Boyertown Area School Board Meeting: 10-25-22

001foreign [Music] welcome to the Boyertown Area school board meeting for October 25th 2022 Now call order uh roll call please Miss nyman here Mr panarello here Mr uptergrove here Mr zawada president Mrs Scott here Ms diroff president Mr Hemingway here Mrs Hogan president Mr Brophy here all present okay please stand for pledge of allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign moving moving forward previous executive sessions there were enough next I have student spotlights yep a highlight of the meeting exactly I'm always excited to go first we always put you first it's what we're here to celebrate right um I want to take a moment this morning uh this evening um to give you an update on Brianna our pediatric cancer Warrior um I got an email from her mom

002this morning and she shared the following Brianna had her disease evaluation scans and they got the results that there was no evidence of active disease yeah foreign she finally has a Curie score of zero which they have been struggling to get to since I was introduced to them earlier this year they are still waiting to hear from Memorial Sloan Kettering regarding the vaccine trial if she's accepted they will still need to do her normal bone marrow biopsy so she asked me to just have everyone keep them in their thoughts and prayers because there still is a slim possibility they could discover disease at that point um she is currently targeting coming to our meeting on November 22nd um all based on whether or not they hear from Sloan Kettering so that's where um things are

003with Brianna I told her we're all thinking about them and keeping them in our positive thoughts so um on November 10th we're going to hold our committee of the whole meeting at Earl Elementary and Mrs Franco and her team have asked that you please watch your email for a special invitation to participate in their candy and toiletries drive for the troops which will end with the contributions they receive that evening so please keep an eye on your email for some more information about the next meeting okay none of the really fun stuff um I have to I have to tell you um the two kiddos I'm gonna introduce to you tonight I haven't stopped talking about them since I met them on Friday um they are infectious and contagious and really neat kids and I

004can't wait to share them with you so tonight I'm proud to introduce Dylan class and Andrea Campbell as our student spotlights if you guys want to come up Dylan is joined by Mrs Gallagher The Bash school counselor um Dylan and Mrs Gallagher will talk to you about the National Merit Scholarship program and they'll be followed by Andrea who is named first runner-up in this year's Berks County outstanding young women's scholarship program so um just a little note when they come up here today one of the two of them was a little concerned that it might sound like they were bragging I said brag away okay so these two young people are amazing um I hope you enjoy meeting them and guys you're up [Applause] hi thank you for having us I'm going to give you

005a little bit of a history of what the nmsqt and PSAT is um it was should I just smell it yeah go ahead okay um so what it stands for is National Merit Scholarship qualifying test and the PSAT part of it stands for preliminary Scholastic aptitude test um the pset has been around prior to it being connected with the scholarship competition it started in 1959 and its purpose was to help students who were Juniors prepare to take the SAT so they could take the PSAT which colleges would not see the scores of as a practice before taking the SAT um it was usually taken in the fall of junior year and then prepare the student to take the real sat in the spring in 1971 the National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided that they wanted to

006use the PSAT as a qualifier test for a number of scholarships that they sponsored so um it's only this test is only offered in October we give the test using the school day option which means it's giving on a school day to the students there's also a Saturday option Eddie Jr who attends school on that day takes a test it's two hours and 45 minutes in duration so we usually do it on an early dismissal day and that is pretty much consumes their morning it contains math some evidence-based reading and writing and about 1.5 million students take it across the country on that Wednesday and Saturday in October um the uh National Merit Scholarship Corporation has their own formula where they convert the scores from the PSAT into a selection index and um they identify

007the semi-finalists using that formula so basically it boils down to one percent of those one and a half million students who take the test one percent being identified as semi-finalists for the National Merit Scholarship competition once they're identified as semi-finalists there are seven more requirements that they must meet to move from semi-finalist to finalist some of those are submitting an essay about themselves um their High School record needs to be submitted and it needs to be a rigorous challenging High School curriculum with satisfactory grades or more than satisfactory grades they also have to be a senior in high school who plans on going to a four-year College so finally a little bit about this young man standing next to me here who we're all very proud of this is still in class these were his

008scores from the test he took last October when he was a junior scored to 1470 out of a possible 15-20 points his Mass score was almost perfect and his evidence-based reading and writing wasn't too bad either so that index score is the formula that the um the National Merit Scholarship Corporation comes up with so his index score was a 219. I so they have an index score for every state they want to make it equal Across the Nation that um students from each state are receiving the same recognition so and I believe Dylan you were um Pennsylvania's was 218 that year okay and he scored it to 19. so this will go on now um Dylan will probably tell you more about the process he is going through right now but basically in the spring

009uh late March early April 7 250 of those finalists are going to receive scholarships so they range from um a single payment of two thousand five hundred dollars and corporate sponsored or college-sponsored Merit Scholarships that can range from of the four hundred dollars to a full ride for all four years renewable for school and we will find out in Spring apparently does so now Dylan's going to tell you a little bit about himself and his journey all right thank you Mrs Gallagher um a little bit about myself I'm a class officer here at bash I've been since 10th grade I was elected class president I'm also part of our varsity basketball team and I did a varsity cross country for just one year this year I just want to try it um I'm part of

010our TSA Club where I'm a member and a state and National finalists inside sleepyhead I'm a state finalist as well I'm part of our school's NHS Club math team and in turn in terms of some basd opportunities that I've had here I went to Gilbertsville and ever since second grade I was in an accelerated math program so in second grade I would go up to the third grade classroom and be in that advanced math environment where that really fostered like um my math skills particularly and in middle school I would actually Zoom with the high school students with a couple other kids as well I was also part of the gifted Club where it also expanded upon my map and Ela skills okay now about the tasks about the test itself we heard about the

011scholarship from a source uh like a couple months before I took the test so odd practice I think I took eight of the free Khan Academy practice tests in total I would for me particularly I would always do very well on the math section I would score from like zero to two wrong on the math section so I focused on the English section particularly and I really saw Improvement in that regard um I used to get like a lot more wrong and then I gradually practiced and got a lot better at that section after I graduated high school I definitely want to attend a four-year University where I'm looking to pursue a computer science degree and I put up the University of Oklahoma in Alabama on there because if I advance to a finalist standing

012for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation Oklahoma and Alabama actually sponsor a four-year full-ride scholarship so that's definitely something that I'm looking forward to um I'm not sure if I want to go there for sure yet but it's just some odd Mom and Dad yeah just some options for now that this Corporation has uh given me an opportunity to pursue um I've applied to 19 schools in total yeah but I'm interested in most of them are local like Pitt and Penn State Drexel University of Pennsylvania so yeah that's pretty much it he doesn't want to brag that I would like him to what math were you taking School in ninth grade uh like when I was when I was in that theater when I was in eighth grade taking ninth grade no when you entered High

013School in ninth grade okay you're already taking in ninth grade I was in AP Statistics and honors pre-kum so in case you missed it Dylan's the one who doesn't want to borrow [Laughter] because she didn't have any questions oh that's Oklahoma State yeah consumers yep so oh sorry okay um so two things um I appreciate your humbleness but I also think that sharing your story allows you really to inspire other people and that's it's really amazing what you've accomplished so congratulations thank you um and then I just wanted to um just say how smart it was to you know focus on your weaker skills so you could grow in that area something I think a lot of times we try to avoid things that are uncomfortable or hard for us yeah um yeah but you

014you really you you did that head on and the score shows how yeah yeah how effective that was definitely took some practice I think the first time I took a practice test my math score was like 200 points higher than the English so yeah yeah I just recently struggled through um College statistics so um and I say struggled putting it mildly so that is super impressive that you could do that as an eighth grader okay congratulations thank you any other questions not just a comment I wouldn't put my SAT scores up there next year even though they're from the last century somewhere [Applause] Andrea so I I'm gonna share that because Andrea has said this to me twice now that she's a little concerned about following Dylan and what I have to say about that

015is we are all different and we are all special and your journey is equally as important thank you you're welcome hi um I'm Andrea Campbell and I'm a senior at Boyertown Area High School and I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to talk about my experience in Berks County outstanding young women with you all I first heard about the program through a dance teacher and was encouraged to participate because of all the things I'm involved in here at bash I'm involved in chorus I'm an officer show choir link crew Art Club student council as a chair in the upcoming PA student conference and National Honor Society outside of school I'm a part of my dance performance Ensemble competition team and I take multiple acting lessons and voice lessons I also work at corporally's Italian bakery

016in Limerick and and also my dance studio as an assistant dance teacher which is one of my favorite things um the program is for well-rounded students who encourage excellence and promote achievements throughout their school and the community once I first heard about the program I knew it would be a great opportunity and would wait for more info my guidance counselor then sent the scholarship opportunity to all the senior girls and I decided just to give it a shot in the spring of my junior year after a long application and audition process I was chosen to be the Boyertown representative all summer I then rehearsed with all the other contestants contestants were evaluated well I can't say that word evaluated on their scholarship achievement interview skills Performing Arts Fitness presence presentation and was all judged on

017the night of the show established in 1964 the program was and aims to help young women with public speaking confidence and other life skills I was fortunate to have won a 1 500 scholarship and become the first runner-up through this program I learned so much about myself along with public speaking skills which I definitely struggle with and confidence team building and so much more my favorite part of the program however was the friendships I created after rehearsing with other girls every Sunday leading up to the September performance they have truly become some of my best friends it was incredible to be surrounded by these girls with amazing talents and outstanding achievements like being the valedictorian which is crazy and they all deserve to win in my book so every rehearsal I really truly never felt

018like it was a competition one time it was so fun getting to sing for them as that's one of my favorite gifts and opportunities and what I hope to pursue in college and listening to all the other talents and arts that came with the pro oh with the program um it was also fun oh I'm so saddened that it's the last Boyer town and the last program as like for me it was truly a highlight of my senior year and a life-changing experience I'm so honored to represent the Boyertown School District in this event and thank you for the time and opportunity to share my experiences with you any questions [Applause] um I was saying and what did you sing if I loved you from carousel thank you so congratulations it's an outstanding achievement and

019it's always really great to see women lifting women up um so congratulations It's amazing And honestly I thought you did really well with public speaking I mean excellently yes this program has really helped me in all the community service that I've done has just really helped me Outreach and help people because that's one of my favorite things that I look forward doing and this program was a really good outlet for that and helped me really learn what I want to do for college and it's all about helping people and hopefully just moving on with that but yeah yeah congratulations and thank you thank you so it sounds like you've accomplished a lot I don't know when you get time to breathe uh from listening to everything you did a lot of accomplishments there I'm also

020sure there's a lot of the compliments accomplishments you know public speaking thing here in your future uh I with that energy and and the drive you have what dance studio are you with um Jim Behrens Academy of dancing basically every style you can think of when I'm not at school I'm at dance yeah that's that's very intensive to for you but no congratulations on everything wish you the best of luck going forward thank you away um I you and your families to know this has been such a joy for me I love this but I'm gonna remember this one so thanks for sharing your kids with us all right [Applause] thank you for sharing everything with us tonight thank you hmm next our student representative reports we look forward to this also first I want

021to apologize my throat is a little rascy tonight so I apologize for any inconvenience but it's a little board and community members this month has been very exciting for bash students I would I would like to congratulate seniors on completing their senior presentations this year from what I've heard it's been all good things um it was definitely stressful for seniors to fit their entire High School um careers into one presentation but now the presentations are over and all of us seniors are taking a deep breath of relief while seniors had their presentation sophomores Engineers were also having eventful day for themselves sophomores completed the pre-sat pre-act sorry and juniors took the free sat the entire half day so we want to congratulate them for persevering through those four hours also bashaw's had their first pep

022rally of the year on Friday October 14th in preparation for the football game we had some great announcers class tug of horror games and it ended with great dancing from the teachers overall we saw some great spirit from both bash students and teachers which is awesome bash also had their homecoming football game on Friday the 14th we won 34 to 21. it was a big shout out for the student section full of pink um at the game during halftime the homecoming queen was announced congratulations to Alyssa Albanese that Saturday was bash's homecoming dance we ran out of tickets which is good in some ways but also bad for the students that couldn't come it was an amazing time and at the dance the homecoming game was announced so I would like to congratulate Jacob Benner

023it was definitely a night to remember speaking of pink out badge had the spirit work during spirit week during the week of October 10th it started on Tuesday neon day Wednesday with decades day Thursday was class colors and Friday was pink out unfortunately not many decades today outfits were seen on Wednesday due to presentations and testing but overall many students participated in spirit week and like Olivia said an incredible amount of pink on Friday so student council at bash is hosting the pasc state conference uh November 3rd to the 5th under the direction of our new advisors Mr Pennington and Mrs Musselman they are financially trying to get everything done and ready for the confirms we have no doubt that everything will fall into place and the conference will go well in other news than

024badge on Friday Middle School East will be having their first dance of the Year we hope that the turnout is good and that students will have fun making memories with their friends we also want to put a big Spotlight on the girls soccer team for being recipients of the USC high school team academic award to qualify for this award Varsity soccer teams must have a combined GPA of 3.25 or over we are greatly proud to say that word Town had a GPA of 3.69 we want to congratulate both diversity girls and Coach Goddard for this amazing accomplishment it really highlights how important both Sports and academics are in their own right so thank you to everyone at the meeting tonight for listening and we hope we have even more exciting news to present next month

025have a great night and thank you for our presentations it's we do like to hear that stuff we want to hear that stuff so keep keep it up keep coming back with all those good things thank you um stuck back in the corner um so we are thrilled tonight to um introduce uh uh Mr Brophy you had brought up a few meetings ago about expanding our Horizons and looking at some of the local universities and providing a partnership what we are going to share with you an awesome partnership that we have with Albright College um university college yeah it's it's alvernia's University Albright College I got it so I always get the 2A schools in Reading area set up so um Karen denunzio and Adele shade are going to give us some information about their

026program and how we're connecting with it Karen is over glad to have you here tonight we really want to to expand our programs and this is a great way to go about doing it thank you very much well thank you thank you for welcoming us tonight we're excited to talk to you about the things we have going on here with you at Boyertown that are really exciting and we're having a great time um so I'm Adele shade I'm the dean of pre-college and summer programs at Albright College and I'm the founder of total experience learning and the science research institute which I'll I'll tell you a bit about and I have with me tonight Karen denunzio hi I'm Karen denencio I'm the director of learning and Innovation and the team that we have together and

027I work with Educators to support the impact of students in the class so what we'll do tonight is give you a little background on what science research institute is and what total experience learning is and then we want to talk about the teachers that are doing some training with us right now and then the last thing we'll talk about is the exciting Esports grant that we have together a PA Smart Grant two years five hundred thousand dollars and we have so many things we're going to do together with that that we're really excited about so if you could go to the next slide some background on what this is so I'm at Albright College now I'm there two and a half years but before that for 25 years I was a science teacher at Conrad

028Weiser high school and I spent the last 10 years of that teaching career commuting to Philadelphia as much as I possibly could so nights weekends in the summer I would get Apartments there and I got myself into any Science Tech and r d lab I could and my goal was to I wanted to be with the brightest minds and innovators and figure out how do we take that mindset and bring that to a K-12 classroom because I could see you know the start to some student disengagement that I would see in school talking to my friends and colleagues we know with the teacher shortage their struggles right now in the classroom so I wanted to figure out how could we really bring some excitement there and my my goal is and our goal is is

029now we want people teachers students administrators every person involved with the school system to be excited walking in the building every day that that's the goal so so what do we do to create those environments and so I started um eight and a half years ago now the science research institute as a non-profit while I was teaching at Conrad wiser that has evolved over the years it's if I think about that eight years ago I started one summer with 12 kids it's not even it wouldn't have even been recognizable to me what's happened to it now but in the meantime I created a learning methodology and that's the total experience learning piece and so total experience learning is a way to teach in a classroom so it's an instructional method that allows teachers to personalize

030education to reach every kid's interest but still meet the department of education standards that were all held held accountable for and so that's what I spent 10 years trying to figure out how do you do that as a teacher when you have 32 kids in a class eight times a day and meet all of their interests and still hit the standards you're supposed to hit and and so that's that's what came out of that is this total experience learning and what you're going to see is that it has morphed away from being just science and we're now in every discipline from kindergarten through 12th grade um so a little glimpse of of what's coming for this by January science research institute that name is not going to exist anymore because we've changed so much so

031we're actually going to change our name from that because we're we're more than signs now so if you can go to the next slide um and this this is where we started when I talked about Conroe bleister High School it was with after school programs and and summer programs and so if you move to the next slide now what we're focused on and we have someone developing a Pre-K curriculum to this is pre-k through adult programs the teachers that are in our courses right now are learning through total experience learning as well so to apply this to all education environments we opened a new facility for this at Albright College and we hope that at some point you can all come in and see it it's on Rockland Street it's it's a starter space for

032us we have a much larger Capital campaign going on for another building and this this particular building is focused on creating Innovation space for students in grades 5 through 12. and in this space our two labs in particular that are the only Labs of their type for fifth to 12th graders in the United States so there's some really unique environments in their equipment in their scanning electron microscopes and bioprinting and pretty much anything High Science and Tech we can get our hands on we make it safe for fifth to 12th graders to use so we hope you come visit this new site it just opened last October and so a bit about our student programs and I'm just going to talk about these really quickly because we want to talk more about your teachers that

033are training with us right now but what we're doing in the student programming now is um summer programs we have after school programs dual enrollment we have tutoring programs going on in the facility if you've heard of the 13th Street partnership that also operates under our division you know 13th Street in Reading is in the Guinness Book of World Records only Street where you can go from kindergarten all the way up to your master's degree on the same street um we have Academy systems running right now with some of the public school districts around us so we found a way to have our programming integrate in academies um during the school day and so um I'm gonna have Karen talk a bit about the the teacher training but to wrap up the the student portion

034I gave you a lot of the logistics of what we do but I want to tell you a story about a student because this this will kind of help this this makes sense you know there's thousands of stories right now we're over 15 000 kids in the program and not every kid gets to this level but we we have had 10 kids get patents on their work before they leave High School in this program and we have an 11th going in going in now but one student I'm going to talk about was a special education math student a lot of people think the only kids that come to us are the top gifted one percent and that's not true 40 percent of our students are special education they thrive in this Hands-On environment so we

035we had a special education math student junior in high school and this was the kind of kid who would cut class when when math class came around leave the school I see you shaking your heads we all know know these kids he just wanted to get out of the building he had been told his entire life he wasn't good at math and he was convinced of that but one day he came up to me and said misshape his his father was a forensic detective so you should know this purse Miss shade if there's a dead body laying on the ground and maggots start to eat the body but someone takes it and moves it somewhere else but the maggots are still there could you get the DNA out of that intestine of the maggot and

036figure out who that was and I thought that is a great question I don't know so we did some research no one had tried to do this before so we took pork chops and set them outside and I taught him how to dissect this maggot and test hean and what he did was create a method to do genetic sequencing in real time PCR which is a ton of math and algebra and he did the entire thing and it was amazing he found pork DNA in that maggot intestine so then I was trying to convince him to take this to the Berks County science fair and he said no because that's only for the smart kids and that wasn't him but I knew his mother so I could call her and say what if I put

037a little pressure on him to go she's like good luck do whatever you need to do we got him there he ended up winning for Berks County that year the Princeton University use of mathematics award special education math student who wanted to run out of the building so I think when you you look at some of the things that that we're talking about and you hear stories about what kids do that's one of my favorite stories so now let's talk about teachers you ready Karen I am okay so um currently we have eight sections of Educators throughout the county that are taking the coursework to be able to successfully have this ability to lead this methodology within their curriculum we have pre-k through 12th grade enrolled in seven districts in these eight sections and this

038is year two so we went from an enrollment in year one of um three cohorts with approximately 52 Educators and when I say Educators I am deeming um teacher as well as administrators and we are now at 120 with the um eight sections and we're bringing on three more in January so what has occurred is that we are giving Educators an opportunity and the time in cohorts established within a district to work on how to support the students in their District your District currently has 12 Educators that come and meet with me we're in the first course which is based upon on culture in a classroom and how to create this mindset to be able to have students have agency and autonomy and choice and understanding what an academic identity is and how the teacher

039supports that in that structure the next course will start in January which we're really focusing on curriculum they're not going to change the standards or the curriculum that they teach we're going to change how that instruction looks in a classroom and allow more agency from the students in their choice of how to show what they understand and know how they're growing with their passion in conjunction with the curriculum that is given to them in that content and then there's going to be a chance in our third course that we're really linking them with stakeholders in our community one of the pieces with total experience learning is we believe that all of the silos need to come down we have amazing business and industry and non-profits in every community that can become advisors to our students

040and open up career Pathways and be part of an educational process with the teacher support after that we have field experience where they get to come and with no risk environment in our summer programming create and Lead seminars for our students and be able to try and test the grounds for what they're going to then do when they return back to you in August what you're seeing up here is that we believe Educators as professionals need amazing opportunities to grow so that they can ignite their classrooms this is an opportunity for all of the Educators that finish the four courses and get the first ever certificate of a master's in Innovation and Entrepreneurship in education are able to attend a week at Oxford University it's a three credit course Boris Village our School of Professional

041studies Dean has a fluid relationship with Oxford University and he's established this course that we have Educators coming for six days and five nights room and board and credits for fourteen hundred and eighty dollars so it's an amazing opportunity at a cost that's very affordable this was our first cohort that came this past summer the um words and the comments that we have are that this was a life-changing event what has occurred as a result of this experience in the schools that these educators are part of are um are slides that would take me two hours to present to you to be able to encapsulate the um transfer of knowledge and enthusiasm of teaching into that experience to their classroom so I'm going to hand it back over to Adele but what I want to

042share is we are definitely in a time where Educators need support more than ever we're in a teacher shortage and we want at the very core to reignite the passion for teaching and the passion for learning our Educators that are in the cohort and have graduate for the cohort have given that feedback to us that this has been life-changing for them and we have Educators that are in year one of teaching and we have Educators that are year 31 of teaching currently all coming together to co-construct collaborate share thinking and redesign how students learn um small story to that and I have as Michelle said I probably have thousand stories by now from all of these experiences one of the Educators sent um to me in an email all of these attachments and they were

043scanned attachments it were they were letters from her her students after she started the redesign asking her to please never go back to the way she taught before and to please continue to teach this way because they shared how much more they loved learning and what they learned as a result of this new way of learning so um when we think about the evidence from our customers that's all that we need to know that we're on the right direction and the Educators that you have here are amazing energetic and so focused on doing everything they can to create that for the students at Boyertown Area School District it's truly an honor to lead that learning Karen my nickname for her she loves working with your teachers and so uh if you you notice on the

044last slide we've had at the top there creating a world-class education Community we believe to be a world-class Community you need to be a world-class educational Community as well and that's what we're working towards putting these support systems in place places for schools so that our Berks County Schools become the employers of choice we want people to move here and live here because we have things that other people don't have and that's that's what how we we would like to structure this so um went from what you looked at at the beginning now this is the program right now at Albright College so you can see the student programs the teacher programs and um to talk about a little bit about what that world-class community means and we're going to go through these slides pretty

045quick as we click through but just to give you a sample um of some of the things that have drawn attention to reading books and total experience learning we we were just recognized by the United Nations we're getting invited there in December as the most Innovative K-12 program so they sent seven countries to us two weeks ago so we're getting again a spotlight on Berks to say look at what these schools are doing look at the way they're they're innovating in these classrooms and with that then what's nice is comes funding okay and that's the next two slides so we were fortunate to get some grant money a lot of that grant money goes towards helping students get access to our programs that may be free or reduced lunch um and and have Financial struggles

046the last piece of what we want to celebrate tonight is a grant that we submitted together with some other districts in Berks County and this is the Esports Unleashed PA Smart Grant so we were congratulations to Boyertown and the other Berk schools awarded this together for the next two years and it's going to focus on total experience learning methodology for Esports computer science and game and simulation development and how do we take those curricular areas teach the fundamentals and then allow students to invent and innovate on the other side of those things and how do we integrate these kinds of curricular pieces K to 12 as as actual teaching tools so that's going to be our goal for the next two years we'll be working with your teachers on that and having students in programming

047we start on Friday Friday is our first day so that kind of of wraps up the quick introduction to what we're doing the last thing I'd want to tell you again about this this educational Community we're really focused on albrits putting a lot of resources behind it and this area in Northeast reading that we're talking about with our new facility and we have a new Esports Arena the largest one west of Philadelphia coming to us soon we are calling the Innovation Corridor so that area of Northeast reading around Albright College we welcome you to The Innovation Corridor anytime come to see us and thank you for welcoming us tonight so if I could address any questions or Karen so um thank you for the presentation it was excellent which I wish I had a stronger

048word but it was it was it was really fantastic um yeah thank you a few of the things that I heard that I I really really loved um were that special ed students are are able to access this um I Heard the word Innovation a whole lot which I love ignite classrooms autonomy and agency for students these are all amazing things um and I and I love that you guys are speaking to kids passions because I think that that's how kids learn the best right yeah of course I mean that's how any of us all of us yeah um so thank you thank you for the work you're doing um it's I wish I had known about this before it's really amazing um so I did have just a question you're uh so we're going

049to be participating in the Esports program your other programs are they are they like after school like how did if a student wants to participate in that how could they access right great question um so yes after school they could access that that is at Albright College um the summer program they could also attend that um and that's also at the college it's a five-week program and what's what's different about our after school and summer we call them memberships so attendance isn't required at any point we are flexible with students coming and going according to their schedule our summer program runs the same way it's five weeks 15 days some students are athletes have practice in the morning they only come some afternoons or families go on vacation for two weeks they come the other

050three we think it's important to to allow that flexibility and access because of all the different schedules and we want to have a place that's open for when people need it yeah awesome thank you I appreciate that um and I just want to say thank you again thank you great thank you and thanks for supporting you know your teachers in this way they are a great group Karen talks about them often in a great way too it's a very exciting thank you okay well again thank you for thank your presentation thanks for everything I like I'd like to address Mr Stout for a minute on this uh Mike how do you in your view how do you see Boyertown students and teachers fitting into this program like what you're closest to it so where do

051you see it how do you see the fit um well you saw the opportunities and the opportunities are um and and Mrs torsion goes way back with Mrs Shaden or Conor Weiser um that's that's her connection so how far this has grown in the short time it's just incredible um so the I I'll put out the the struggle initially is the proximity to to Albright and us not having um the ability to have it right next door um so those are some of the hurdles we're working on Mobility we're working on uh training um our teachers in that capacity so that they can carry on the practice of what it looks like uh the dual enrollment piece we're working closely with bass Administration as we've been tasked the kind of do to find connections but

052the opportunities that are there I had the opportunity this summer to go visit the the program and um correct me if I'm wrong is it fruit flies and concussions yes yeah so um what they failed to share with um which was an amazing thing that I could not believe they have all these crazy scientific machines and um they were working on the impact of concussions um and the impact that it might have athletes or whatever but they were studying this through fruit flies and um I believe there is a student who has a patent connected to concussions or the studying or something I forget what the piece was but it's just amazing yeah the amazing the the intricacies of what's going on in the program and then I left that shop and I walked next

053door and we were making something in the kitchen and we were uh using dough and using all kinds of things that was really exciting for kids to see so um the experience of having Hands-On experiences where I see it growing the most but then you're also connecting that to the potential for what college can bring dual enrollment and those opportunities so it is an amazing situation for kids so is this mainly after school and during the summer or are you looking to see like some class time being held there for some for for some percentage of the students I don't know what that would be yes the the the answer is yes so um we we this as as Adele had spoken this is this is a newer program so um it's it's only growing

054bigger um and our hurdle is getting kids to be able to access that program what does that look like or can we bring the program to kids here in Boyertown and that's kind of the you know the Avenues that we're looking at right is there anything like some sort of remote access that could possibly work to help the kids that are here that maybe can't get to Albright is there I don't know it sounds like your programs pretty intensive and pretty focused so how is there a possibility for any way it can be remoted there are some things they could but we have some other things in the works that may make Hands-On things closer to this area which would be even better yeah your futuristic thinking Mr Brophy yes that's why we're here but

055thank you it's just this is one of the things I'd like to see is we've seen that the education drop in the last two years a goal here at Boyertown I think from all of us is to make education grow not only get back to where we were but surpass where we were because I think Nation what are internationally we're low in math we're low in Reading I noticed that then there's the Sciences are where we've got to go and this sounds like a perfect program to start bringing the Sciences up which was where we really need to get to but thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you very much next I believe we have public comment period number one we have one speaker for that Mrs you savage so

056let me read the uh public comment period on behalf of the school of the board of school directors I would like to welcome you to this meeting we welcome your attendance and input from stakeholders of assist us with making recommendations and decisions related to the boyerton area school district the procedures and rules for public participation are detailed in bsad policy 903 this document is available in BISD website participants properly registered with the board secretary will be recognized by the presiding officer public comment period number one is limited topics on tonight's agenda precipitous participants must preface their comments by an answer their name participants are encouraged to direct all statements inquiries and questions presiding officer and or the board as a whole note that we value and not compromise the Privacy our students and staff please

057see us outside the realm of a public meeting if you have concern about the individual staff member or student if your public comment includes a question Mrs torsha or a member of her staff will be in contact with you to confirm the question and provide you with information comments are limited to three minutes and comment periods are limited 30 minutes individuals may indicate a desire to speak a second time if there's time left in a 30-minute period finally note that we do record our boarding committee meetings and we post them on YouTube with a link to our website we request if you do wish to take pictures of recorded meeting yourself do so in a non-disruptive and discreet Manner and use those materials respectfully and responsibly so first is that this is W Savage for

058Virtual Academy thank you hi I see that you have on your Personal Agenda um some investment in your Virtual Academy which is great and I wanted to talk a little bit more about cyber education I've heard some concerning things regarding our District's financial planning like quotes like if all the factors align or hopefully when we talk about bringing students back from outside charters there was an article in the Boyertown times in July that talked about the increase in students going to outside Charter Schools across the Tri-County region and they pointed out that um from the 2019-2020 school year to the 20 20 21 school year Boyertown had the highest increase by far which was a 270 percent increase which was higher by multitudes than the next closest district and it was a 5.4 million dollar

059cost to us by the way this is an example of an unexpected cost and double what you plan to have in reserves in two years from now so what I'm hearing and what you should be asking is is why why do people leave and what are we doing to bring them back and what I'm hearing are that many who left for cyber have no intention of returning they have found it for their students and I'm not saying for every student but for their students to be a superior that's the word I'm hearing Superior education and that there the other thing I'm hearing is that the trouble with our Cyber Charter our Virtual Academy is that things keep changing all the time every year to three years and so people are changing the program and it's

060very very difficult for students who are in it and families are in it to keep up with that so what I'm asking you to do is ask the questions this is a very big topic for you and your budget and the future of our district and the future of and the education of our students as for the data what does the enrollment in boyertown's Virtual Academy versus outside cyber what does that look like year after year and what assumptions are in this year's budget and are we on target for that and if not how are we going to get on target how do we know we're on Target and what assumptions were made for the five-year projection and again how do we know we're on Target and how will we stay on target um you

061really need to know what people are saying and how successful we're being in bringing people back and I don't hear any questions 30 seconds so I'm asking you to please ask these questions please do your job so that you can keep this District solvent thank you very much foreign just for the board and for the record I do want to let everyone know that our current enrollment in Cyber Charter School outside Cyber Charter is currently 233 students which is very close to the total number of students that were out prior to the pandemic and prior to the pandemic we did not have um the proper budget set for Cyber Charter students so as we were heading into the 2020 school year which was not the current budget for the presiding CFO um we had to

062make up that deficit and moving forward the current CFO has properly budgeted for outside cyber so that you understand that we are being responsible with the amount of students that are leaving and or returning but I did feel as though I needed to bring that information to all of you so that you um are aware that our number numbers are coming down students are returning back into our schools and those numbers have deflated since the pandemic thank you for that Mr storage that should be approval of the meeting minutes for October 11 2022 do I have a and Mr Mr up the Grove there's a motion and Mr panarella Seconds we have a roll call vote on that please MS nyman you didn't ask for questions or comments first oops yeah can you have a

063question or a comment Miss nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr uptergrove yes Mr zawada yeah yes Mrs Scott yes mroff yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan yes Mr Brophy yes motion carries next next will be recorded the president nothing at this time next be Finance reports treasurer's report good evening everyone I'd like to share a few highlights from the September 2022 Treasures report for local Revenue delinquent tax collection was approximately 90 500. earned income tax collection was approximately 654 300 and the transfer tax collection was approximately 179 200. for state revenue we had a pde special ed subsidy approximately 665 400. pde basic Ed subsidy approximately 776 800. the pde retirement subsidy was approximately 2 million three hundred and eighty thousand six hundred the pde Pre-K subsidy was approximately thirty five thousand seven hundred and

064Grant funds received 335 245 dollars regarding September expenditures salaries benefits and Professional Services accounted for 66 percent of the monthly expenditures and this concludes the treasury report thank you motion to accept your motion zero seconds comments I see nud roll call vote please Miss nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr uptergrove yes Mr zawada yes Mrs Scott yes Miss deeroff yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan yes Mr Brophy yes motion carries secretary's report please no report this evening solicitors report ditto superintendent's report yes thank you Mr Brophy um at each of your seats this evening I did uh leave um some information on um the oh my goodness the helping Harvest Weekender program and I wanted to bring your attention to the fact that um they are helping over 206 children per week in the Boyertown

065Area School District this year and they are looking for assistance the the need for Weekender backpacks filled with food and and food products um are getting stretched very thin and so I was just giving um some support out to this wonderful program that is helping our students and sending them home with um backpacks of food to to support their their food needs for for a weekend and um their household so just wanted to bring your attention that um and this is just on the Berks County side so on the Montgomery County side we have a different food bank that is supporting those schools so just want to to make you aware that we are seeing a lot of families that are in different needs this year and we have been working really hard to make

066sure that we are providing them some supports so just wanted to bring that to your attention prior to moving into on the superintendent's consent agenda yeah I'm going to ask for the board of school directors to approve the consent agenda as presented it would be in acknowledging settlement agreement for student 102 482 101 452 student 103 100 and um student 210 108. so I'm looking for a motion Hogan moves zero seconds no this is a consent yeah it's a roll call roll call please miss nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr up to growth yes Mr zwana yes Mrs Scott yes Miss dear off yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan yes Mr Brophy yes motion carries foreign ER the itemized agenda I will be looking for the board of school directors to approve the kafco participation

067agreement for a collaborative procurement of food for the 2020 2023 2024 fiscal year this collaborative procurement effort to purchase food is being offered through the Langster Lebanon Intermediate Unit iu13 and facilitated by iu13 collaborative services this agreement will be in effect for fiscal year July 1 2023 through June 30th 2024. seconds gone Miss Daryl David we used to have this before with Burks Unity for us I'm not I'm not sure Mrs Daryl from Mrs dental college do you know if it was through iu14 prior I believe we're still going through Berks um this may be through Burke's as well it's just a separate procurement agreement but we can double check on that for you okay I was just curious thank you yeah um Miss nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr uptergrove yes Mr zawada yes

068Mrs Scott yes Ms diroff yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan yes Mr Brophy yes motion carries next I will be looking for the board of school directors to approve the YMCA before an after-school program for 22 2023 as presented Hogan moves I'll second a Hemingway seconds it's the snyman yes I was looking at this and I see that we opened the schools up at six o'clock which is before our custodians are there so how are they getting in we have been opening up the doors for them at approximately 6 15 since the Inception of this program so um I am quite certain that um whatever Arrangements were made prior to this school year um in all the previous years are the same things that are in place um what I believe they are doing and

069I would have to double check is that there would be an access key that would only be able to open up the doors from you know the time that they arrived to and then shutting back down at 6 30 that it would not allow them to have access to the building um after those hours and it would only be during the times that they were there my concern was do we have a custodian there are they just letting themselves in with that card they would either be letting themselves in with that card and as I said you know I know that this has been in place since um I couldn't even tell you 2011 is what I have here that they've been utilizing our building so they've always been operating and getting in there you

070know very early in the morning for those parents who need to be at work um my concern was that they were in there before our custodians were there that was my issue and when was the last time we upped their fee um that has not probably changed for quite a while and that was going to be included in the part of any changes that we made to anyone else that is utilizing our facility any other comments see none roll call please MS nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr uptergrove yes Mr zawada yes Mrs Scott yes Miss duroff yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan Mr Brophy yes motion carries and next I will be looking for the Brewer School directors to approve the Personnel agenda um without we will be withdrawing the corrections updates of portion

071of the Personnel agenda so it would be um everything presented minus the corrections and updates we need to put a little bit more information under that category so I'm asking for approval of the Personal Agenda um exclusive um or excluding the corrections and updates portion Hogan moves they're affected 0 seconds any comments Mr sosanic there's nothing left to do special on that correct we just we can just move with that okay thank you roll call please Miss nyman yes Mr panarello yes Mr up to growth yes Mr zawada yes Mrs Scott yes Miss duroth yes Mr Hemingway yes Mrs Hogan yes Mr Brophy yes motion carries that completes my portion of the agenda Mr Brophy thank you very much uh old business nothing at this time we now move to the second uh public comment

072period there are a few people so I will read that first on behalf of the school board directors I would like to welcome you to this beanie we welcome your attendance and input from stakeholders to assist us with making recommendations and decisions related to the Brewerton Area School District this the procedures and rules for publicity participation are detailed in bisa deported policy 903 this document is available on the bsad website BISD website participants promptly registered with the board secretary were recognized by the presiding officer public comment period number two is for those persons wishing to discuss any District related items not appearing on the evening's agenda participants must preface their comments by announcing their name participants are encouraged to direct all statements inquiries and questions presiding officer and or the board as a whole note

073that we value will not compromise the privacy of our students and staff please see us outside the realm of the public meeting if you have a concern about an individual staff member or student if your public comment includes a question Mrs torcher remember her staff will be in contact with you to confirm your question and provide you with information comments are limited in three minutes and comment periods are limited to 30. note that we do record our board and committee meetings and we post them on YouTube with a link to our website request if you do wish to take pictures or record the meeting yourself do so in a non-disruptive and discreet Manner and don't use those materials respectfully and responsibly thank you there are seven people signed up for this one so I will

074start with Cassandra Rooney curriculum books and District values um Cassandra Rooney Douglas Township I spoke a few months back about public school and called it a government school today that statement is equally as accurate parents and anyone with an interest in our district should get involved and be concerned with what is going on in our schools in the past 30 days our family has experienced a CRT assignment political statements being made in the presence of students and questionable reading material which was recommended for a seventh grader parents need to question curriculum resources a social identity Matrix was given to middle school students to ask for their race ethnicity socioeconomic status family origin and makeup disability or ability religion age and body type then they are asked to rate each one how important is this identity

075to you how obvious is this identity to someone who only sees you or does not know you well how highly regarded is this identity by society as a whole I can provide a link from the bottom of the document that leads to an inclusive teaching site that is straight from the CRT handbook assignments such as these are divisive and are meant to put our children into boxes then used to socially reprogram them once I reported the assignment it was pulled for the entire class putting children into boxes interferes with their natural acceptance of others I honestly believe that our district needs to purify its schools of books that are creating gender confusion the ideologies such as these have no place in our schools why has government School become a place for such indoctrination it isn't

076by chance that we have over 7.5 percent of our District's children currently questioning genders or wanting to change themselves gender dysphoria is unnatural and is being taught teachers should be ashamed to participate in such coercion and improper influence of our children what is a recommended read for a seventh grader that's 12 years old the 57 bus just read a few Amazon reviews page 33 is titled gender sex sexuality romance some terms this book is one example of the lack of care for the innocence of our youth again I ask for academics life skills respect confidence and other productive topics to be the benefit of our children thank you to those of you on the board who are willing to approach this Beast with bravery our kids are not okay affirmation is not the answer and

077we are responsible for properly leading them into success success that's Nicole's Elks board policy and public comment good evening Nicole selks um first I just want to thank you and um point out that I appreciate the fact that the statement read before comment period was changed to reflect that of policy 903 so I thank you for that I want to acknowledge that at the October 11th meeting I did not follow violate the policy if anyone had violated policy it was Mr zawada and Mr off they continually interrupted me which is during my public comment which policy 903s clearly states that only or that the presiding officer May interrupt or terminate a participant statement for specific reasons I stand by the public comment is protected speech which this board cannot create policy to infringe upon while

078I understand that having public comment is not a protected right once a public comment is established the speech during those comments is protected I want to address what Mr Brophy said last week ignoring his public comment he stated that I continuously attack this board I think you're confusing holding the board accountable and its members accountable for their actions as an attack as a community member a taxpayer I have every right to hold any board member accountable for their actions in my opinion calling an attack should be Troublesome to every stakeholder in this District each member of the board ran for office and was elected by doing so you took on the duty to hear from the public whether you agree with us or not so to publicly commend a stakeholder is what I find to

079be unethical thank you next will be foreign [Music] hello Barb Furman New Hanover Township my first point is that we you have a thankless job and I think that you are trying to balance kids and teachers and taxpayers interests and we also expect respect between all of the school board members at these meetings where do I start for two and a half years the media and politicians and schools have been trying to convince people not to believe their Lying Eyes it actually started here in in 2017. so these are some Jess we're just addressing the needs of a small segment of the children having compassion for the student following lead legal guidance now it's just 14 days to slow the spread it's just a mask it's just a shot it's just missing the prom just

080missing your graduation it's just poor performance on standardized tests and we can explain of course flow test scores aren't related to the measures taken behavior problems have nothing to do with all the lessons encouraging questioning gender I taught health and sex education more than ever I now think that parental rights discussion that is a parental rights discussion and not the school uh the confusion with CRT Dei and SEL and general neutral activities I know as a parent and an educator these are fads and phases I just found out that in 1965 the American history changed to U.S history the importance being that the settlers were were here and the U.S Constitution was founded on freedom to worship God PA was founded by William Penn a Godly Man 30 seconds go to the Capitol and see

081his vision on October 24th yesterday was was Penn day in the establishment of Penn day the people of Pennsylvania seek to honor the memory of a great our great founder of the Commonwealth this book bulletin has been prepared as a contribution to this desire as a memorial to William Penn's life and works three points are stressed the principles that motivated the holy experiment the influence of these principles in shaping the Pennsylvania of today and the fact that every worthy thing that Pennsylvania has done in the past or that we may do in the future had its Inception in the ideals of its founding founder to this purpose the material that follows is dedicated and it was James rule the superintendent of Public Instruction May 31st 1934 thank you foreign Savage the topic is governance and

082Leadership hi again I'm legitimately concerned about the solvency of this District you all do a nice job giving kudos to our students and our staff I like the way you all do that and you can spend hours talking about small budget issues like rental fees for our facilities but very few of you are asking any substantive questions about the current and future direction of our district why are you not asking questions for example we talked about the Cyber and the cost of cyber also Personnel it's very challenging right now up until just a few years ago this board had a Personnel committee which was a forum which where we learned about the strategies for attracting and retaining Talent are you asking those questions you can ask for these presentations you can ask for a presentation

083all about cyber or all about personnel you're charged with collecting and using our taxpayer dollars to invest in the education of our students and the future of our community please do your job okay next is Barb Hunter concerning professional conduct and my educators hi my name is Barbara my mom this is on no no okay hi my name is Barbara Hunter and I'm a resident in Pine Forge area for your town I'm coming here tonight with concerns of educator misconduct following emails sent to members of the administration including the building principal involved which received no response to my questions I speak for many parents when I say that I have concerns and questions about unprofessional conduct which is condoned by the administration for Tennessee school district I'm not permitted to name Educators by name which

084is perfectly fine as this Behavior shouldn't be acceptable from any educator on Monday October 10th an educator in the boy Town District in an official capacity and on school property addressed a group of more than 80 students using profane language to them and is holding their parents I'll censor myself because if I use this same language at this meeting I'd be asked to leave please recognize the irony of this our son and his peers said this educator told them they needed to cut the expletive and that the educator was tired of stupid exploitative emails from parents who don't know what they're talking about and said that students and parents needed to stop expletive this conduct was so egregious as to spark emails to Administration and the school board from my family and other concerned parents

085and community members we're far from alone and feeling that this conduct was unacceptable in the two weeks since the incident I've heard from dozens of other community members who've had similar encounters with this one educator going back up to five years if this educator was so boldly addressed a large group of students what further abuse would occur behind closed doors with only one or two students days later at a parent meeting with concerned parents and this educator the building principal cautioned parents about sharing details of this incident on social media because of concerns for boyertown's image imagine being more concerned about the perception of our school district than the collective integrity and character of our school district as a nearly lifelong Boyertown resident who attended school here from kindergarten through graduation and a parent to

086six school-aged children in this District I most certainly want Boyertown to have an outstanding reputation however I wanted to be earned and to be legitimate whitewashing and ignoring misconduct to maintain an image is what permanently altered the lives of numerous Penn State families and students and families and selling the reputation of an institution who ignored abusive Behavior by its employees and professionals 15 days later this educator remains in their position interacting with students my students and your students multiple email complaints dating back years have been levied against 30 seconds why does boyato's Administration condone this unprofessional abusive Behavior by inaction as such I'm here to submit a right to no request for emails from Administration regarding this employee parents and community members have a right to know just how long this has been covered up

087because of boyertown's image please let me know who I should hand this to thank you you can hand it to the superintendent and she'll process it but please note that personnel-based emails are not covered under the right to know Act foreign okay next we have Rick Hunter about the athletic department my name is Rick Hunter I live in Pine Forge I'm a graduate of board town I have six children in the district I've been a coach and a volunteer in this town for over 20 years I've seen all types of approaches towards youth I have come from a time when being tough on kids was a little more acceptable than it is now however never once did I curse at a team or address them out of anger I have seen this approach before and

088that person was removed from their position although recently just this month a staff member of Boyertown did just that lined up an entire football team which my 14 year old son is on just before a JV game and let out all of their frustrations on this student using profanity in the school building calling them profane names to this day I have seen no repercussions for this act more than 100 people have reached out to me to discussed their situations most are afraid to say anything due to their fear that the child would have to pay for it not to mention just being silenced I welcome anyone here to tell me how we have gone so far away from basic morals that we have found this Behavior to be acceptable how can we try to expel

089a student over a word but our staff is untouchable how many emails do you need to receive before this is taken seriously it is my understanding that there has been years of problems and complaints brought up but yet nothing has changed to reference what what parents said at the parent meeting where town tries to model ourselves on no place for hate if you see your experience bullying you should walk away or tell a teacher some adult that they can trust or confide in what if the bullying is the adult then what what is the lesson don't allow bullying from your peers but someone with authority can do whatever they want there's no place for hate no bullying fit the narrative only when it's convenient or is it just a political agenda we have a new

090era of football in particular here and for the most part the coaches are doing a real good job turning things around and they're on the verge of having their first winning season since 2013. we are allowing our seniors to leave here with this negative experience casting a shadow on that I'm not saying that people don't make mistakes we've all said things that we should we wish we could take back but this is not just one instance this is a history and yet nothing changes I know of a time where a parent was asked if she was stupid in public is that how our staff should talk to our parents are we teaching our kids respect and manners I ask you the board to go home tonight look at 30 seconds and ask yourselves if this

091is how we want our kids treated is this morally right is this how we want is this how we want the care of an educator to take care of our kids in a school when we trust you guys to handle it or should we be doing everything we can do to promote their growth experience and make them better people when they leave here I ask you to please do something positive and change a positive change that would come through this as the children come through this district and through our athletic department thank you Mr John Emmy on feedback on board behaviors regarding transparency and collaboration just turned it off yeah John Amy uh Boyertown um my comments on transparency are going to be related to a few board members but I'm going to keep Elite

092or at least one maybe a few I'm gonna keep it quiet um this is uh regarding the books and curricula discussion that we're probably going to have people might be surprised to know I'm fully on board with it I think parents should totally be involved as much as they can in their kids education they should ask questions I think the school district should be as transparent as possible I think this is a debate we should have we should make sure that we're giving our kids the best shot in education and we're teaching them how to think how to Reason Not what to think on the other hand it should be something that's decided amongst the people of Boyertown who are the actual residents of the school district you shouldn't be bringing in Hired Guns we

093shouldn't have speakers getting up here who have been taking guidance from an outside group whose philosophy and agenda can be only what I call Christian dominionist and I can explain what that means if you want to but I can I can talk about that later people should be transparent about that kind of stuff when they come up to speak sitting board members should be quiet should be transparent about that stuff when they get up to speak about the same issues I'm ready to have this debate with anyone who wants to have it I'm ready to discuss people's concerns I'm hoping that teachers and administrators and board members are willing to teach people's concerns let's keep it within Boyertown let's not bring in Hired Guns with agendas of their own thank you sorry one more thing

094I'm going to give those people the chance to come clean about that and if they don't I will thank you okay move the board comments I'm going to start with Mrs Scott okay so just to comment to Mr Emmy I was part of that which is calling pay gun but they don't get paid that was apparently night meeting a town hall that was held and I wasn't going to keep it from the board um I just didn't feel like this was the place to discuss anything but I was there and it was very good and the information and the polling that came out of it was good and I will share that with the board um the other thing I want oh I'm sorry the other thing that I wanted to say is that I

095have been uh from the other comments that have been made that I have been reviewing some books and going through all that literature I do agree with parents that there are very questionable things that we need to look at as a board how we go forward with that maybe if a special committee selected to look at some of these things it's you know I I would suggest that I um I believe that we have excellent resources at Boyertown I love what we have here I love when the students come in and academically they're doing really well but the mixture and muddying the waters isn't going to help our kids future so as a board as a board member um we do have to have those discussions at some point we do have to address uh

096pornography in the libraries this gender confusion issue has to be addressed it it doesn't belong here it's not for children it's not for Middle School it's not even for high school and so I'm just I just vehemently ask the board to look at some of these things and that we start to have some type of committee that we work on it we start looking and digging deeper we listen to what the parents are bringing forward um and we we make some policy changes possibly to what we allow in our libraries and the and curriculum policy changes as well it's just a suggestion I just hope I know others are working on this as well so appreciate that thank you Mr zawata can you hear me whoops yes okay you're up I didn't realize I would

097be up next um first of all I want to thank uh the partnership that we've established now at all break College I think it's a great idea um working with other board members this is the kind of stuff we want to put forward um I want to thank Mr Stout on all his efforts in doing this this will prepare our kids for so much further down the road than anything they can have before um as far as books and curriculum yes I'm 100 if it's not appropriate that should be wrought to at this point from what I understand from Mr satanic the policy or the procedure is it's the information is sent to the principal the principal is supposed to bring forth to the teacher and have a discussion if that doesn't um alleviate some

098of the problems it then goes to the superintendent who also has a meeting and then at that point it would come to the to um to the board for us to make a decision and if I'm wrong about that I'll ask Mr satanic to correct me but it's not that people are not looking for this or not trying we know it's there it's just a matter you know looking at 500 books is almost impossible we need the help of the parents and the parents need to do their um pursue this and the exact reason I just said or the way to do it just now we can have open discussions I hope we do it is scary what is being put out there and um as co-chair is a curriculum committee it is important to

099us Tony and I feel the same way it's just that there is it's all new grounds that we're we're coming across or learning from so there isn't exactly a straight hour that we know where to follow so other than that um that's all I have to say tonight sorry I wasn't there uh yes um I want to thank the board Town Senior High Junior High marching unit for being in the parade Halloween parade Saturday night it was really good um and also um I seen as as Mr our principal leaving but Mr Buck yes I I did mean to bring that forward to announce that um regretfully we would be accepting Mr Buck's resignation this evening as well yes our Middle School East principal okay um also I have on this helping Harvest I mean

100if if we want to go for like some of our students that are homeless um if we if we pack a bag a backpack with food do we give them to the student do we give it to you or you know like on a weekend right and you don't know my wife's transporting homeless students any donations can be made to the school and we can make sure that it's directed towards any student that would be in need many of our students that or all of our students that are in a situation where they are homeless do also um have opportunities to receive other supports as well through the school district they're they're entitled to things that are covered through our Title One program so um but if you do have something that you would like

101to donate we can certainly take it receive it here at the Ed Center and make sure that it gets to where you would like it to be thank you Mrs Hogan thank you Mr Brophy um I was going to ask you about the helping Harvest so thank you Mr Grove for bringing that up um also I just wanted to um to mention Mr Buck and thank him um he's really been a wonderful administrator for me to work with personally it's my my child did attend um East um so we will miss him and um Kudos about the Albright partnership I'm super excited about that I mean it sounds really amazing super exciting um congratulations to all of our seniors for pres for completing their presentations I know that's stressful and um you know so way

102to go um the student council state conference that sounds really interesting and exciting so and it's um it's really great to be hosting so um thoughts and prayers continued for Brianna and her family um what else oh to Dylan and to Andrea both that was amazing and thank you to Mrs moyer for consistently bringing us good news about what's going on in our student body um I think that's it for me today yeah but it was a really great meeting I thank you thanks Japan roll I want to thank Lexi and Olivia they did a great job tonight um the senior Spotlight students that was amazing I'm gonna go home and beat my kids they're not doing enough um she had a lot so curriculum I did suggest to the board that we talk about

103the next Committee of the whole and we do need parents if there's an issue you have to bring to our attention we're not going through 10 000 books um 500 is not the amount of books it's like thousands so if you have an issue with something you have to bring it to our attention um to look after your kids see what they're doing look at their homework uh trying to think what else we touched on tonight uh the athletic stuff so the Boyertown football team has an opportunity to play its second in history of post-season football here at the stadium so I'd like to urge the administration to figure out how we could work it out I know there's supposed to be a conference here in two weeks or something with kids so if we

104could figure out how to put the charter buses on one side of the school and work it out because this will be the second time in history and it'd be unfair to have these kids at the place somewhere else especially the seniors um so if we could figure that out that'd be awesome uh I think that's it Miss nyman what is our record for the football team right now you're four and five and five week or five then you have it okay thank you um okay curriculum I would like to see how our scores have gone down because I'm hearing all over the news at the scores of our subjects are going down all over it's not just Boyertown all over all over the country so I'd like to see what our scores were prior

105to covet and what they are now um also I want to get into the curriculum I want to see what's going on I mean we need to dive into this because we're hearing from parents and I'm concerned I'm concerned as a board member I'm concerned as a grandparent I'm worried what our kids are getting into I have from 12th grade down to third grade so I'm concerned I want to know what's going on so I'm keeping that in mind and I'm concerned on what's going on with the comments from the public about our football or whatever's going on and and the principal and I guess my thing would be what would be their next step Mrs torsha if they're not seeing the results that they want now who do they go to next well it

106would make its way through the um chain so if they've talked with the high school principal then they should then reach out to the assistant superintendent and then it would um appeal to my level but there are some things that we're not going to discuss with anyone um with regard to any action you know that would be taken that would look like you know Personnel so that's standard for every situation and I understand that but if they're not liking the results they're getting from the principal then the next one would be Mr Stout okay thank you Mr Nero no I think I heard enough tonight I don't need to add to all the drama thank you Mr Hemingway yeah I'm gonna somewhat piggyback Miss dear Ross I would like saying this Kramer thank you for

107the skirt and I do appreciate Mr up the Grove and and mentioning about the homeless that we do have in our district it's a real thing um I hope our numbers haven't increased so Mr upgrade thank you for for bringing that to our attention we don't want to forget Miss Hogan normally she's good at all the other thank yous and it does appear that we're going to have some uh some talk on curriculum I have had some discussions and I think we need to differentiate what curriculum even is before we can even dive into it because curriculum is such a broad statement we've had a portrait of a graduate that we've all agreed upon it's been a great presentation which I understand is is the schematics to curriculum so I think before we even have

108the discussion we need to all be fully versed in what that terminology even is so yes that is going to be discussion that we're going to have down the line um I've heard also in in in tonight talking about it's a parenting issue I've always believed that parents need to start parenting again um I'm fortunate enough to be a proud father of of two graduates and I have a uh a daughter who's in the eighth grade and I'll tell you what I'm I'm a part of their lives so wake up Boyertown parents and start being part of your kids lives enjoy it it goes by fast um so this really is a team effort and your input is always greatly uh listened to one part and here I told you I didn't really have a

109lot of comments but here I apparently I do going through looking at our agenda we have a lot of good things that have been happening and I'm not gonna lie to you I see public comment period comes up and I'm like oh my gosh here we go I just want you all to to know I do listen to everyone's comments I appreciate everyone's comment Mr Amy if I'm allowed to say names I don't know what we're allowed to do anymore I tried to John I know you you're my friend thank you for your comments Ms Elks thank you for your comments miss you savage thank you for comments and those that that I'm forgetting that we're on the list believe me uh it comes to the point where I'm just dread listening to what everybody

110has to say I will listen to what you have to say just be respectful be courteous we're volunteers we're here for We're All in This Together which sounds cheesy but please just uh just understand it we're not we're not the enemy we're not the villains we're all in this just trying to figure figure out this District together and if we can continue that partnership I'm on board if not I'm not going to listen to anything you all have to say and if you don't treat us with some kind of respect and I will treat that respectfully right back to you um we're just doing the best that we can Ms Elks I'm sorry if I offended you last week or at our last meeting my intentions are is that everybody has a word uh and

111and does get to speak um a lot of positive things tonight I like to try to emphasize that keep that up boyertowns are great great District I guess I have a lot of history here with two uh graduates who are successful a lot of powerful influential people come out of this little town I'm originally from Baltimore and here I ended up in Boyertown and I'll tell you what this is a great place to be it's a great District to be a part of and uh let's just together keep it up and uh keep the arguing to a minimum let's keep the bait debate is good but let's all be friends be neighbors and be uh you know on the same team as far as we move forward so anybody thank you very much for coming

112out I appreciate your comments Lord thank you for being here and I appreciate you giving me this moment to speak thank you okay I have nothing to add I would like to um draw attention to the fact that we have four uh Boyertown Area Senior High School teams competing in playoffs and to give a shout out to our girls field hockey cross country boys soccer and girls soccer teams who qualified for the PIAA District One playoffs um our girls field hockey team played Haverford on Monday yesterday and they won I'm sorry October 24th yes at 4 pm and they won 5-1 and now they Advanced to play Garnet Valley uh tomorrow night so congratulations to them our girls and boys soccer teams are both competing this evening and our cross country is at Lehigh University

113Goodman campus on Friday October 28th we have 3A girls at 10 30 and the 3A boys at 12 o'clock so I just wanted to give a shout out to those teams um I also wanted to let Miss nyman know that the custodians arrived before with the Y enters buildings they start at 5 45 a.m and Grant access to the adults that run the program that concludes yes yes our next meeting will be on Thursday November the 10th this is the committee of the home meeting this will be at Earl Elementary School it was moved from Tuesday to Thursday because of election day and then we have our November 22nd Board of school directors meeting that will be here and we will have a meeting December 6th and that will be virtual which will allow for

114any public comments to participate via Zoom because we will be off-site exploring our burst career and Technology Center in um only so uh but that that uh meeting will be videotaped and will also allow for all public comment to be able to have a zoom invite yes um so I just wanted to ask you a quick question about that um so that means members of the public are not permitted to attend in person they wouldn't be able to attend in person but they'll be able to attend via them so they'll be able to be in the audience there the ones that choose to speak okay all right just like you know um everybody gets to follow the zoom link currently um they they will be able to do that and anyone that is there to

115participate in person will be given a zoom link right okay yes thank you I appreciate it what date did you say that was that's the 13th they just uh that would be December 6th that's been in our newsletter is it that reorganization meeting oh I yes I'm sorry December 6 is reorganization I got ahead of myself December 13th is when we are going to the birds career attendant yes I I am confusing everyone I apologize if I would just read then I would not make any mistakes so you are correct Miss nyman thank you it's not a reorganization dinner then no it's not a reorganization dinner and everybody can come to um just a reminder to the board sitting here to please respond back to Mrs Kramer with respects to your ability to attend in

116person to the BCTC so check your newsletter okay with that look for a motion to adjourn diamond and Scott okay adjourned [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you