up a very very valid bedrock point. Has anybody been Where's the outcry coming from to have all day kindergarten? Because I'll be honest, I have not heard it. I have not been questioned by anyone or approached by anyone

085to say why don't we have all day kindergarten? We're when are we going to start it? So the fox chasing the tail is one way to put it. In other is we about we about to spend money to do something that the majority or minority I don't know whichever it is that the people of the district really aren't looking for us to give them whereas we do know they're looking for us to give them better test scores especially in the upper grades which that doesn't address that in any study I've seen as a parent with kids um currently in preK actually just graduated. Congrats um Vinenzo. Um I've had plenty of parents come up to me and go, "How come we're the only school in the area that doesn't have full day kindergarten?" So there

086is an outcry. Maybe not beating up your email or people in your age group, but people in my age group and definitely younger have certainly I represent everybody. Oh, I know. Uh but that's why they're not coming to you then. Maybe maybe they're it's going to fall in death ears. I think what we're doing here with the feasibility study and with the with us wanting to move forward with the RFP, I think this is something that you need to do to find out if this is even feasible, if it is at all, and what the cost would be. And we have to go through every single thing to figure out exactly what's doable because we owe it to the stakeholders. We owe it to the stakeholders to do what they want. And what they want

087is higher scores and better education on the higher grades going up from four to eight. And that's not what we're addressing. In fact, I don't know what we're addressing based on the studies which even M Dr. David will say are all over the place. There is no solid basis to say that kind all day kindergarten is going to increase your grades. It's a it's an it's a subjective. There's nothing objective and you're now say I'm going to spend money to do something. I really don't know if it's going to work or what it's going to do. And that's exactly what we're doing here. Yeah. Has there been an outd So there is an outcry on Facebook in all of the mom's groups. Um but I what I what I would wish for is that parents

088that want full day kindergarten or have any kind of opinion would um reach out to us in a more formal method via email or coming to board meetings and speaking out. Um I think we owe it to the public to explore every and all um possibilities to look at the options and then we as a board can decide um what the best course of action is at that time. And at the same time I wish the taxpayers would speak up. Everybody should speak up. Anybody can uh on Facebook can comment. It doesn't necessarily mean it's somebody from the Boertown School District. So I hold no value to that one. Mr. Stout, I appreciate your presentation. Uh we will bring this forward for your consideration at the uh June 24th meeting. It's going to shift us

089down to item H. We still didn't get an answer where it came from, where it came from. We're on to the next. We're on to the next. No, I just here. I'll take control for all day kindergarten. We're on to the next. I have a right to ask a question. I am a board member. Yeah, we're on to the next by the public. She had asked that prior to this and I got no answer. We had Mr. Brophie asked. He got no answer. Okay. Maybe he doesn't have the answer. But we we've talked to this. We've we've talked about this in other meetings. No, we haven't. We haven't talked about all day. Mark, have we discussed and debated all day kindergarten? We don't have to debate it because we're not there yet. This is an

090RFP to see if it's even cheaper. A lot of money. You're spending money. You're there. You got to figure it out if it's doable. This is how you figure that out. We got to figure out if we need it and want it first. I want it. Well, I'm sure you do. But it also comes at a cost. We have to see. For what reasons do you want it? Well, I won't benefit from it cuz how many years out we be? Two or three years. God forbid I have another kid. I mean, it's impossible for next year. That That wasn't the original The original. It's 100% impossible for next year. Yeah, now it is. No, it's always been. Okay, use your head. Come on. Think about it. I had used my head. No, you're not. Let's

091go. Next. Could Could we keep the insults down? There's no There's no insult. Oh, sure was. All right. Brings brings us to item H. Mr. Stout, I'm just going to have you review for the board a memorandum of understanding for delivery of our virtual instruction um for 2526. the district has had anou with um baea in regards to us delivering virtual instruction throughout our secondary uh program. So if you could review this with the with the board. Thank you Dr. David Heiser. Uh I thought I would start off with um the specifics of our virtual program with our numbers. Uh in com in the compilation of our students that um and you know just to give some even further background um the virtual environment within the Berenary school district has existed for many years. Um

092and each year we try to you know tweak it to make it more efficient and effective to meet the needs of our students. uh specifically since the pandemic and the the need to provide that kind of alternative uh opportunity for our students to learn has been absolutely critical. So when we look at our our numbers that were for this particular school year and I don't have a presentation for this because I'm just going to share the information. The the true memorandum of understanding is is um was in the weekly and it's it's on the hyperlink for the uh the on board docs. But uh we supported approximately 139 total students uh this particular year in our virtual platform. Uh the breakdown for that is really approximately 121 students at the high school level, 13 students

093at the middle school level and approximately five students at the elementary school level. That did fluctuate during the course of the year depending on whether students um stayed enrolled or you know came back to brick and mortar or they had their reasons for uh whatever choice they were making with respect to virtual instruction. uh just to to talk about to the board uh what kind of savings that we have and what is the overall cost. I thought those were good numbers to share with you tonight. So uh I am very optimistically giving a low number with respect to the cost that we have for outside cyber students if they were to leave our environment. Um I targeted at $12,000 per student. Um if a student has special needs it could be upwards of 20 30

09440 $50,000. Um, so I just took all 139 students at a $12,000 cost. Uh, the total cost for that would be about almost $1.7 million is what we would uh lose to the outside cyber institutions if in fact they were no longer with us. uh the total cost um with theou that you've agreed upon for the past few years uh really um and with this year's number this year's cost based upon the numbers would be approximately $424,12. So if you look at the difference between those two numbers, you're looking at a $1.3 million savings by us running and operating our own virtual platform. And I can tell you that the $12,000 is a very conservative uh number to put out there for our virtual numbers. So when you uh look to the next board meeting

095and we put theou in place for uh the consideration to be approved um and continuing operating our uh virtual platform, this is absolutely an opportunity for us to uh have a pretty significant cost savings if we were to lose our students to an outside cyber institution. Um so the theou is there in front of you if you have any specific uh questions about that. And and by the way, to to speak to that, uh, one of the very positive things that um the majority of what we provide in our virtual environment is our own Bertown Area School District teachers teaching our our students, which is um, I think a a very positive uh, piece of of supporting our students virtually. Any questions? Miss Diamond, we would stay with the teachers that we already have doing

096our virtual learning. Uh that's a great question. Uh for the most part, for the past, you know, I'm going to say x amount of years, our virtual teachers had stay stayed pretty consistent, but every year there might be uh one or two teachers that don't want to do it anymore. Um and then we provide a little bit of training. And in theouou, there's specific criteria in there to give them a little bit of time supported um by an hourly rate, our curricular rate to to train them in what that virtual platform looks like. But for the most part, our teachers have stayed pretty consistent over the years. We're not going to use an outside firm, though. So it's going to stay with our teachers. We use an outside firm for the curricular resource. We use

097Accelerate Learning which is uh a platform that many outside cyber institutions utilize um from an instruction uh from a curriculum perspective uh because we wanted to make sure we provided an environment that really is competitive to what they would receive in an outside environment. But the big difference here is that our teachers are the teachers behind the scenes supporting the uh students in the platform. And what is the cost for that? Um, it's about $70,000 annually. Yeah. Each fiscal year. So to um Miss Dennakola's point, the $424,000 uh that is the cost for the total students. If you subtract $70,000 from that, 370 um is paying the uhou stipen that is agreed upon for our teachers and the $70,000 would be for the curricular platform that we've already included. Yes. Yeah. The total the all-in

098cost for this particular year was $424,12 based upon the curricular platform and supporting our teachers. So, I wanted to make sure I had those numbers for you approximately. I'm sure they're give or take a little bit, but that's that should be pretty close. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. D. That takes down item A or item I, the Pasttown Health and Wellness Foundation grant award acceptance. And Mr. Denola, if you can share with the board a little bit about this grant acceptance. Sure. So, the PTSON Health and Wellness Foundation grant um this has been in place for a number of years at the district. Um for the 2025-26 year, the grant award would be um for $80,000. We'd be looking for approval at the next board meeting. Um this grant

099does provide um payment for a lot of the wellness initiatives that the district does. We have wellness champions in each building as well as uh Miss Bergio works as our wellness champion districtwide. So she um runs our wellness programs, does um wellness fairs, things like that to benefit employees. Um so this grant goes directly to supporting those items. So this is for the employees. It's not for the children. Um Mr. Stout, does Miss Bergie include the children in some of the wellness programs that she She does. There are definitely um some of the supports that we provide for our students that are that are funded through this. Yes. Um the impact club at the high school um is part of what the some of the activities that they utilize to um help support students in

100those initiatives. [Music] Miss Mr. Stout, correct me if I'm wrong. This grant helps to offset u approximately 50% of her salary then. That is correct. Thank you. And that's why um she is she has the 0.5 wellness coordinator piece which is that part of her salary and the second half of that she's a health and PE teacher at the high school. Can you just briefly explain what a wellness champion is? Um they help develop and implement the programs in the individual buildings. All right, that takes us down to items and I'm kind of uh combine both J and K stopfinder and zonar since they are uniquely linked together and ask Mrs. Danakola to explain these two as uh they relate this evening. Um the zonar proposal is for new GPS units within um all the

101transportation vehicles that transport our students. Um the district last um did new GPS units back in 2019. The stopfinder agreement is an add-on to our existing um transportation routing software which is through transfinder. Uh stopfinder will replace what is called what we have used previously which is here comes the bus which was separate software. So, our routing software would talk to this other software and that's where um parents once they signed up could get information about where the bus was, did it stop, what time did it stop, all those kind of geot tracking alerts. Um through stopfinder, it will be the same database that all of our routing software is in. So, it's a stronger connection, more accurate connection, and it will interface directly with the GPS units. So the GPS units would um they

102would come out over the summer and they would replace those units in all of our vehicles and then it would be they would be connected through uh the transfinder software which in would include the additional module of stopfinder um to have that up and running for the next school year. This is also this is also cheaper too. Correct. Um we did look at some other providers for the GPS units and Zonar was a much cheaper solution. It was about a $46,000 savings over the 5-year contract agreement. Um, I know a lot of the parents use that here Comes the Bus. Is there going to be something equivalent to that also? Correct. That would be Stopfinder. Stopfinder would replace Here Comes the Bus. And is it going to work in the same way that I believe

103it will work better because it's looking at one database of information and it's all the same database. So, it'll push out in a much uh more timely and accurate fashion. Do we also know if anybody else locally uses this? I don't know locally, but there are many school districts that utilize it across the state. I don't know the particular ones locally. And what are their feedback on it? Um, from what we, you know, as the transportation department looked at it, they were very happy with what um, Stopfinder provided and thought it would be a good solution because it interfaces directly with that same database database. It's looking at the same information whereas here comes the bus. We were porting data over from one system to the other. So they felt like that would be a

104stronger connection and provide more accurate information. I do see Mr. Quigley's here and Mr. Quigley, you're okay with this also? Okay. So we would be placing this on uh the legislative meeting in June for board approval. And both of these items have been included in the um general fund budget as part of the 2025 26 budget. I think Rob, what was the cost for this? Is it an upgrade, right? It is an upgrade. It'll provide more functionality. So, the additional module for Stopfinder is about $17,000, but the GPS units, yes, about $46,000 cheaper over the 5year span. And I'm sorry. So, and I should know this. Here comes the bus and then Stopfinder. That's an app, correct? Or so here comes the bus as an app and stopfinder will become the new app. All right,

105it takes us to item L, the tuition rates for um the 2526 school year. Mr. Danakola, do you want to share any updates with regard to the setting of that by the state? Correct. So um recently the state certified the 2024 2025 tuition rates. Um what these tuition rates are used for is if a student from another school district for some reason is um receiving their education within our school district, we will bill their homeschool district um the tuition rate. So our certified rate for 202425 is $14,89324 for an elementary student for a perdeium tuition rate per day rate of $82.74. From a secondary perspective, it's $13,146.83 or a perdm tuition rate of 7 $734. While PTE doesn't certify these rates until later in the school year, each year we have to set an estimate

106of what those um billing rates will be. So throughout the school year, we can bill the other districts um for students that are in our building. So for 202526 we are estimating that our annual tuition will be $15,637.91 a pdeium rate of $86.88 and our secondary tuition would be $13,84.17 or a pdeium tuition rate of $76.69. When the state would certain once the state certifies the 202526 rates, we would then bill the districts if there was a discrepancy or they likewise would ask for a refund if our rates were a little higher than what the state certified. Do we have a lot of students doing this? Very little. Very little. Miss Danakola, will you stay on there? Item M with the approval of the investment institutions. Annually, the uh school board of directors must approve

107the list of institutions that we invest our funds in. Um this is the same list that um the district has brought forward um each year. So we have not seen any changes from Amler Savings Bank, Truist, Fulton Financial, they will hold our bond funds. Um, Pennsylvania Local Government Investment Trust, Pennsylvania School District Liquid Asset Fund, PNC Bank, Santander Bank, uh, Tomkins Unvest, Victory Wells Fargo, and Wilmington Savings Fund Society. So, annually we bring these institutions um, to the board for approval. Each of these institutions, if we're investing funds there, um must follow school code requirements and provide us um adequate pledging of collateral to um secure our deposits that are in excess of the FDIC coverage. Question, does so these are these institutions we borrow from or these institutions we put money into? Institutions we

108put our money into. Okay. So, do we go to each the each of these each year and look at how much interest or whatever paper we're under are being reimbursed at or being interest given to? We do and we've um analyze that we get the correct um pledge of collateral u multiple times throughout the year to ensure that the deposits are adequately protected. Do do we try and get them to raise their interest rates for us based on our size? We do we do a combination of both and we also um work with them to con make sure that they're not um charging us fees that we're you know don't want to pay because I know like I as a person can go to a bank and say 3.5% on that money is not enough.

109What are you going to offer me? So I'm thinking that the size of money we have in these different institutions we could get some accommodations from them and we should be getting accommodations from them. We have Okay. Just as a uh comment though and uh Miss Denakola did reference that under section 440.1 of the school code we need to have appropriately collateralized investment. So we don't have the same latitude that you may have personally in your own investment strategies to maximize u interest rates. We have to also be sure that the monies are appropriately collateralized or or we will be non-compliant with the code. But we do have some is what I'm getting at that we can is there any room out there where we can even to the point of changing institutions if we

110can find a better deal if if you have a an institution that is appropriately collateralized you can pick and get a better deal but that limits the pool of available institutions. Okay. Mr. I know I asked this question. I probably asked it wrong. I need to do that. I had asked for a list which I got right away. But the question was we used to get a list along with the percentage we got paid for in the CDs. So interest rate we were getting aside of each bank when we got the listing for from the previous. So our average yields are about 4.17 to 4.41. 41%. That's over the past 12 months. Thank you. You're welcome. I notice we have a lot of local banks on here, but I don't see Key Bank. Is there

111a reason we don't have them on? Um, the district has not changed deposiitories over the last number of years. Um, key bank key bank is not one that we have looked at for a proposal. It's something if you know the board wishes we can put a proposal out for banking services and start to evaluate if there's some better opportunities. I think that's something we should be doing because if their rates higher and we have a low one, we should swap it out. Yep. All right. Under item N, the 25 26 BCTC and Boytown school district nutrition program agreement. Since we're both school national programs, lunch programs, there needs to be an agreement. We're both sponsors for that. This is simply just an agreement acknowledging that and acknowledging the services between the two institutions. So, this

112is something you do annually and have agreed approved this annually. the Lincoln Center annual service contract. Again, this is um a contract with services, many of which are homebased um school-based counseling services, a number of other school-based services that are really aimed throughout our K12 environment. Uh the Lincoln Center's really worked well with regard to many of these programs and we are asking for your consideration for renewal of that contract for the 2526 school year. Mrs. Deroff, this helps with counseling, right? It does. Um, we always use them or we have been using them. We are. So, with us hiring more counselors ourselves, aren't we hiring two more? We are hiring 2.5 still going to need this service. We do. So these work in different areas that are are more traditional counselors do. Right now

113we we have a really it's a it's an enrollment issue with regard to counseling and and the case loads. We have one counselor at Bertown Elementary School for 560 students. It's not feasible. It's not you know we we can't service the student body in the way we have. We offer some other enrollments that are extremely high. the Lincoln Center. We partner with them for a lot of other um uh supportive service uh small group based family- based things that we utilize them in a lot different ways um that that that that support our students differently from how our own counselors do. So, it's almost a two system approach how we're doing this. Um so the the two and a half uh counselors that um were approved through the budget really are helping to draw down

114some of our case load sizes in a more traditionalbased way that we um can access our students. These are more finite services for our families and for our students and working with students of needs. So this is for five more. This would be for the 2025 26 year. Right. Right. For five more. Yeah. Five. We currently have these within our district. So, we would be approving this contract to continue to utilize this past year. Correct. Right. I'm saying five more for the two and a half that I was just talking about. Thank you, Miss Diamond. Uh, do we pay this regardless or is this like on a contingency thing that if we use them, we pay them? If we don't need them, there's no cost to us. No, these are contracts that we we we

115need them. They're they're staffed. They're staffed with us to be able to utilize their their service. Not an alle cart type of menu service. Is a contract that we play. We use them every day. Yeah. In different ways, shapes, and forms. Absolutely. Yeah. Across the K12 spectrum, too. So, they could be at one school one day and another school another day. Well, Not really that way. Do you want to come up and explain a little bit more, Dr. Horton? So, the the contract we have with Lincoln, we've been contracting with them since the 202021 2020 2021 school year for positions in the district. So, these five positions are more specialized counseling positions. If you're thinking more on a mental health spectrum, these are our school-based counselors who are working one-on-one with students who have more

116significant needs. They are running our smart our small groups for those specialized skills groups. Our drug and alcohol counselor at the high school uh is one of the counselors that we have from Lincoln. So, these professionals have a different skill set or a different type of training than our school counselors. our school counselors are working in the schools in a prevention um level working on classroom lessons working with families connecting to resources. So the skill set and the jobs that they're doing are very different and these positions I would say are more specialized counseling positions that are supporting our students with a a different level of need also within that you know working on addressing some of our um truency and attendance. Some of our students we know a root cause for truency or students

117who struggle to get to school can be mental health. So these professionals are helping us to help students access the learning at school but also supports and services so that we can help them to meet with success. So the positions we've had in the district for the last uh number of years um and they have been used on on a regular basis. These professionals um the drug and alcohol counselor supports student at the high school. So that's her home base. We have a schoolbased counselor at the high school as well. We also have someone at the elementary level who's supporting students at that level. So they are across the district serving different needs and different populations. Also that connection with families um you know helping them to um you know support students. Sure. Yes. So

118in effect this is an this is not an hourly contract. This is a an overall yearly services contract. Correct. Hours don't figure into this. repay for the service. Correct. And and part of um the the PCCD grant that we apply for every year, those grant funds also support these positions. So if since there's can can the costs go up based on extra hours put in? No, this is this it doesn't change. Okay. Great. Okay. That's good. Thank you. Yep. Sure. Thank you, Dr. Horton. Item P, the 202526 special education annual service agreements. You see a number of service agreements that we do have with alternative school placements that are listed on there. Again, similar to the Lincoln Center, these are annual contracts that we have for placements and/or services with students. some of which we

119have alternative settings in which we purchase seats um for placements of students whether it's behavioral or meeting the needs of of whatever the the the the need is at that particular time. You see the list that is there. We have Mrs. Barton here. Uh if there's any questions with regard to any of those agreements as listed, Miss Darl, uh on River Rock, why do we purchase spots with We don't know. So, um we we get those slots at a reduced um uh rate and for us to be able to in a in a school typically in a secondary setting, high school with a district that size, we will have some students um based on past history that we will have to place out at those centers. most of which will be a disciplinary need um

120for things that have occurred in the setting of our own school that they'll need to be there for for uh periods of time. So we um take advantage of uh purchasing those in advance at a much reduced rate. Um not all schools are set up for those those particular ways. The river I'm excuse me do we fill normally? Yes. Slides that we purchased. Yes. Thank you. Again, under item Q, we had some special education settlement agreements that you you've been made aware of through your weekly and that we've discussed. Item R, u Mrs. D had asked that we bring uh policy 800 the AR1 to uh the board. It's uh in regards to the records retention schedule as listed and there was a question in there in regards to I believe it was uh recordings

121of schoolboard meetings. So Mr. Doff, I'll let let you have the floor with regard to that. Oh, it was like I said before, we only have in here to save them for a year, and I think they should be saved indefinitely. Now, we have the digital, so it's not going to take up much space like it did when you had the the other ones. Yeah. And the and the AR is created from PSBA. This is actually an AR that was uh records retention that was created by through the PSBA and and and most districts have adopted this schedule as its re records retention schedule. I have contacted Mr. Sultanic's office to see if there was any legal standing with regarding uh recordings of board meetings and retentions. And the answer back was the answer back

122was that there is uh nothing specified in the law that dictates how long you can or should uh dictate recordings. It's really up to the governing board to make that decision. It's not statutoily protected. I mean, I feel one year is ridiculous. And in fact, I went back and looked at and as you're aware, you adopted um um we've adopted board docs um that that have captured and we've been streaming since it appeared to me I can find a recording back to July of 2019, which is still accessible. Right. So, as a as a as a as a board, we're not following that policy right now or that AR rig as it is right now. So, we have six years of that history that's accessible. I understand, you know, one is listed here. So, it's

123really a discussion of the board as to what you would want to do with regard to to that. I'd like to see them held indefinitely. I'd certainly think they should or could be held longer. I mean, I understand that we have it back to 2019, but that doesn't mean all of a sudden they couldn't disappear tomorrow because we don't have anything stating that they need to be kept for longer. So, I'd be more than happy to vote to have them indefinitely or at least, I don't know, five, six years, something some sort of other standard. I would say indefinitely because that way people can go back and do research on what we've been doing. And that's why I've been asking for more information on our minutes because more detail can help uh future boards go

124back and look at things. So the only thing in consideration to this is Board Docs is a web-based system. So um you know if the board so chooses to move away from board docs at some period of time um I I don't know what the holding would be. Um, that's something we'd probably need to investigate with board docs to find out what happens and whose ownership um, you know, um, it maintains if if we're able to capture those in any way or transfer those over um, into any of our systems right now, but it's being held in in a web-based system right now. That's that's currently the only place it lives. Yes. Could you come back to the board with what how much trouble would be to keep or to have some something in the

125policy to keep it beyond one year that how it would affect the administration and it's right now you have six years out there. But I mean yeah but I mean if what is there is there any individual issues it would give you or the administration to continue to keep it indefinitely over five years or whatever? Uh I occasionally go back and reference older meetings. Um, and mostly instead of the minutes, I go right to the video to to to access that myself right now. So, it's purposeful for me to to have it as well. So, I I I don't see I can ask I can ask our cabinet if there if they see anything that I haven't seen thus far. So, I I I don't believe there's there's really an issue unless we we can

126come up with anything else. So, I'm hearing five years or indefinite is what I've heard. If if there's a problem that we have to get rid of board docs, that's what you're saying. Then we should worry about it then. Well, I don't want to worry about it then. I want to worry about it now. Um with board docs before we don't know. Well, I want to worry about it with board docs as to what happens if Board Docs decides to go away or you decide to shift away from board docs. Yeah. What what do we have left and what what can we maintain as ours? Time to get it accomplished so we don't lose them. You said we have it back six years. We only have to have it back one year. So in the

127meantime, could we put put something in a in that policy that says until keep it on indefinitely as long as we have board docks? I will bring I'll bring the I'll bring the AR regs back to you for our next meeting and you can make a decision on what it is you you want to do with it. Thank you. Could we ask it to see what they could do to hold it longer? Yeah, they could back it up. I think there's where we may get into the problem and and what what that's going to take to maintain a lot of those those types of recordings of that. So, I I I'll check with it as to what that means, if we're able to pull it from the system from from it and and and and

128capture that um or if board docs were to go away at some point in time, how we could do that. Um and what that means for us because that would be Mr. Kesky, right? That because he does everything with Well, he he handles the recording of it. The actual history of it would be uh Mr. fight to to understand what that means within our within our within our uh capabilities. So, all right, I'll have some information back to you. We'll bring the AR back to you to make a decision as to what you want to do. Dr. David Heiser, just really quick, I'm thinking about YouTube in general, like you know, how long um something is kept on the YouTube scenario as a as a hyperlink there, which is another thing that we need to

129research for the direct link to the meeting. But doesn't YouTube also reserve the right to I it's that and I don't know that but I'm just like that's another avenue of where it's stored. So and I think that brings something up and I don't know you know this AR speaks to an official recording. Um I would suggest the official recording. Maybe Mr. Saut you can weigh in would be board docs. I'm not sure that YouTube becomes our official record of recording. Um if there is such a thing. There is no official record of recording. The only official record of a schoolboard meeting, which I've said innumerable times, are the approved minutes. Right. So, I would think we'd want to focus on board docs and what that exists within our system of board docs. We'll get

130some information. I'll bring the AR back and you can make a decision at that point in time. N we check with uh Mr. Kesky and see how he maybe he holds them. Maybe he has a way of doing it since he is actually videotaping everything. Uh we'll check in with him. However, within our system of controls, this needs to run through our IT department. So I I will I will check in with both. And our last item, we do have two no donations. um for June and uh one of which is a seventh grade adventurer team. This is a uh really a kind of what you would consider a portable gaga pit um that is from the foundation um that's being donated for your consideration of acceptance. And then also a book vending machine and

131um these have become popular at our elementary schools if you've ever seen one. Um typically, you know, part of building community in an elementary school is doing um and a positive reward system for students. Students can earn tokens typically and those tokens be placed in a vending machine. A book can be retrieved and so forth and so on. So some of our uh elementaryaries have that. Um again this would be a donation for for that particular item and again through our education department or or the foundation at Bortown L VCIU report. Mr. Brophie a couple things forgot I turned it off. Uh, okay. I was looking they had a at the VCIU they had the STEM the 2020 2025 SEAL challenge showcases. Uh, that's the sea air and land challenge at Burks for all different

132schools. I it doesn't look to me like we participate in that at all. Is that something we didn't know about or is it something we choose not to participate in? I will have to get some information. I'm unfamiliar with that and it's first I'm hearing about it. Okay, that's fair. Y just came up at the last meeting. Uh, and I had just noticed it. It wasn't it's not they didn't they weren't pushing it or anything about who was going to be there. I just noticed it's there and I didn't I didn't see us as part of the uh groups participating in it. So, I was just curious. Uh, they also have the advanced cyber security preparedness across Burks. Are we looking at all to participate in that? It's about $9,000 a year. That might be

133something you just want to talk to Dr. Hackman about. Um, that is is that the organiz is that what we just committed to on it? Are you talking cyber security? Cyber security. Yeah. I don't know. We'll need Yeah. I I don't think you're aware of it. That's why I'm bringing it up. Right. There's a there's a bunch of different schools already, especially a lot of ones around us. Oolie, reading or Holy Valley, Hamburg, Fleetwood, Daniel Boone. A lot of them are already in it. So, I don't know. It's about $9,000 a year. It's like they're starting up as a pilot type thing. So, just maybe something you want to check in with them and find out if it's a if it's something we might be interested in. Okay. Now, now the now the better part

134of the of the meetings, the laws and the house bills. I'm not going to go over all 155 of them, so don't get nervous about that, but there are a couple. Um, I think we're aware they're they're looking closely to doing that mandating. uh cursive handwriting mandate that. So that's coming up something for us to be aware or how we're moving toward that. I think we were move doing some movement toward that already. Yes, there's been there's been talk for many years with regard to it. So I'm not sure how close or how far we are with regard to it. Well, the the House bill is laid on the table on May 7th for consideration. So, um, structured lit literacy initiative, House Bill 864, um, adopt evidence-based reading instruction curriculum. So, you might want to

135look at that 684 bill. We have been operating and Mrs. Landis can tell you upside and down how much inside a structured literacy we've been involved in over the last two years. Just don't I just don't want to miss them. I hate when I hate I hate when I get hit on the side of the head. It doesn't it doesn't feel good. No idea. He is there's an abregation of chapter 49 regulation related to culturally reliable sustaining education. Since we didn't ever pass that, we're not affected by that one, but seems like the rest of the state finally followed our lead and got rid of it. Uh private school students participating in extracurricular activities in their resident public schools, House Bill 1356. that seem to be something where private schools can private school students can

136participate in our sports programs. Just something you might want to look look at. House Bill 1354 updating civics education graduation requirement. House Bill 1373 require beginning in 2627 student receive a score of 6% United States citizenship and immigration service test. Now, remember, these are only proposals, not I'm just saying there's things that we need to be aware of could be coming. Prohibiting school directors from serving a district where their immediate family member is currently employed. I really don't see that one going anywhere, but House Bill 1395 prohibiting non-zero grading policies. You're probably well aware what they are and there's a house bill 1398 prohibiting that for attempting to prohibit that fairness and women's acts sports act. I'm sure we're all aware of that one. Senate Bill nine. So that's what would affect us in uh

137in our sports programs. Uh cash entry for school sponsored activities. Now, I know at some point in time we were using credit cards only to get into the get into the stadiums and the sporting events. This this bill, Senate Bill 625, would prohibit that. So, just something to be aware of. Once again, it's only been it's only being pushed in there. Hasn't gone anywhere, but it's it's on the table. I think that's it. Thank you, M. Gro, BCTC. Yes, I have a a list of 42 students and the schools and everything that they were involved in. Uh do you want me to start reading this list off because it'll be a while? Yeah. You do? Okay. Everybody else okay with that? No. Okay. But we had 42 students at the U got senior awards. How

138many are ber? Uh they're all borer town. All 42 of these. All whoa. And um they're they're from Oolie Votech and Leport VOTE. And some of them got up to three awards. Uh they were offered by uh Judy Schwank Health uh a lot. And this covers a lot of stuff. Uh these students from uh police, uh welding, car repair, uh cabinets, automotive, you know, if you want to. I'll start reading them off, but it's already 9:00. I'm a slow reader. Could we post that somewhere? So, it is. Yeah, it is on on the website. Yeah. Yes or no? It's up to you, Mr. Drop the group. No, no, it's up to you. You're the board. No. No. Okay. No. That brings us to public comment period number one. Miss Savage personnel. Good evening. There was

139just one item on your personnel um agenda item that caught my attention. Um under the resignations, there were three people all with similar years of service, which is quite a few. Um Mr. Frenzy, Mr. Pennington and Miss Squeeny who teach in music, art, and teched. And these three areas are really close to my heart because I think together they touch so many of our students lives. Sometimes helping them find their passion, their joy of learning and a sense of community many times and sometimes leading them onto a a rewarding career. So I'd like to just take this opportunity to thank Mr. Frenzy, Mr. Pennington, and Miss Sinqueeni for sharing their combined 44 years of experience with our students and wishing them the best and selfishly hoping that they continue to find a way to share

140their gifts with our community in some way. At this time, we're looking for the approval of the May 27th, 2025 board of school directors meeting minutes as presented. So, water moves for a second. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, no. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Mr. Zawatada. Yes. Mr. Brophie. Yes. Miss Diroff. Yes. Mr. Pinerella. Yes. Motion carries. Superintendent. Under item A, under superintendent's itemized agenda, we recommend the approval of the personnel listed. I'll second. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mr. Mr. Bradrove. Yes. Mr. Roger Upgroo. Yes. Mr. Zawada. Yes. Mr. Broofphy. Yes. Miss Diroff. Yes. Mr. Panerello. Yes. Motion carries. Public com period number two. Missy Savage advocating for Boyertown Area School District's needs. Hi again. Uh, thank you for passing your resolution at the last meeting advocating for cyber

141charity funding reform. And I wanted to update you on where things are with um, legislation right now. Um, House Bill 1500 passed the House and was referred to the Senate Education Committee a few days ago on June 6th. However, our representatives Gillan, Maloney, and Sharon all voted against it, which is why your advocacy is so important. So, what does it do? It establishes a statewide regular education tuition rate of $8,000 per student. If I did my math right, from what Mr. Stout said, it costs us about $3,000 a student to give a child a cyber education. It also um has for special education tuition the actual cost using the same three tier calculation that is used to fund our school districts which is not the way it's done today and money pours out from us

142to the cyber schools through for special education. It limits the cyber's unassigned fund balances to 12% of their annual operating budget, which is already a requirement for you, and requires that the unassigned fund balances currently in in excess of this amount be returned to the school districts that gave them that money. It ensures that districts will no longer pay for students who do not live in their districts, requiring a residency verification. It increases transparency by requiring that all public school entities share their budget and report total expenditures for paid media and sponsorship of public events. And if you'd like to see the extent of those expenditures by cyers, go to Education Voters PA where they've been exposing cyber charter expenditures paid for through our property taxes that would never be acceptable for our district. there.

143It's increasing academic accountability by requiring that cyber charters notify families when their schools are designated as low achieving schools. This is already a requirement for our school district and it it's enacting a moratorum on new cyber charter schools for a few years. So, it's in summary, it's important that you contact the Senate Education Committee and encourage them to take this bill up and contact Senator Tracy Penook and ask them to support House Bill 1500. Thank you very much. It's $1.5 million a year savings for you, plus more on that special education three- tiered piece that was added. Thank you. Thank you. Board comment period. Mr. Up the Grove. No comment. Miss Nimman. Uh, yes. I had several phone calls on this postcard that went out as to why, how many went out and what was

144the cost because it appears there's labels on them. So that means somebody had to hand put a label on unless you had uh mailing service do it. So yes, we can uh get with you the figures as to what that is. So we're trying to identify most especially as we've talked about as u was commented here about our cyber community and our residency issues that that are part of that. So this is an investigatory process also of those return cards and understanding of those cyber students that live within our district and maybe that do not live within our district. It's also a way that we can start to connect with our community in different ways as we've been planning um some of the goals of our strategic planning. Um, just real quick, I was um

145surprised at graduation that there was only one student that had the AP capstone. So, I was just curious as to what the status of that program is at the high school. Uh, still still running. Um I don't have the numbers as to how many graduates or you you said there was just one just just one within that with with the full capstone of both courses being completed. So I I I can work on getting us some data points with regard to that. So um you know for some of these commentary things I would ask that you email the me these things in advance and I can probably have that information for you with with regard to any of these these types of things. Mr. Rolf, I seen where we h went to Coverdale to get

146some uh I don't know if what were for permits or variances or what? But my question is did they give us a break on the charges they normally charge because we did so much for them and paid them so much money. Are we paying full toll? Is that a thing? I do not have an answer for that, but I can find that out. Okay. Thank you. I would hope they would for all the money we gave them. Uh that's number one. Two, um are we going to put out a bid this year for an auditor for the audit? Um, at this point we would be behind the eight-ball to look for a new auditor for the 2425 year and we're really anxious to close out the year in a very timely fashion. Um, so we

147would be looking to stick with the same auditors for the 2425 audit and then go out um for the next audit for 2526. I'm not blaming you, but that's told to me every year when I ask because we've had this one for a long time and I think the we're supposed to be theoretically switching, changing, or at least putting them out. Um, I was looking at some of the other websites for different schools, and I'd like to suggest that we have committees. We have, I believe, a committee for facilities, finance, policy, and uh, student services, which probably the same as curriculum. I would like to suggest that we add clubs, technology, personnel, and board governance to our list. Uh, and human relations. Other school districts have it, so there must be a need for it.

148Um, and one question that was never answered, and this is before you came, so I'm not holding you responsible, but uh, since we're talking about who started what, administration has never said if they want tariff or not, and I'd like to know how they feel on that subject, if they're supporting it or not, because I've been asked that question many, many times now. So, I would expect an answer maybe next meeting. Thank you. Nothing. Yeah. I would just like to wish all our students and administration a safe and happy, fun summer. Um, I also saw that the PA Department of Transportation has a new grant program for school bus safety. I don't know if we're aware of that or looking into that. Yeah, actually uh we uh Quigley actually Brian's back here today. Um, uh,

149they have submitted for that grant for us um on well on behalf of Quigley has to come through the bus company itself. So that grant um we'll see where that approval goes, but the stop arm program is is part of that. Um, and I believe uh according to the information I read today um they applied it would apply to 20 buses and they pick those buses to which the routes seem to be the most dangerous uh routes that we would we would start with with regard it's nearly impossible from a funding standpoint to to address that with every single bus but this is a starting point for that. So we'll keep the board informed as we hear back on that grant. Okay. And just one more thing in general. Uh I've been asked I'd like

150could we get an update on where we are with the planetarium as well as turf. People are asking about both situations where we're at. Yeah. The turf field again is is is right now as Mrs. Deiroff uh mentioned with Colale uh the permits have been approved by the commissioners there. It now sits in MPDEes which um look is it's under technical review. Um that can take anywhere from three to six months and we're about 3 to four months in. We have not heard any feedback from or on their timeline as to when they give a technical review and the technical review is really of really of underground everything related to uh what CHA or Dwey has developed as its plan and they will give the technical feedback with regard to that and whether it gets

151approved or it has to be modified in any way shape or form. So that's where we are. We can't go anywhere further with regard to that at that point in time. So, um, all those things have been submitted to them. The local approvals have been, um, taken care of. So, we're awaiting that at that point. Once an approval were to be given, the project could go out to bid. Uh, the planetarium. Yes. Uh, JT Town will be coming back for uh, another visit. She's put together our list for us of process and also equipment with many different options. She needs to come back in there one more time. We're hoping to get her back in the next two weeks. Um and once that's done, we're then going to uh meet with the educational foundation to

152see what of what type of equipment would they be in support of in regards to that process. um most of the equipment comes in the form of computer software, the projection system. So she's given us multiple uh options and one and two projector lens things with regard to it. So the variance of cost is pretty significant um when it comes to that. So those are that's the big pieces to it. and um she's giving us an order, a process of how we should go about um and kind of the tear out uh and the different types of things that we need to to do with regard to the tear out. We do plan to salvage the current um projection system and put that on display somehow. Uh just kind of uh utilizing it in in

153some way. So, we do want to save that. Most of the other things inside of that, if you notice the sophet areas up there and all the sliding 1970s projectors, um, all need to come out. Uh, carpeting would come out, uh, seating would come out, and we want some committal as to what sorts of equipment could be sponsored through, um, our local foundation with regard to that. Ripping the seats out. Did Did you We need to get the Well, we need to get the carpet out. Did did have you submitted for any of the STEM grants that you have a listing of? No, we haven't until she gave us the exact types of equipment that we needed because that stuff we need all that technical information for that. So, um, you know, we don't believe

154there's much in the way. You know, there's there's there's the dome that we need to encapsulate. we know that and paint that but most the other things are the computer software um and the the projection system and sound. Yeah. But I say anything part of it that anything part of it we have support to get the STEM that some sort of STEM grants that can be applied to could be. Yeah. Yeah. And the other part is I never checked on this. I didn't think about it but there may be some grants as far as staffing it also as as part of an educational center. I don't know that that's not typical. That's not typical. Typically, but you don't know what's out there. So, that's something we should look at. And our and our plan is

155still u this coming school year is still the build up of all the things that we need. Our plan has always been to look at having this accomplished and completed by sometime toward the end of next school year. It's staffed and uh you know, a plan moving into the 267 year. I don't know when those STEM grants are run out, so I didn't check the I can uh some of those that you already gave, they they had run out, you know, like January, February, probably they'll probably be renewable portions of So, Jim, talking to her, do you have any idea? I know you can't tell me till you pick equipment and all that, but do you think you're talking a million and a half or a million or two million? No, the the numbers that

156I've seen thus far um are like 250 on some of the dual projections. The Spitz I don't think makes a single any longer. It only makes a dual which is the the local company and that's the lens that we projection system that was that was put in. Uh she gave some other options of some others. So they they trend in like the $2 to $300,000 ranges um for that type of equipment. Some of it is packaged in a way that it offers you sound uh lighting, lens, and some other things that you can optimize on a package deal versus separating it all a cart. So, there's some opportunities there that could save some money, but yet, you know, it's a bigger pot of money to be able to uh that you have to commit to

157when it comes to that. So, uh we're we're getting there. It's it's it's final. She she wants to come in one more time and we were talking about the next couple of weeks with between vacations and things of that nature to get her up. Um she wants to do one more walk through to to to look at some finalized things, but you know, it's it's going to be there. It's just a matter of can we get any funding for it? How much might the board have to consider in committing to it if if if any and what other grant opportunities might be out there? So, just did a recol. I'm not aware of their their plan. The duel is probably you're looking at the one that's programmable more because extended life for that much longer

158and you get more years out of it. So, although it does cost more, it's it would be really more economical way to go. Yeah, there's I think there's three three options that three different companies that she's offered on her listing of her assessment of of where we can go with regard to it. So, we'll keep you apprised along the way. I'm not there to be able to report out on enough right now. That's I'm just trying to figure out how much money I have to make make it all. No, I don't want to. So, we'll we'll we'll get back to you um when we have some more information. Thank you. You good? Just want to congratulate our class that just graduated and wish everyone a happy summer, safe summer for all our students in uh

159facility. And also, I just want to address something with Mr. Broofphy. Earlier, you had made a comment about the uh committees. So I I don't know if you were I don't maybe you weren't even there that day. We had uh we changed a little bit of the policy to add those meetings so that we could have working meetings because it was expressed from the solicitor that because we were a committee the whole we weren't able to have those actual meetings. So yeah, I'm aware of that. I was say so moving forward that's what we'll be doing. looking forward. I'm looking if we're going to go to a committee system, then we have to use the committee process and something like the books coming through or the not the open the open source books coming through

160would you normally by process go through the curriculum committee to be discussed there and then come forward to Yeah, I mean I I did I'll be honest, I served on that committee once and it was more of a fluff show. We sat there and watched the presentation and nothing happened. So now you're going to have an actual working meeting, an hour of time to actually discuss. I think it'll be way better. Okay. And I think that you the public will also get to see it too. So hopefully it'll give them what they need to see. I look forward to seeing it. Um we do have some upcoming meetings uh both June 24th here in two weeks uh for a legislative session. There is a scheduled July 22nd meeting. Um, so please as board members make

161sure you note that in your calendar. Motion to adjourn. No, I'm in motion. [Music] [Applause] [Music]