001[Music] We'd like to call the meeting to order. Roll call. Mr. Zawada here. Mr. Brophie here. Miss Diroff present. Mrs. Kratz here. Miss Nyman here. Mrs. Scott here. Mr. Brad Upgro here. Mr. Roger Upgrove here. Mr. Panerello here. All present. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. BASD NJOTC will be displaying the colors for tonight. Forward archer hold left Please present colors 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. Carefree colors. Ready. Cut. Stage. Exit. [Music] Okay, there is no previous executive session. It takes us down to item three, recognition showcase. And I'd like to introduce myself as Dr. Scott Davidiser, superintendent of schools here in the Bortown Area
002School District. And I'd like to welcome all of our guests. and all of our presenters this evening as well as all of our uh students receiving recognition this evening. Uh our first item a light the fight bash team. Boytown area senior high school student candidates Lulu Mckennon, Gianna Martin and Piper Archuk and their team members. As you may remember, this winter their team, Light the Fight, dedicated countless hours in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's LLS Student Visionaries of the Year campaign, a 7-week fundraising challenge benefiting LLS's mission of curing blood cancers. I'm pleased to share with you that this incredible team representing Boyertown Area Senior High School raised $32,746 for our mission. and Light the Fight is our 2025 student visionaries of the year runner up. In addition, Light the Fight along with 15 other
003teams in the Lehi Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania regions collectively raised over $253,000. This evening, it's our pleasure to have Gianna, Lula, and Piper here with us to go through a short presentation about their fundraising efforts. Take it away. Uh we'd like to thank you for inviting us. We'd like to thank you for inviting us today. And here's our agenda for what we're going to be talking about this afternoon. Um my name is Piper Zaharuk. My name is Lula McConen. And I'm Giana Martin. And we were the campaign leaders for Team Light the Fight of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Uh some campaign highlights for what we did was we raised 1,00 we raised over $1,500 from car washes held at our local Arentos. We organized a card creation drive in partnership with the school's key club
004where we donated $150 plus cards to Riley's Children Hospital. Um, we presented to our local businesses to forge sponsorships, visited hospitals, attended workshops, and had meetings with LLS staff weekly. And we were also able to meet with a local lymphoblastic leukemia survivor. So, over the the course of our 7-week campaign, our team was actually able to raise $33,746 because we received a late $1,000 donation. Um, so we raised this money for the leukemia lymphoma society and this wouldn't have been possible without the generosity of so many from friends and family to community members and to countless individuals who believed in our mission and supported us along the way. Uh, we really wanted to give a special shout out to some key partners who had a huge impact in our fundraising. How do you do it?
005Okay, so we're incredibly grateful to Global Advanced Medals, Penske, Veterans Making a Difference, and Hagar Biosciences for their generous support. We also want to thank Rita and Arentos for the opportunity to host fundraisers at their location. Their contributions not only boosted our fundraising efforts, but also helped spread awareness and bring more people into this mission. So we want to thank them for standing with us in the fight against blood cancers. We also wanted to talk about a little bit our future plans for our team after this year. So next year Gianna and Piper hope to continue their teams for for the um for their senior year and they will return as visionaries next year and we hope to inspire everyone with our efforts this year. As much as we fundraised, we do have the goal
006of raising $50,000 next year. So, if you are interested in being involved, please reach out to one of us. Is it this one? And that's pretty much it. Thank you so much for your time and we cannot thank the Boyertown community enough for their support and um kind of to everyone who volunteered and donated and shared our mission. Your generosity helped us make a difference in funding life-changing research. Thank you so much. Ladies, if you would just remain there for one minute, I'd like to present you with a certificate of recognition. And in this certificate, it reads, "In recognition of our students outstanding achievements as a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's 2025 student visionaries of the year, light the fight team representing Boyertown Area High School. We congratulate you for all of your
007efforts and we truly appreciate all the things you've done with regard to the community. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Takes us down to our second recognition of the evening and this is Middle School West mouth math counts team. The math counts team. Congrat Congrats to our math counts team for the middle school west for winning this year's regional competition and qualifying for the state competition. Middle school west count me some tongue tying tonight. Middle school west math counts team members are Brandon Rizzo, Daniel Kovatch, Brady James, and Anthony Marovich. Coaches are Christy Parish and Mallerie Jacob Jacobe. Since the Boyertown West Mouth Counts team won first place in the county competition, they were invited to travel to Harrisburg to compete against the top schools
008in the state. Students that arrived at the hotel on Friday night were able to participate in an engineering activity hosted by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. They constructed a structure that had to meet minimum height requirements and hold a minimum amount of weight. The following day, they competed against the top mathletes in the state over several rounds from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. After that, they were able to watch the top 10 compete for a spot at nationals during an exciting head-to-head competition. Bordertown Middle School West ended up finishing 18th in the state. Congratulations to the entire team for their hard work and dedication throughout the year. So, I would like to invite to the podium our math leads and that includes Brandon, Daniel, Brady, and Anthony. If you would please join us at
009the podium. And I know you have a short presentation along with a little bit of a quiz for our board members this evening. Is that correct? Okay. So, take it away. So, I'm Brady James. I'm in eighth grade and I was on the Math Counts team. I'm going to take you through what a Math Counts competition would look like. So, when you arrive, the first round is the sprint round. This is 30 questions in 40 minutes without a calculator. This round it's Well, I would say it's not as hard as the target rounds, but opinions will vary on how well you are with the tricks with math counts. The second round is the target rounds. This round is eight questions presented in pairs with six minutes per question pair. This round you are allowed to
010use your calculator, but the questions themselves are harder with more calculations involved and less of the tricks for math counts. The final round is the team round, which is 10 questions in 20 minutes. You're allowed to collaborate and use your calculators among four team members. The team members at the chapter competition were Brandon, Rizzo, me, Daniel, and Anthony. We placed number one, and that was how we moved on to state. Unfortunately, Mr. Rizzo was not able to join us at the state competition, so we had to have an alternate fill in. Just going to move that. Uh, hi. Um, I'm Dan Kovatch. I'm in eighth grade and I was another and I was also a member of the math counts team. So, and um continuing off of what Brady said, uh, the last round at
011the math counts like competitions is the countdown round, which um continues like the top 10 students in the competition going like headtohead against each other. And like on there's like a screen on stage and it shows the problem and you have like 30 seconds or so to do the problems. You're not allowed to use a calculator, but you can fi that if you finish it like before the 30 seconds is up. Then you are allowed like buzz in and answer if you're right and you get a point. Um, and basically how the point system like works is so the first five like rounds in the countdown round, it's the best out of three against the two students. But then for the last five, it's the first to three problems right moves on. And if you
012get a question wrong, you're not penalized in any way. So yeah. So, how it works is the first round in the countdown round is the tenth place student against the ninth place student. And then whoever wins that round goes on to go against the eighth place student. And then so on and so forth until it's like the first first place student against whoever they have to go against. And whoever wins that is the best is the first place in the whole competition. And basically, so if you if you like say you are originally like ninth place in the competition, but after the countdown round, you move up to like sixth place, then you're sixth place because you moved up. And um actually uh I was originally eighth place like from my scores in the previous
013rounds, but then I moved up to fourth place in the countdown round from winning against the students that I was placed against. Yeah, that's basically it. All right. So, I'm going to talk about how we did. My name is Anthony Murkovich and I'm in sixth grade. Um, so at the county round, there were nine different schools that each had a team of four just like us. And there were overall 81 students in the whole competition. Our team placed first in the county round out of all nine teams. Um, and seven of us from West were in the top 20 in the county round and four of us were in the top 10. Daniel was in eighth place and he worked his way up to fourth place in the countdown round, which he was just talking
014about. And Brandon got first place from the sprint and the target rounds, but since he had lost against the second place person, um he then got second place in the overall competition. And since we were since our team was able to get first in the county round, we moved on to states um which includes all the teams that got first, a couple of wildcard teams and um the individ the top three individuals from each county. It at the states there were 160 students and 24 teams. West got West's team got 18th out of the 24 teams in the in the state. Well, that's it. That's all I have to say. Thank you. I believe you have a couple of problems that you'd like to share with our audience, including our board here this evening. So,
015if we can shift to the two problems, I'm actually going to hand this out as a hard copy to our board members to be able to work on this right now. And this is the lightning round. So, you've got a minute on each He's doing that. [Laughter] You're down to 15 seconds. changes. All right, Daniel, Brady, Anthony, why don't you one of you step us through how you come up with the correct answer for this problem. Okay, so for the first problem, it is Lori sells cars and gets a 15% commission on each sale. How much did a car sell for in dollars if Lorie earned a $3,000 commission? The way I solved this was I set the amount the car was as X and set it to 0.15X or 15% of X is equal
016to $3,000. So 0.15X equals 3,000. Then you would divide both sides by 0.15. So 0.15x /.15 = x and 300 /.15 is 20,000. So the car would be sold for $20,000. All right. Great explanation. Thank you. All right, board. We all got that, right? Yep. Okay. All right. How about the second question? And let's give our board and give our audience about 30 seconds to see what they can do with this. Go ahead. I realize I can move I can move it up. Did not realize that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Okay. How about if you define the definition for us here? Yeah. So, the problem reads, define the operation, we'll call it like a droplet of water as a like droplet b equals the absolute value of a minus b. What's the value of two
017droplet four droplet seven? So in case you did not know the absolute value that just like makes the value inside of that positive. Like if it's negative then it's positive. If it's positive it stays positive. So 4 - 7 is neg -3 but since it's inside that absolute value that makes it just positive three. And then 2 minus 3 is negative 1 but since it's in like the absolute value then that just makes it one. So the answer is one. All right, everybody got that? All right. Well, thank you gentlemen and and for your recognition and and outstanding achievement, we'd like to off reward you with a certificate of recognition. Uh and it reads in recognition of your outstanding achievements as a member of the middle school west mouth math counts team and your incredible
018victory at the county and state. Uh we recognize you for all that you do here with our math counts and thank you for your um your description tonight and and your ability for us to think a little bit about what goes on in our middle school environments when it comes to math. All right. Thank you. Daniel Congratulations. Thank you. Anthony. That takes us down to our third and final recognition of this evening. And I'd like to invite Mr. Paladino, our athletic director, to the podium to share with us a winter athletics recap. And here with us also is a pretty special team. And I'll allow the pleasure of Mr. Paladino to introduce some of their accomplishments throughout the evening. They do like being on the floor. They like being on the mats. Uh so we
019do have our wrestling team with us here this evening. So Mr. Paladino, it's all yours. Thank you, Dr. David Howiser. Before I get to uh the student athletes who are here, just want to recognize pretty much the entire Bertown community. Last week, we had our first unified track meet. Our varsity track team, teachers, community members, parents, all came out and it was a great environment to be in. so much that one of the Special Olympics representative was there and after the meet they called and offered us or asked us to host their regional competition and that was our first meet which was you know we we went into that not knowing what to expect but our kids, our student athletes, our parents, everybody came out and made it just an awesome atmosphere. So I just
020want to let everybody know that that meet will happen on May 5th at 4:00 in the stadium. So, if you're free, come on out, volunteer your time. Our our athletes will be there helping out. Our unified team will be there helping out. Also, they're not going to be competing in that regional event, but they will they will be there helping out. And it is just an awesome atmosphere. So, going on to our our winter season, we had participation numbers. At Middle School East, we had 54 boys, 38 girls. At West, 46 boys, 42 girls. At the senior high, 145 boys and 100 girls. We had 19 total student athletes earn all division or all conference honors for the Pioneer Athletic Conference. Seven student athletes were named all academic. Numerous student athletes in swimming and wrestling
021earned spots in the District 1 competitions. Robert Barnett, who's on our wrestling team, was named our citizen athlete award winner for the league. We had seven winter track athletes earn a trip to the state meet. We're going to bring our winter track athletes in after the spring because right now they're they're in their spring practice and we'll recognize them after the spring season. But those athletes who earned a trip to state college for the state meet were Aiden V, Taylor Rosen, Jocelyn Whistinger, Harper Glennon, Brianna Stanina, Amela Math, and Abigail Hedrickk. And then tonight we have, as you can see, we have members of our boys wrestling team here with us. I'll just do a quick recap and then coach Haley would get up and speak a little bit. They were the Pioneer Athletic Conference
022team champions. Three student athletes qualified for the individual portion of the state tournament. It was Brody Coleman, Bre Beck Bab, and JD Heiser. They finished as a team fourth in the PIAA team dual championships. Coach Chris Lloyd was named PI or excuse me, PA Wrestling AAA assistant coach of the year. And Coach Haley, who's standing behind me, was named the PA Wrestling AAA coach of the year. So, I'm going to give the mic to Coach Haley to talk about team a little bit. Of course, Mr. Paladino didn't say I was going to speak, so I still don't need anything prepared. For those who don't know me, I'm Coach Haley. I I'm also um uh a member of the district. I I've lived in the district for 25 years. Both of my daughters graduated from Boyertown
023High School. One is a second grade teacher at Topah Hawin and the other one has one day left to become a speech pathologist uh graduating with their masters from Arabian. So, thank you to Bertown in the sense of preparing them as well as they did for the the next level which is the college level. Uh onto the kids who are in front of me and this is just a small portion. Um coach uh Mr. Paladino was talking about numbers there. Our numbers this year in the high school program alone and we were basically 9 through 12, but we had over 47 kids and we kept probably 15 9th graders down. We would have had 60 boys between the grade grades 9 through 12 out for the wrestling program. So when you talk about our numbers
024growing, our numbers are growing astronomically right now. In both of the junior highs, I think we were probably around 30. So as far as those numbers go, the sport is growing. the kids here. Uh the the entire community is behind us in the things that we are doing. Um I never like to take rec recognition. Uh the boys know that. So I'm going to spend all my time talking about them. The accomplishment that these boys in front of you and the boys that were a member of the program that just accomplished it is when I say astronomical, it is astronomical. And I I was fortunate after we won the district one title, somebody said to me, they I had an interview and they said, "When did this start?" And I said, "When we left this
025gym a year ago." And the guy looked at me and he said, "What?" I said, "When we left this gym a year ago, we took third in the district." We had said after that day, our sights are set on Hershey. Our sights are set on being a top four team in the state. When we went into the season and all of our kids know, we set extremely lofty goals and we have conversation about it and we come together and we're like, "How many pins do we want? How many of these do we want?" And we set high goals this year. This team achieved every one of those goals. And whenever I say taking this team to top four in the state of Pennsylvania and people look and say, "How big of an accomplishment is that?"
026Let me say this. There was not one returning state qualifier. Not one kid on this team qualified for the state tournament previously. There was not. There was a couple kids who had been to regionals. And I tell you the work that they put in from March of last year. I say March of last year all the way through the season. And again, the things that we do with these kids during practice were very motivational. We're very all of those types of things. But I will tell you right now, there's not a program that I would want to be associated with more. um the kids that come into this program, the support that we have from the parents and the support that we have from the community um is unbelievable. Um our our uh new superintendent
027uh Mr. David Heiser, Dr. David Heiser had a chance to come down and visit our facility at the BTC. Um again, we have things that are going on right now that continue to build this program. So, if we look at our season this year and and and just to recap, I know Mr. Paladino did uh being district one dus champs. Incredible. Going out to we used to call it Hershey but PIAA put us at Altuna. But um going out there and finishing top four in the state. These kids deserve everything that they have. In addition to that, as I heard the math counts team, and by the way, you just blew some of my kids' minds. Okay, don't worry. And they're juniors and seniors, but it's okay. But when I say that these kids, almost
028every one of them are going to be going to college. uh if they're not they're looking at you know uh you know community colleges and stuff like that. So again, I think the mix of the athletics and the academics and the one thing that I will tell you, 47 kids on a roster, do you remember how many ineligible ineligible kids? Zero. Zero academic. Now, there are a few that were close sometimes. But when I look at that, I I I tell you because I'm a I'm a teacher, 31st year in my teaching profession. I look and I say we we try to create the the student athlete. and and these kids here who are in front of you are the epitome of what student athletes are. They compete on the mat. They find time to
029organize themselves and make sure their school work is done. And as far as the accomplishments on the mat, that's great, their accomplishments in school. But the nice thing that I would say is I I like these guys in the sense they're going to be productive members of society and they know how to work hard to achieve certain goals. So whenever I say if you see these guys, congratulate them. I thank you for having us here tonight. And again, these guys have achieved something incredible. And I lost. I have to get another tattoo. Okay. So, I'm working on adding to it. It started back in 2016 when we had Jordan Wood and a couple of those other ones who were on the team when we took second in the state. They know how I feel about
030tattoos. Sorry if I offend anybody, but not a big fan of them. So, I made a bet. I lost a bet. So, I got one there. And I said to these guys, "Really? They're going to take top four in the state? No way that's going to happen. and I'm in good shape. They took top four in the state, so I have to work on getting that and I will probably have it by the summer. But again, my heart goes into these guys. They believe in us. We believe in them. So, I thank you tonight for recognizing the team, recognizing the boys who have been a part of that. So, other than that, thank you boys. You did a great job. Well, Coach Haley and the team, congratulations. Welld deserved. and we're glad to have you
031here this evening to be able to recognize you in person and coach Haley on your award as as the coach of the year in AAA and as Pennsylvania being the predominant state in the country when it comes to wrestling and you standing out as a fourth place team in the state really does say a lot as coach Haley said, you know, that recognition is is is very profound. So, congratulations and we and we really wish you well into uh into next season. I'm sure you're back on the mats already preparing. All right. Thank you. Could Could each one introduce themselves to the board? Say who you are. Stand up and say who you are. Gentlemen, I'm interested in that. Why don't we do that? And why don't you why don't you tell them your weight
032class that you competed in? You know, that's not even close to what Well, we we know that. Why don't we start down there on the end? My name is Michael Pomero and I wrestle 285. My name is JD Heiser. I wrestle 172. My name's Pro Coleman. I wrestle 121. My name is Cors. I wrestle 160. My name is Debas. I wrestled 121. My name is Co Fugle. I wrestled 127. My name is Liam Le. I wrestle 133. My name is Jake Stanche. I wrestled 107. My name is Owen Dy. I wrestled 152 lbs. My name is Caleb Jim and I wrestled 215. My name is Ben White. at 114. She's thinking of 145. I don't know. I saw a bunch of creaky knees getting up there. Congratulations, everyone. They're not They're not even close to
033that yet. Congratulations. Thanks for coming out tonight. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thanks for joining us. I I think I might need a little blonde hair after this. Congratulations. That takes us down to item number four, our student representative report. And I welcome Liliana and Allison to report out on some of the highlights from our school community. All right, good evening everyone, board members and meeting attendees. As we are inching closer to the end of the year, we would like to provide you with some highlights in the district for the month of April. This month's elementary highlight will feature Washington Elementary. As a fun way to kick off spring break, many students in the Bash Spanish Department got to go on a trip to Costa Rica to learn about culture and visit the wonderful places the tropical nation
034had to offer. Around the same time, some of the Bash music department rolled on down to DC to perform. We hope they love the capital and had amazing performance. And we hope the students in Costa Rica had sunny days and little turbulence. On April 16th, freshmen at BASH got to experience a day full of activities, water, ice, movies, etc., pumping them up for the start of their high school careers. We hope that the freshman and the members of Link Crew had a blast. Next, we wanted to bring attention to some stars within BASH this past month. Three members of BCTC who attended the HOSA Healthcare State competition placed first through third. Congrats to Emma Emma Dalmarzolski, Isabelle Cresman, Isabella Cresman, and Angelina Lair. Additionally, congratulations to Isabelle Sandaval for her receipt of the Penhosa scholarship.
035Their dedication to healthcare should be recognized and applauded. And a special congrats to the 11 seniors who are recognized for their good citizenship by Senator Penny Cookook. The week of April 7th was Bash Culture Week in which each day students and teachers had the opportunity to dress up in a different theme to show unique spirit and culture. Everyone had a lot of fun, especially on the students dressed like teachers day. There were some interesting outfits to say the least. On April 24th through 23rd, the Youth and Government Club is going to the Capitol building in Harrisburg to be your legislators for the week. This is the most exciting yearly event for us in YAG, and it's the trip where last year I found my love for the Senate Chambers. Legislators and attorneys have worked tirelessly
036for this amazing opportunity, and I know everyone is so excited to be there. This month's elementary highlight, Washington Elementary, has been packed with events. Washington's third and fourth grade chorus performed at Middle School West on April 14th, showcasing their talents at the spring concert for friends and family. The school also celebrated its annual parade of champions for cheering on students in Washington's signature style. Special recognition goes to Mrs. Edy Bennett for her leadership of the Bear Challenge. As she approaches retirement, the Washington community thanks her for her dedication. During ReadAcross America week, students surpassed the 30,000 minute reading goal by over 11,000 minutes, earning the reward of seeing Principal Dorenzo kiss a pig. We look forward to bringing you more of Bash's best moments, as well as introducing our new gen junior representative next month.
037Have a great evening. Public comment period number one. Miss your savage budget. It's hard. It's hard to go after those student presenters. They were amazing, weren't they? Um, I'm here tonight to continue my advocacy work for adequate public education funding from our state. As we know the story in a nutshell, Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom with regard to sheriff funding from the state versus local property taxes. A judge has ruled this inadequacy unconstitutional. A bipartisan basic education funding commission has proposed a way to remedy the situation over several years. and our governor for the second year in a row is proposing annual funding increases to public schools in close alignment with that proposal. For the second year in a row, Boyertown has built that additional $1.5 million into their budget planning, a budget which you
038will be voting to advance tonight. And hopefully this year, unlike last year, this board will advocate by appealing to our state reps and senators for that funding. Last year, three out of our four state reps and senators voted against the public ed funding that you are counting on. Tonight, I am here to introduce Casey Deck. Casey works Casey works for the Penn Policy Center, part of Pennsylvania Schools Work Coalition, and you I believe you all received an email from him. The coalition seeks to bring people together to advocate for Pennsylvania public schools, their students, and the communities they serve. Casey has resources that can make your state advocacy work easier, including a one-pager showing the progress toward filling Bertown's 13.3 million dollar state funding gap. If I may, I'd like to have Casey hand out
039these resources to each of you. Is that okay? Right. As I continue to talk, is that all right? Okay. Go ahead, Casey. And I'll keep talking. Uh, your policy 011 says that school directors will quote, "Collectively and individually advocate earnestly to promote public education as a keystone of democracy and champion public education by engaging members of local, state, and federal legislative bodies. I remind you that no matter how our state legislators and their political parties feel about the proposed state budget, your job is to advocate for the fair funding due to Boyertown. And remember that not advocating for the state funding is not only shortch changing our students, it's also a disservice to our local property taxpayers who are left filling the funding gap. Thank you for listening tonight. At this time, we're looking for
040the approval of the April 8th, 2025 committee of the whole meeting minutes. Second was Mr. Zawatada. Yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, no. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Panerella, yes. Motion carries. That takes us down to item seven and this is our discussion and information section and um this section um titled Vietnam Veterans of America chapter 131 Burks County presentation. Recently I've had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Cliff Kchner and Mr. Donald Conrad, members of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 131, Burks County, along with State Representative David Maloney, to discuss the possibility of the Boyertown Area School District displaying the Prisoners of War Missing and action flag at our school buildings. This evening, I've invited all three gentlemen to attend
041this board meeting to share with our board information regarding the PM MIA flag and its recommended visibility within our district. Gentlemen, welcome to the podium. Good evening, members of the Bortown Area School District, faculty, fellow community members, NJROTC members. Uh, my name is Cliff Kersner and I'm not going to be wrestling anyone or giving anyone any tests tonight. I'm a member of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 131, Burks County. Both my kids graduated from Boyertown and I lived in the Boyertown area for many years. I deeply value the principles of honor, remembrance, and patriotism. principles that I believe are shared throughout Bertown and taught to our students. I I'm here to respectfully request that the Boertown Area School District approve the flying of the PM MIA flag alongside the American flag at all Bertown
042area school buildings and the administration buildings to follow up with a change to the district policy to allow the flying of the PMIA flag. The PMIA flag is a powerful, enduring symbol of our nation's commitment to never forget the men and women who were prisoners of war or went missing in action while serving the United States Armed Forces. As of April 10th of this year, there are over 81,000 missing from all wars. It's hard to believe. 71,000 over 71,000 from World War II, 7,400 from Korea, 1,573 from Vietnam, 126 from the Cold War, and six from Iraq and other wars. from Pennsylvania. In all wars, there are 5,369 are still missing. From Vietnam, Pennsylvania has 90 still missing. I also wanted to mention tonight that Bordertown has seven veterans on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall
043down in Washington. Three of our Burks County brothers are listing as P are listed as PM MIAS from Vietnam. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Angstat, he graduated from Oolie School in 1950 and he went missing October 18th, 1966 at the age of 34. Colonel Thomas Dugan graduated from Reading High School in 1951. He went missing on December 13th, 1968 at the age of 35. And Captain David Penncker graduated from Conrad Wiser in 1956. He went missing on March 27th, 1972 at the age of 33. The black and white flag symbol symbolizing PMIAS is well known as a solemn reminder of our obligation to always remember the sacrifices made to defend our nation. The flag's history began in 1970 when Mary Huff's husband, who was a Navy uh pilot uh was miss went missing in January 7th of
0441970. She had just given birth to her fifth child. She recognized the need for a symbol of America's missing in action and prisoners of war, PMAS. Mrs. Huff contacted Norman Rivkkeys who is the vice president of the Annen flag company that manufactures flags for all of the United Nations member states. Rivkkeys and an advertising agency employee Nisley designed a flag to represent the missing. Heisley was a former World War II pilot and graphic designer for a New Jersey advertising agency in 1971 and he sketched the future design of the P MIA flag. The flag is black. It features a white disc and the the silhouette of a bust of a man, dark silhouette. and a guard tower and a and a uh a watch guard. The letters PM MIA are in white on either side
045of a five-pointed star. Below the disc is a black and white wreath with the motto, you are not forgotten. Heisley was flying transport planes in World War II in the South Pacific when he thought about being taken prisoner and being forgotten. And he wrote down the phrase, "You are not forgotten." Thanks. P MIA flag is the only flag to fly over the White House other than the flag of the United States. It is displayed at all federal buildings and all United States post offices. It is also law in Pennsylvania that the PM MIA flag must be flown on all state properties where the United States flag is also flown. This legislation was authored by Representative David Maloney, who's with us this evening. By your approval to fly the PMIA flag, you will be joining other
046local districts and districts across the country that are recognized the importance of this symbol. It offers opportunities to educate students about military history, sacrifice, and civic responsibility. you would be making a statement that in Borertown we remember in Bertown we honor those who have not yet returned home and in Borertown we teach our children that remembrance is not just a word it's an action I respectfully ask that you consider this proposal seriously and with the re reverence it deserves the act of flying this flag would cost very little but have a great significance to many in the community. Thank you for your time, service to the community, and commitment to honoring those who served. I'd like to ask Representative Maloney to say a few words if you would. Thanks, Cliff. What you said here tonight,
047I think, was so straightforward, so simple and to the point. I also heard tonight that you don't bet against Boyertown. For us who are Boertown grads and know what kind of foundational support and feeder programs, as we heard tonight on many different occasions. I'm honored to be a part of this initiative. I was honored to be a part to create this law and I'm honored to know that my alma mater would be considering this to really not forget those who are the reason we are here. Those who have given the ultimate sacrifice and deserve that recognition. So, I did bring flags that um I would provide a flag for every school building, whatever would be necessary and um hope to be able to go forward with anything that school district needs. I appreciate the uh
048time here tonight and uh I know it's difficult to see me. I'm on a statewide sportsman's listening tour and I thought it would be appropriate after having a photo op today that we would continue that for this evening. So, uh, I really appreciate it. I want to thank you all the board members knowing what it's like sitting on that side and the challenges that we face and the recognition that we really um, deserve when good intentions are put forward. So, thank you so much. This would be a box of flags. [Applause] Gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for your service. Any questions that the board has for our presenters this evening with regard to this um recommend recommendation? You will find um down in our itemized agenda that there is a motion for this and
049we will get to that um very shortly. Thank you gentlemen. Treasures report. Good evening. Tonight I will be presenting to you highlights from the March 2025 treasures report. For local revenue, delinquent tax collection was $184,331.61. Earned income tax was $85,646.93 and transfer tax collection was $97,93510. For state revenue, special education subsidy received was $768,815. Our prek count subsidy was $48,375. And for pupil transportation was $423,665. Also, retirement subsidy was $2,289,13061. And in the category for expenditures, salaries, benefits, and professional services accounted for 75% of our total expenditures for the month of March. And that concludes my report for this evening. Thank you. At this time, we'd be looking for a motion to approve the treasury report. Mr. Zawatada. Yes. Mr. Broofphy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Mrs. Katz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr.
050Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Penerella, yes. Motion carries. Takes us down to the superintendent's report and its itemized agenda. We're going to begin with item A, P MIA flag. And we are recommending approval of the display of the P MIA flag to be flown at all Boertown area school district buildings effective tomorrow, April 23rd, and begin and begin the amendment process of policy 807 to reflect language of this flag's display. Zoat seconds. Mr. Zatada. Yes, Mr. Brophy. Yes, Miss Dro. Yes, Mrs. Kratz. Yes, Miss Nyman. By all means, yes, Mrs. Scott. Yes, Mr. Brad Uptogrove. Yes, Mr. Roger Upgroove. Yes, Mr. Penella. Yes. Motion carries. With your approval this evening, we will begin flying the PMIA flag tomorrow morning at our high school. There will be a um a a a small
051ceremony beginning roughly 7:45. We invite all board members, community members, certainly members that were here this evening to present and we've put some other invitations out as well. Um our ceremony will last approximately 15 minutes. We will have the NJC that are here that aren't on a trip. They have a scheduled trip uh for tomorrow, but those that will be here will help raise our flags. um with some commentary. So, I thank you gentlemen for your efforts in bringing this to Boyertown and uh we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. So, thank you. Thank you. One more for bringing this up. This is long overdue. This is something that should have happened years ago. uh my graduating class of high school 1968 sent a lot of people over there, you know, for I was in
052I was in the Philadelphia area. So, we were we were a go. You graduated high school, you went into service and you went to Vietnam. So, did you serve? I did not. I I was I was one of the ones that went to college and when I got out in 72 is when they were they were doing the draw down. So, otherwise I was my number was 36. So mine was on my way over. Mine was 56. 52. Yeah. I was 36. It was definitely going. Mine was 16. I was already I was already there. Yeah. Say they got you before you walked out the door. But I was in the Kington area too. So once again, high density area, you know, everybody. But long overdue. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank
053you. Thank you guys. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thank you, gentlemen. Under item B, 2023 20224 audited financial statements. We are recommending board of directors accept the 2023 24 audited financial statements as presented at our previous meeting. Zata moves. I'll second. Mr. Zada. Yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Mrs. Kraz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Uproveve, yes. Mr. Panerella, yes. Motion carries. Under item C, 2025 2026 proposed final general fund budget. Administration recommends the board of school directors accept the two thou, excuse me, accept the proposed final general fund budget for the 25 2025 2026 year as presented. Move. I'll second. I just have a couple questions. Your mic, your mic. Sorry. The um the raise that we're giving for support staff. I know that
054we're doing investigations on that. I understand that if the time comes and we have all our information and we find we may need a little bit more than what has been allocated, will there be additional funds in the budget for that or will we be stuck with what we put in here? Currently, there is the dollar per hour increase built into the proposed budget. Um the board could always um pass another resolution later throughout the year after the um HR department finishes that study um and decide to give increases and we as an administration would share how that increase would be supported from a revenue perspective. Okay, fine. And then the other question was I'm not sure I'm just I'm just kind of following up on this. So the budget included two new teachers. Is
055that is that correct? Did I understand that right at the last meeting? Because I I there is a total of 13.5 new there were two that weren't really designated for anywhere. Was that for full day kindergarten or was that for anywhere we correct? There was two full day kindergarten positions built in to start building the millillage to support that program should the district um school board approve moving forward with that program. Okay. So if we find we need them somewhere else, we could use it for that as well if if that if that came up. I'm just getting it out there. No big deal. All right. Thank you. Okay. Good. Okay. Question on that money that's being put aside for the full-time kindergarten. Where's that going to be put? And how are we going to
056know it's going to be safely tucked there to eventually support the full-time kindergarten whenever we would go forward with that? It would be designated as part of a signed fund balance for that specific purpose. But that doesn't mean you can't go in and use it for something. Uh the board would have to make a decision to allow it to be uncommitted for that purpose because that concerns me. Putting that money in there, anybody's going to go in and take it and use it for whatever. Um no, I can tell you that that won't happen while I am here. Okay. My second question is um I'm not sure how much is left in the 24 25 school year that would go into capital projects or whatever, but what do we have built into this year 25
05726 school year to go into the capital funds? currently there is $300,000 built to go back into capital reserve to replenish that. Do you know in the 2526 budget proposed budget? Do you know how much was in for 2425? Um, I can get I can pull that information and get back to you because it's my understanding from 23 to 24 6 million was put into the capital funds project. That is correct. And where did that money come from? That money came from not spending up to the level that we had budgeted for and having higher than um expected revenue. So that's taxpayer dollars being put into the capital funds to be used accordingly. Correct. The excess was yes put into capital reserve for capital project purposes. If you don't put money aside into a capital
058reserve fund, you have no other option to fix your buildings or properly maintain them without doing um a bond or a debt offering. I get that. But my point being that is taxpayer money that is being used eventually probably for turf fields. It would be used for any capital projects that the board so approves. But it was said at one point that there is no tax money being used for turf fields. And that is incorrect. That's that's not that's not what was said. What was said was that we were not raising taxes for turf fields. But we just raised taxes where we didn't need to to the tune of $6 million that people out there who cannot afford things. And $6 million that could have went back to taxpayers. I'm I'm being asked by people
059in the community. Topah Hawin gives back. Why can't we? That's the next thing on the list after this. No, Tolbah Haken gives back in in the tax thing. It's not. They don't tax their people like we are. The next The next item is property tax rebate. You don't get it. I guess I don't. Yeah, Mr. Okay. Maybe I'm not looking at this right, but I'm having trouble finding the assigned fund balance and the unassigned fund balance. How much is that each? That would have was in the most recent presentation done at the committee of the whole meeting. There was um present one of the slides had all of that information in it. Um as of June 30th, 2024, the non-spendable fund balance was 141,776. Committed fund balance was $4,100,000. Assigned was 14 million and unassigned
060was $10,98,814. Which which account is the turf money coming out of? That is the your general fund balances. It is not coming out of the general fund. It would be coming out of the capital projects funds. Capital projects. And how much is in there? Um, I can get that information for you. Those balances have been shared in the board weeklys as an attachment. I understand that, but I get very confused. Don't quote me, but I think it was around 31 million. 29. 29. 29. So, the turf will come out of there. And is that where the uh Breton Elementary project is coming out? That would be coming out of the capital projects pending board approval. Correct. So that's 24 million. So we have 5 million left. And the money that we're going to be shortfall
061for this budget is coming out of where the general fund fund balance. And how much are we going to be short do you think? If you go back to the most recent presentation, our estimated fund balance as of June 30th, 2025, our unassigned is expected to drop from 14 million to 12,724,000. So roughly a 1.8 million. Okay. Do we have anything in there at all? Or do we think anything about the Department of Ed uh the federal department of ed closing down and the money going to the state? That scares me. Did we give any consideration to that? The um federal dollars that we um receive um I don't believe will be impacted by the elimination of the department of ed. They are part of another portion of the um US code. Yeah, it'll go
062to the state and then we could be in big trouble. I don't anticipate that happening because boy usually gets last. All right. These numbers aren't coming out right. Thank you. Yeah. What percentage, Miss Denola, are we supposed to keep in our capital funds project account? They recommend two to 3% of what the um rebuilding cost would be and that would be roughly what? I can share that out with you. We provided that a number of months ago. I can reshare that. Yeah, Mr. Brophy two to 3% we talking would you say that's like 14 million 15 million somewhere around there just a guess hazard guess okay first of all let me I want to thank Dr. Daviser and Miss Denakola for putting together this budget. Uh there's a lot of thought, a lot of time,
063effort, and work went into it. Uh and I do thank you guys for that. I know it's a lot of time, time consuming and strenuous to to say the least. To me, budgets have to be two things. They've got to be realistic and they've got to be sustainable. I'm not going to go into realistic because year by year, you can always say it is. Sustainable is another issue to me. This budget, let me just start with the the general fund this year. You're starting with a two $2 million hole approximately. That's saying, Mr. Nicole, is that taking into account or are you anticipating all of the money that Governor Shapiro is saying he's going to get us extra or is that or or that will that deficit get bigger? We have built into the budget
064what the governor has proposed, right? Should those numbers not come to fruition, the increase that's currently budgeted in is approximately $1.1 million. So that that hole could become $3.1 million instead of $2 million. That would that be a fair assumption on my part? Correct. Okay. Uh I I'm very very well aware of how you use general funds. I understand that even at a three point the $3 million hole, you use the general fund to plug shortterm short-term spikes in your in your spending. And I wholeheartly agree with that. I think that's one thing you should do. However, when you do that, I'd be looking to where you're look you're you're moving to fix that hole in in the next year. I don't see that. In fact, I see absolutely the opposite as we go forward.
065This spike is going to get higher. The board has introduced all day kindergarten for next year or for next year, the next couple years, and we're already starting to fund that by the extra spots. So, the deficit won't go down. The deficit will only get bigger. Uh, and I know we have about nine or 10 million dollar million dollars in the general fund. That won't last long. That's not my worst fear. Uh is I have not seen a process in this board. Things come into this room and all of a sudden we're moving on them. Mr. Denol, do we have a five and 10 year plan, a forward-looking spending plan? We do and we are currently um as you're are aware of working through um strategic planning for the district which will guide the um
066how that plan okay moves forward. Do we follow it up to this point? Um, the board has followed. Yes, there are annual budgets that are built into those projections. Correct. So, turf fields were in our five-year budget and we were following that along. The five-year budget did not include capital projects. That is part of the strategic planning that is currently being done to build those plans out. So, but but it came in without being part of any of our forward forward forecasting projects. Is all day kindergarten part of our five-year project, five-year projections, or did that just come in? That has not been part of the right other plans. So, my point is, and I I might be being a little brutal with this, but my point is that things come into this room, we
067get five board members to say they like the idea, and you're mandated, so this isn't your fault. you're mandated to go follow that and start bringing those issues in. And what concerns me is a couple other things that have come up. We've had some board members ask for smaller class sizes. So, is that going to be mandated to the to the district and all of a sudden we got to get we got to do that and find money for that? Uh, languages in middle school that's been that's been brought up. Since there's no process, I have to assume that it can come in one day and two weeks later we can be working on it. It's not fair to you guys for one because it's it's a constant mandates coming into you. So therefore, no
068matter what budget you give me, unless we get some sort of project proc, you know, process how we're going to bring things in, it's not sustainable. I'll use that word. So now let me go to the capital fund. I think if I'm not mistaken, and you can correct me, then Nicole, I think there was 29 million in in the in the capital fund. You then in a presentation a couple weeks ago came up with about $2 million of capital improvements we're going to do. That's about I'm I'm taking it that's part of that 29 million. So that would bring us down to $27 million. 15 million for Bordertown Elementary, which that's necessary. That's brings us down to $12 million. $10 million or excuse me, $8 million for tariff fields. Brings us to $4 million. And
069that's not including what capital work we're going to have to do if you bring in all day kindergarten because we don't have rooms for that. So therefore, there goes the capital budget. So we go from being pretty good on a general fund, we go from being pretty good on a capital budget to going down to where not really good on anything. So the state, let's go to the see with the capital budget for a minute. The state sits there and says we should keep what 3 to 4% in the capital funds. Is is what's the reasoning for that? The state does not say that. though they recommend the PASBO, the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials and other um state supported state organizations that support education recommend from 2 to 4%. Okay, so a a
070fiscally responsible organization, would they follow that guidance or would they ignore it? They would follow that, Mr. Broofphy, but I can tell you that prior to um me being here, there was many years where it was not followed. I I understand that and that's my point. We're going back. So here's the three I'm going to say the three paths you're offering me. One is to be fidiciary or fiscally irresponsible and fid fidiciarily negligent and continue on our path and take us down to zero funds. push off the school repairs on Bordertown Elementary, which we've seen how that works when we do it. So, that's not a path that we go, or postpone turf fields, which this board has adamantly refused to talk about. So uh as we move forward, I see a financial pitfall coming
071this way and even even taxing to the maximum amount may not be enough to get us out of that. So it's, you know, in saying that you can understand my my I'm not very much in favor of the budget. So that's pretty clear I think. But what I would like to hear is from board leadership, Mr. Zada, Mr. Panerella, why should I approve this budget? What what what in it is what in their in their view makes this the best thing for the people, the students of the Bortown Area School District? Well, you guys, I I'll tell you right now, I'll make some corrections for you. One, the board hasn't voted to give us kindergarten. it just talked about looking into it, right? So, that that hasn't passed. We haven't we haven't had the meeting
072where they come back with all the information for the where they tell us that schools will have to be changed around or they'll have to be added to. There's nothing that came back. So, there's no guarantee that that would ever get voted for. So, you really can't put it in there. And if and if it did, if it did, it would be three years from now or two and a half years from now. It's on the table. What does it have to do with the budget right now? you're already creating positions in the budget to support that. So that tells me that it's on the table, it's going forward. This isn't just we're thinking about doing it. This is we're going to do it. So let's not let's not fine. No, that's not that's not
073fact. So then take the two to take the two positions out of the budget for the for kindergarten as we move forward. Didn't you say you wanted to get um fiscally responsible? Pardon? Didn't you want to say you want to be fiscally responsible putting in those two teachers possibly was just looking forward that money can be rolled back directly if the board shoots it down that we're to where? Back to the general fund. Well, well, for one, for one, if we don't move forward with kindergarten, you'd have those two teachers. People have been I mean, I'm sure you've seen emails where people are complaining about the classroom sizes that will lower that. Then we address that when it comes up. You don't address it here, then say, "Well, if this doesn't work, then we'll just
074move it over here." That's not just the responsibility, which is a lot. That's what's the right word? I can't think of the right word, but just to go back and clarify something else. Um, if you were correct with the math that we ended up falling another million in the hole, which would put our general fund at 11 million, the state only allows you to hold what, 8% of your full budget. That's 12 million. So, we're right there. We're We're right where we're supposed to be. You're missing the point. No, I'm just saying I'm saying that is where you're supposed to be. Nothing left. Why? As we keep going through this and take you're you're not doing anything to plug the the deficit spending is going to continue. This isn't a one-year blip. This is a
075continu. Well, when you Well, actually, it is for the teachers. It's building in a the 13 new teachers. Like, you're adding it into the budget. So, now it's in the budget. You don't have to continually raise your taxes to pay for what you already raised because it's already raised. It's already built in to the millillage. I don't understand that. If you're going to hire if you're going to hire nine more teachers, that's more $1.6 million. Well, that that's built into that 3% increase. That's what that's for. That increase is built into the village and fishes. Now, 3% is going to cover everything. Originally, when the t this was brought up to 3% was because of the teachers contract. Correct. present level of teachers and we've and we've stay and we've stayed at that with the
076underut revenue increases as well. It's not just the 3% tax increase. So there's a teaching at the same time. So we're we're trying to obiscate at this point. We're going to continue this hole and we're going to start to add to this hole. All I'm asking is what is the what is the board leadership position and how are they going to move forward so that we don't fall farther and farther in this hole or how they going to convince us that it's not going to happen. We do agree that elementary school needs to be fixed. It should have been fixed 15 years ago. Okay. We do not know where the numbers are coming in at turf. They have not been put out for bid yet. Okay. There was this we're given an $8 million number.
077Mr. I've got to go on the numbers I was given at the presentations here. One was 15 million for the building, one was 8 million for the turf. That that is what I have to work with and that's what I'm going to work with with both fields. And we still didn't even decide whether or not to go with both fields. It doesn't matter. And we and then it was brought up that well what about other things? Where's the other money coming from? So you're going to take it off the table and we're not going and it's going to Well, at this point the only at this point the only thing on motion on the floor is to vote on vote on the proposed general fund budget for 202526. I will be a no vote and
078I'm I'm here expressing why I'm going to be a no vote. So you're not for hiring more teachers. You don't want more teachers. Is that what you're saying? Because you have to raise the taxes to pay. You want to hire nine teachers for kindergarten. You're saying we may or may not have No, we're we're hiring 13. We are not saying we're hiring nine teachers. When we say we have two full day kindergarten positions built into the budget, that means we're starting to build in the millillage to support hiring of those positions should the board approve full day kindergarten in the future. It does not mean that we will be hiring those positions. We're hiring a position. That's that's not a budgetary process. So let's say so in a world that I could just erase that.
079So I want listen I'm erasing it. We're down to 11 teachers more. Would you have voted for it then? For what? Would you have voted for the budget if we remove those two teachers? Not with all this these things sitting out you guys are sitting on. What things are we sitting on? A building turf fields all day kindergarten. Are you saying that we should raise the taxes higher than 3%? I don't know where you're going with this. No, you're going to have to. So you want to raise the tax higher? No, I want to take these things out and get back to reasonable. Are you then gonna You don't want to You don't want to remove the teachers. Mr. Panro, do you understand? You just shut it off. You just shut off your thing. Do
080you understand what a fiveyear look ahead? That's what we're supposed to be doing right now. That's what the whole thing is to push us forward. Meno, are we using a five-year look ahead plan? Are we are we bringing it as we bring it up? In other words, five years ago, did we talk about turf fields and and uh all day kindergarten? I I'm pretty sure we talked about Bordertown Elementary getting getting their work done. So that I'm not not disputing that. But I am disputing the fact that we have no process. It's whatever the board decides on that day, that week, and now let's move it into the budget. Let's forget about everything else that we're going to do and we're just going to do this and move everything else down. So 5 years ago,
081you knew about the elementary school and you were on the board and did nothing. And did nothing, which probably cost us about another $5 million. Did you Did you just bring it forward? Did you bring it forward to be run? We're not going to beat a dead horse here. All right. So, let's get let's get moving. Go with this. We can have that talk some other time. Okay. This will be the roll call vote to approve the proposed final general fund budget for 2025 26 that includes a 3% tax increase. Mr. Zawatada, yes. Mr. Brophy, no. Miss Diroff, no. It's too much. Mrs. Katz, yes. Miss Nyman, no. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Penello, yes. Motion carries. takes us to item D 202526 property tax rental rebate resolution.
082We are recommending administration recommends to the board of directors to approve the 2526 property tax rental rebate resolution as presented. Move second. Mr. Zawata yes Mr. Broofphy. Yes. Miss Deroff. Yes. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Ms. Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Uptogrove, yes. Mr. Panerello, yes. Motion carries. Takes us to item E. CHA/DY agreement for the professional services for the Borertown Elementary School HVAC and roof replacement project. administration recommends approval of the CHA Dwey agreement for professional services for Bertown Elementary HVAC and roof replacement project as presented. Go ahead, Miss Diamond. I will vote for this, but I am still and I would like to make a motion that I am under I don't know how to say it that Mr. Sheiel is not qualified to be in charge of this.
083He has no qualifications for it. I I'm I'm telling you, it's going to come back and it's going to bite us in the b in the butt. So, I would like to make a motion that I'll approve this, but with that being part of the minutes, because if I don't have it as part of the minutes, it never happened. Are you trying to amend the motion to make it contingent upon Mr. Shields having no involvement in the in the project? No, I'm making a motion that I wanted on record that I am for the project but against Mr. Sheiel being um I don't know what did we call that Mr. Broofphy of the works. Clerk of the works. He's not qualified for that. So, I just want to be on record because if it's not
084in the minutes, it didn't happen. Correct. Well, if it if it's not in the minutes, it doesn't constitute the official action. But I'm not understanding your comment because it's not an action. If you were if you were making the motion contingent upon Mr. Sheiel not acting in the capacity as clerk of the works, I would understand it. You just don't make a motion and just have a comment previous thing because I vote no on the minutes because it's not detailed enough. They said I have to make sure it's detailed. So, how do I get it detailed that I am for the for getting Boertown Elementary done, but I'm against Mr. Sheiel being the clerk of the works for it. Um, who will be doing the minutes? Um, my secretary. You will? My secretary will be.
085Yes. Okay. Uh, if that comment just gets into the minutes and ultimately gets approved, that's how it gets done under the circumstances. So, uh, the rest of the board will have to agree to include that in the minutes. Would that change the vote if he's a part of it then? No, no, no. I think she's saying she doesn't want to make a change to the motion. She wants to support the motion as presented, but she would like the minutes to reflect her concerns about Mr. Shield's qualifications to act in that capacity. And all I'm saying is that can uh those minutes be agreed to be presented in that fashion and ultimately the board would vote on the minutes. Correct. Thank you. Is that something that can be done? Is that normal? You tell me. Is
086that normal? Is that normal? I mean, it is it's on it's on film for the last four minutes. Don't ask me to make a comment of whether Boyer Town's actions are normal. I don't want to set another precedence here, but I mean it's been on film for the last 3 minutes her talking about it. I mean, that's I mean, the film is not the uh appropriate record. So, the issue is you have a board member who's making a request specifically to have that comment included as part of the minutes. And I'm just saying neither I nor you at this point in time can answer that question. If it gets into the draft minutes, the board will vote on it at that time. That's all I'm asking for is that it's part, excuse me, part of
087the minutes so that later on when something happens, I'm I'm I'm covered. I'm not going to give you a normal or not normal answer. Okay. It it certainly is not typical for the actions that we have taken in the past. Are we to take a vote now on whether or not she could add the excess to the minutes? Is that we're about to vote on? No. All you're voting on is her vote, but she's making it clear that she would like to have it noted her comment when she's making the vote that she has concerns about Mr. Sheiel. That's what she's saying. Okay. So, who's who's that up to? Pardon me. Is that up to me to add her minutes? I don't get it. Well, what do we have to do as a board to
088make it happen? Ult ultimately uh if it gets recorded in the draft minutes as such that will be brought to the board in the future for an approval of those minutes. Okay. I don't write the minutes. So, uh whoever writes the minutes, if they include that comment in there, the board will at that point vote it in or vote it out. Okay. I would ask that the board direct administration as to the direction they want. That that is not something that I believe the secretary nor the taker of the minute should be required to decide upon. Okay, that so I think let let's go and uh get the votes on this and then I think after that then there could be an issue of whether the board we're in the process of pulling the vote
089for the project as presented. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Zawada. Yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Dro, no. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Uptogrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Penello, yes. Motion carries. And related to this issue, uh is there direction on the part of the board to note uh Ms. Nyman's concerns uh to be included in the draft minutes that will ultimately be voted upon in this matter? I don't not for me. No, I don't think it affects the vote. So, it is pointless. Okay. I'm just saying uh is there a motion in my opinion? Okay. Understood. I'll make the motion to have it part of the minutes. Second. So, it's not a motion to make it at this point. We're not voting on the minutes. I think at this
090point in time we're directing the secretary to prepare the minutes with that being included and then uh at a future meeting you'll be voting on the entire minutes uh because at this point in time we're not addressing the entire minutes of the meeting. Are you comfortable with making the motion in that fashion? The motion to direct the board secretary to prepare minutes reflecting your comments and concerns about Mr. Shield asking in that acting in that capacity. Yes. And Miss Doff, are you comfortable with your second in that? Yes. Does agree? Okay. Go around the room and see if there's yeses or nos. A yes would agree that the the secretary will include that in the draft minutes. It doesn't mean that the minutes get ultimately approved that way. Mr. Zvada. No. Mr. Broofphy. Yes, Miss
091Duroff. Yes, Mrs. Katz. Yes, Miss Nyman. Yes, Mrs. Scott. No, Mr. Brad Upgrove. Yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove. No. Mr. Penello, no. Motion carries. takes us to all day kindergarten proposal. Administration requesting approval of the board for the administration to move forward with the planning for a proposed full day kindergarten program as presented. I move second. I would like to see all options explored, meaning that um there would still be a half-day options for half a half day option for families that would prefer that. Would that be part of the planning? Like would we be investigating all possibilities? Yeah, that would be something that we would bring to the board. um how functional and how simple it would be to do inclusive of a full day program. We're unsure at this point in time, but that
092would have to be something that we include in the planning processes. Okay. I was researching some other districts and there there are a lot that have a choice. Near Pittsburgh, where I'm from, a lot of districts have something called kindergarten plus. It can be morning, it can be afternoon. It's offered through the same provider that does the before care and the after care. Parents can enroll their children for a daily fee. They can choose one day, they can choose five days. There's a lot of flexibility. Um these school districts are very high achieving in the top 10 of the state. So, um I just would like everything to be looked at. We would certainly look at all those options, present back to you financial pieces to that as well. Obviously with many variations of a
093program as such the more options you give the more transportation needs the more different differentiation of of staffing needs are are are required inside of that. So we will try to explore all options for you as a board to bring a multiple set of recommendations and things that were explored um as as as we continue on this process. Okay. So, um, as far as the expense that we will take on to investigate full day kindergarten, is that mostly time or are we I know we're doing the demographic study. I understand that. But what other expenses do you foresee? So one of the things I do foresee if the board were to approve the uh continuation of the planning I would highly recommend to the board that it um work on a targeted feasibility study. So,
094putting together a request for a proposal for what our goal is um in in hosting an all day inclusive of possible half-day options and things of that nature to find out what can our facilities offer in that scope. We investigated that to a certain extent in the broad planning. Mr. Stout's team did a wonderful job. Um, a lot of these things, as you've heard earlier tonight, um, come down to funding and come down to facilities and whether or not we can host those inside of the buildings that operate now in addition to maintaining our families in the schools to which they reside, right? Um, all becomes the the necessary things. a targeted feasibility study. Would we would ask then through the the proposal to uh deliver possibly three options as to how could we host
095the types of things that we're seeking and whether it's architectural firms, construction management firms would investigate our facilities, but really targeted on that kindergarten program to make suggestives back to the board as to how can that be operationalized. Okay. Um, as I as I um I actually asked around the community about this because uh I'm not really for this initially. I'm more for smaller class sizes and in my research I'm finding that that has more of a pronounced impact on student achievement at those lower levels than full day kindergarten. But we're at the beginning of the research. So that's what I'm finding with that. So, I I'm kind of in agreement with offering if if it gets to that because I also understand this is in committee up in Harrisburg to require full day kindergarten,
096which is another reason why we need to somewhat prepare. Hopefully, they're going to fund it with uh the requirement. But, uh depending on what they do there, it's probably good to be ready for that. Um the other thing was uh the the yeah the cost of read there was one other thing um just give me a minute to read my notes here I can't even read my own writing okay so yeah so I was talk so the building space and all that reassignment and all that the funding that that the extra money that that will take as well was another thing I was concerned about so that was Mr. N. Okay. After the presentation, Mr. Stout, thank you so much. My phone was off the hook. Uh, everybody that was talking to me is definitely
097no way do they want fifth and sixth grade and seventh and eighth at different middle schools. They do not want modulars. Um, I've had several people that have written me that said, "Keep it as half day program because that's what we've had. It's working." Um, so I'm I'm concerned. I I was in modulars when I went to high school. I don't remember if my son was in modulars or not, but we've had modulars all around. We've had modulars at elementaryaries. It's a fiasco. It's not a conducive right uh environment for our children to learn. Not at all. You're going in and out of the cold, the rain, the snow. So, if that's what you're planning, my vote will be a no. And thank you for your offering that. You know, I think where we're at
098right now is not suggesting any options at this point. um you know part of a targeted feasibility study would look to seek out the many options and varieties to which we might may be able to explore. Um I agree with you Mrs. Nyman. Portables uh detached portables would not be something that I would bring as superintendent to you in this day and age as um for you to explore. Those would be attached classrooms that would be connected to the building most especially for the safeguard not only just the weather themselves but for all the other security protocols that we um are mandated now to maintain and certainly not something I would ever put a a a student in today's um educational system in. So I I I think we're at such the the early stages.
099This this motion this evening is is meant to do you want us to explore this further and allowing us to engage probably yes in some outside services for some professional assistance that go well beyond the scope of what we have here. Certainly, we can count seats, we can count heads, we can look at classrooms, but a variety of different architectural features that we may not even be thinking of. What are some of the things that meet in meet or don't meet in in code? Um, and the different variations of possibilities when working with townships when it comes to other things if there is any alterations that need to be made with buildings or simply just engaging that building and maybe some ADA compliances that that may need be may may need to be engaged and
100initiated because of acting on those buildings. So, we have more questions than we do answers at this point. And I I think it's an opportunity to uh dig in a lot deeper to figure out possibilities. You know, as an administration, we're charged with bringing to you opportunities and a vision for the future of not only the here and now, but as Mr. Proofy mentioned with looking at planning five years out and beyond. Um, hence the reason we're we're we're hoping to engage in an enrollment study to look at what our capacity levels will be. What is the projected future of Bertown School District when it comes to students? So, there's a lot of things that I would suggest that have to be looked at, investigated to make decisions at this board level. part of which
101is investing back to the students and to this community in terms of figuring out how do we increase our educational opportunities? How do we continue to make that continuous improvement along the way? And this is something that was not only discussed just more recently has kind of been out there hanging over for the past year, but we've dug in a little bit deeper and Mr. Stout's team had met collectively numerous times to be able to give you a somewhat teaser of a presentation to suggest, do you want us to go further with this? Could I recommend that you change the motion then? Because right now it sounds like we're we're doing it. No, we're not doing it. Not even close. I when I created this and this was something that I stated just out loud
102at our last meeting. I made it pretty broadly and feel like it is about as broad as I can make a motion for the general planning of it does not commit us to it move forward with planning for a proposed full day kindergarten. You know maybe you could make it as general planning feasibility study proposal to look into. Right now to me it sounds like we're going forward with this. Well, that that would be a decision by the board to amend this this motion that's that's put forth. Okay. Mr. Alan first. Good. Good. Could you tell me um this is all well and good. We're going to spend a lot of time and money into continuing to see if this is a possibility. Um, do we have the space now? Our estimate would be no
103that we do not have the necessary space. Thank you. Okay. The how I'm taking this is what you're asking is just to go forward with it to investigate it. You're not even really asking the board for any funds at this point. Is that correct? Oh, no. Well, as you stated, we have those two kindergarten positions in there to build millillage. Now again the question has come up if you so choose not to move forward with a kindergarten program right that that money stays within the general fund and can be repositioned differently and and and so forth if necessary um with regard to it that's the only outside of collectively you know personnel putting putting time and energy into those things. Yes, but I'm saying it's outside of that, which is part of the budget that's
104been presented, right? I'm not going to go back to that again. Y you're not asking us to commit any additional funds right now. You're just asking us to say, "Hey, it's a good idea to go forward and look into this and see if it's a viable option for the school district." Well, there are there is one thing hanging, right? That's our enrollment study, and that's that's part in in part of this. We've already approved. No, you haven't. Okay. Right. That's right. That's one, right? We're still waiting from the board to to possibly give me some suggestions as to organizations to bring in. The second would be if the board were to move forward with this, I do project that we would be coming back to the board for some sort of feasibility targeted study to
105be conducted. That that's fine. I'm not what I'm saying is that the to move forward the okay to move forward tonight is you're not asking for funds. You're just asking for the go-ahhead to go forward. So you would be coming back for funds for approvals. That's correct. Okay, that's fine. Okay, that's well within the purview of the administration. Yes. If at all possible to um I would like to see possibly a committee. You already set up a committee, but if possible of up to three board members that might be interested in seeing and working with the current group of people you have invested with Mr. Stout um to get involved, if that's at all possible, I think we can certainly involve uh uh board members in inside of the that committee as as we move
106forward. Yep. Mr. Zada. Yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Derroof, yes. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Upgrove, yes. Mr. Panerello, yes. Motion carries. Under item G, Boertown Area School District Special Education Plan, administration requests the approval of the Borertown Area School District special education plan as presented. I'll second. Mr. Zawatada, yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Derroof, yes. Mrs. Katz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Mr. Brad Uptogrove. Yes. Mr. Roger Uptogrove. Yes. Mr. Penello. Yes. Motion carries. Item H, guidance 339 plan. Administration requests the approval of the guidance 339 plan as previously presented. I'll move. Mr. Zawatada. Yes, Mr. Brophy. Yes, Miss Diroff. Yes, Mrs. Katz. Yes, Miss Nyman. Yes, Mrs. Scott. Yes, Mr. Brad Upgrove. Yes, Mr. Roger Upgrove. Yes, Mr. Panerella. Yes.
107Motion carries. Item I. Item I, Btown School District and BABBE memorandum of understanding regarding employee 2678. Administration recommends the approval of the Bertown Area School District and Bertown Area Education Association memorandum of understanding regarding employee 2678 as had been presented. Move for a few seconds. Mr. Zada. Yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove, yes. Mr. Roger Uprove, yes. Mr. Penerella, yes. Motion carries. Under item J, 2025-26 MCIU agreement for student services. And we the administration does recommend the approval of the annual renewal of the McGomery County Intermediate Center agreement for student services for the 2526 school year as presented. 90 second Mr. Zawada yes Mr. Brophy yes Miss Diroff yes Mrs. Katz yes Miss Nyman yes Mrs. Scott yes Mr. Brad Upgrove yes
108Mr. Mr. Roger Uprove. Yes. Mr. Panerello. Yes. Motion carries. Item K, 202526 Burks Career and Techn Technology Center budget. Administration does recommend the approval of the Burks Career and Technology Center 202526 proposed budget as presented. I'll second. Mr. Mr. Zawatada. Yes. Mr. Brophy. Yes. Miss Derroof. Yes. Mrs. Katz. Yes. Miss Nyman. Yes. Mrs. Scott. Yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove. Yes. Mr. Roger Up to Grove. Yes. Mr. Panorello. Yes. Motion carries. Item L, overnight trip. And the administration does recommend the approval of the following overnight trips as listed below. And you do see multiple trips there. I'll second. Mr. Zawatada. Yes. Mr. Brophy. Yes. Miss Diroff. Yes. Mrs. Kratz. Yes. Miss Nightman. Yes. Mrs. Scott. Yes. Mr. Brad Upgrove. Yes. Mr. Roger Uptogrove. Yes. Mr. Panerello. Yes. Motion carries. Item M, second reading approval of the policy
109006 meetings. Administration recommends the board of school directors approve policy 006 meetings for second reading and approval effective this evening, April 22nd. Mr. Zada, yes. Mr. Broofphy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Miss Katrz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Uptogrove, yes. Mr. Roger Uproveve, yes. Mr. Panerello, yes. Motion carries. Under item N, second reading, approval of policy 8:15.1, use of generative artificial intelligence in education. Administration recommends the board of school directors approve file policy 815.1 use of general generative artificial intelligence in education for second reading approval effective again this evening April 22nd I'll second oh I still have concerns on the protection of the of the of the teachers um when they uh challenge a student because there's going to be issues and I mean you say we're going to deal with that
110later. I'd like to see what those dealings are now before I vote on this. Yes. So we've been dealing with this for years, right? This has been artificial intelligence isn't just this year. It's it's been multiple years and we do deal deal with that through current code of conduct. What we plan to do upon hopeful approval of this policy is to engage a committee of teachers to start working on our administrative regs as it relates to a number of different things. Some of which includes investigation of code of conduct as it relates to this in in teaching and learning and u our professional development plan for teachers across the next mobile years as it relates to AI. um inside of that. So there's multiple layers to what we plan to do. We first need a
111policy in place that we can link to in order to create the administrative regulations. We're hoping to include a couple board members inside of that committee that would meet quarterly throughout the year and um would continue to review. We obviously have some work to do on the front end to to get these things up and running and and moving. So um I think all of those things are going to be answered but one answer to your question is we've already been dealing with this on multiple levels and it's handled in varying different types of ways. There is no one way to handle this just like progressive discipline based on the actions of a student may immediately rise to a whole level three versus beginning at a level one and and moving through a progressive. So
112depending on the situation and and what's occurred um really necessitate necessitates how we handle this situation and the part of it is the learning that goes on goes along with it. Mr. Zawata yes Mr. Brophy yes Miss Diroff yes Mrs. Crutz. Yes. Miss Nimon. Yes. Mrs. Scott. Yes. Mr. Brad Upgroo. Yes. Mr. Roger Upgroove. Yes. Mr. Panerello. Yes. Motion carries. Under item Otown SC school donor list. Don donation list. Uh there are three things listed inside of this list, much of which had been reviewed at our previous work session. Um again, there is not much in real estate value. Again, we are recommending that the board accept these three donations as listed. I'm in. I'll second. Mr. Salada, yes. Mr. Brophy, yes. Miss Durl, yes. Mrs. Crafts. Yes. M. Nyman. Yes. Mrs. Scott. Yes. Mr.
113Brad Uprove. Yes. Mr. Roger Uprove. Yes. Mr. Panel. Yes. Motion carries. Administration does recommend the approval of the personnel agenda as presented and listed here this evening. I'll second. Mr. Zawada, yes. Mr. Broofphy, yes. Miss Diroff, yes. Mrs. Kratz, yes. Miss Nyman, yes. Mrs. Scott, yes. Mr. Brad Uptoro, yes. Mr. Roger Uproveve, yes. Mr. Panorello, yes. Motion carries. Next, we have public com period number two. Missy Savage, board performance. This comment period is really Oops, I'm I'll pick that up. An alert for our community. Something has changed and not for the good. Over the past four to six years, the work of Boyertown board has changed drastically. First, committees were effectively eliminated and policy 9003, public participation in board meetings, was changed to require anyone wishing to speak in public comment to sign up via
114email prior to 100 p.m. on the day of the board meeting, thereby dissuading public commenters, especially those with busy lives and those less able to use technology. As the board met less frequently, informative sessions, presentations also became less frequent and less of the meeting content was attached to the meeting agendas for public view, making board business less transparent to our community. In addition, board discussion and deliberation became very sparse, often limited to barbs and bullying remarks and not done very timely. And please don't take my word for it. Board meeting minutes, presentations, and recordings are available going back many years. You can check my assertions for yourself. So this begs the question, if the board is not discussing important topics and all deliberation must happen in public per law, then how are they making informed
115decisions? And during this time, BASD was quietly languishing. As evidenced by the facilities presentation at the last meeting, very little has been done to maintain our facilities over the last six years in comparison to prior years. Not only have our facilities been deteriorating, but so has the quality of education. I acknowledge that this period I'm speaking of began with the COVID pandemic, which negatively impacted public schools everywhere. But looking at school rankings from niche, great schools and US News and World Report, Boyertown has not been bouncing back as well as other school districts, including those in our surrounding area. Since David uh Dr. Dr. David Heiser has come on board as our new superintendent in January. We have seen a return to frequent and informative presentations and they are now made available to the public
116again. And tonight, based on the superintendent telling the board that the way they operate is highly unusual, committees have now been reaated. Given that board members are required to take training that lays out the job and of an effective board very clearly, it begs another question. What has this board been doing for the last four to six years? Great public schools and great communities are deeply connected. The time for change is overdue. Primary election day is May 20th and we all have choices. Let's vote to move from stagnation and backsliding to a period of moving Bertown forward. Thank you. board comment period. Mr. Grove, now Miss Nim, I want to thank all the students that did come out tonight. It was great seeing them here. Wish they would stay longer. Um glad to see that
117we're going to help out the PS MAS because that's a great thing. They did a do a lot for our country and we should recognize them. Just quickly, I also enjoyed all the students that were here today and recognizing their accomplishments and thank you to our board reps for their report. Mr. I'd like to request the policy committee to look at policy 800 for the official recording board meeting minutes. Um the way the policy reads now it's only they only have to be kept one year and I think that's horrible. I don't think that's nearly long enough. I think they now everything's digitalized. It doesn't take much space or anything. So I think you should uh check into that policy. So, what do I have to do next to get it assigned to the committee?
118I believe the superintendent is taking notes right now. So, who's going to assign it to the committee? Thank you. What we will do is we will bring that to our next committee meeting for discussion among the board. So, I would encourage the board to take a look at that policy and come back with thoughts and ideas as to any changes you you would want considered. Thank you. What policy number we got? 800. It's uh AR1. Uh the the request for the P flags over the buildings is are the flags they also requesting to put the flags in the individual classrooms. I'd heard that as part of that overall uh no their their request was to uh fly the flags. We have singular polls at all of our schools. the P MIA flag with your approval
119this evening now will fly below um each of the United States flags um per per flag etiquette and and per code. Um so that's 10 facilities. There is one here at the education center that's not for individual classrooms. Um do we have the US flags in each individual classroom? We do. We pledge. We do have that. and we have that as a in policy as part of display along with our pledge of allegiance um procedure. I thought part of the overall request that was made through the state was also to put them in rooms, but I don't think it was pushed forward as much. Yeah, I haven't se I haven't seen that yet. Just a question. Yep. And we u as I said tomorrow morning we'll have a ceremony beginning between 7:45 and 8:00 to
120raise the high school flag. We expect to have our other schools um many thanks to Representative um Maloney this evening uh donating those flags. Hope to have those up. We have to to rig the the ropes and the poles correctly and expect to have those up probably within days if not a week the rest of the buildings. Yes, it was great to see our students as usual. Thank you to our reps for their information. Um, it was great to see the board come together for something as as important as the flag for our missing heroes. And I agree with Mr. Broofphy. It was long overdue. And uh, it's a shame that it had to be brought to us. We should have been already thinking about that. And that's all I have for now. Thanks. I
121have nothing further. Uh we do have uh two meetings in May. We have one scheduled for May 13th as our committee of the whole meeting will be scheduled here for the education center as well as the 27th for our legislative meeting. I do want to make one uh request of the board. Um we do have an RFP. Um we did receive those results. You have those results for the demographic study. Enrollment study has been requested for you to review those. And it was recommended suggested to the board that we bring back um two entities to um have a public conversation, allow for a brief presentation and somewhat mock interview of those for you to decide. We've made the administration's made two recommendations to you. Um, I would ask that by week's end that if I
122don't hear anything from the board on any other suggestives that we move forward with that so we can uh make contact with those organizations and schedule them appropriately whether they can be here in person or whether we need to work with them virtually through an interview process. I would like to move forward with that for the committee meeting with the hope of bringing one forward for uh a motion a recommended motion at the end of May so we can begin that process. So uh again asking by weeks end if you have any other suggestions of the organizations that were um that delivered results to you please bring those to my attention. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. N moves. We're going to have an ex executive session that follows this session to address personnel and uh
123potentially uh student issues. [Music]