NASD Work Session 24MAR20

001March 20th 2024 meeting of the north Al school school board please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for we will start with our calendar review we had an executive session on February 28th for a Personnel matter and on March 13th for a Personnel matter we have our work session tonight with the health and physical education curriculum review presentation and our na Empower annual report uh next week we have our regular voting meion and we will start with that health and PE curriculum review presentation Dr thank you Mrs Warner I'd like to introduce Mr uh Steve Smith who is leading this uh fantastic Department um a

002leader in not only in the uh Western Pennsylvania area not only the state but in the country uh Premier uh health and physical education department and I think they have some wonderful things that they want to share about the good work that they all do so Mr Smith thank you thank you very much good evening I would like to thank the board for giving us this opportunity tonight uh to review the ccan revie review process for our health and physical education department um um with us tonight we have representatives from the the team that were part of the process and um we started this in September um and just wrapped everything up a couple weeks ago but it was a an incredible journey um definitely students were the focus of this journey and we're very

003proud of the work that we're presenting to you tonight um as with previous presentations we plan to talk a little bit about the background of the department some of the accomplishments and then share with you the recommendations being made um through this curriculum review process um our two team members joining me tonight stean bronc our elementary facilitator and David Schmidt our department chair for the team so with that I'd like to introduce Mr Schmidt starting so first just a little bit of uh thanks again for the opportunity to uh just to speak and to share uh some of the things things that that we are so passionate about and we get to do uh day in and day out so a couple of our uh most more recent accomplishments that we wanted to share is

004uh just recently we had the opportunity uh we've been working with slippy Rock University and uh they're publishing a book with uh human kinetics uh it's a it's a new book it should be released later this year um and it highlights some of the best programs in the country and uh we had the opportunity to go and be a part of that book and tell our Wellness story and just kind of uh share how our health and physical education program works uh so that should be coming out in the next year uh we also have a lot of really nice relationships with them where we get to go up and uh we advise them uh of just some Trends in health and physical education as well as working with their student teachers um we we

005created this is our fifth year now uh the North Hills community outreach this is our our favorite charity um again we started this five years ago where we just wanted our own Outreach fundraising program and uh we landed on them we just L their message of of people helping people uh so they uh awarded our department the 2021 people helping people award which is their highest um highest achievement uh their biggest award for just making the biggest impact uh in the community and and the areas around of us we're really really proud of that uh also big thank you to the na Foundation uh we recently have uh 38 new Trek mountain bikes uh and a beautiful bike trailer uh the bike trailer travels to four different elementary schools and uh the other buildings uh

006have their own bikes so every Elementary student now um has biking and is exposed to that lifelong uh activity which is really awesome the success stories and uh all the emails that my my child can ride now and we love biking has just been a a tremendous success and um we just love it uh so again a big thanks to the na foundation for that uh we have an amazing staff uh passionate caring um just loving what we do and uh five of our members are PA teachers of the year and uh in the last 16 years uh our department raised $787,500 we we um achieved a pep Grant which stands for physical education for progress and uh that gave us the opportunity for the canoes that you see at the uh High School um

007secondary uh physical U Fitness um weight rooms in every secondary building now um we've had a few Fuel Up to place 60 grants where our students had the opportunity to uh go to at the time hindes field meet with the Steelers uh talk Fitness talk nutrition uh and that Grant also brought us some Tower Gardens uh some roller blades and just various equipment throughout the building so just another uh awesome experience and you can see uh the first picture there that is uh the bike trailer uh we design that with um with our maintenance staff and huge shout out to them um every bike can hang and is secured so we can easily transport that uh from building to building so all the students um experience biking so I'm going to turn our philosophy over

008to Dave and we're g to kind of bounce back and forth as everybody said we've done a lot more tweaking than recreating what we're doing but I just want to take a moment that I'm really proud of this philosophy we kind of had a uh turn towards youth in our curriculum review team this time around we have some new people that weren't involved in the past and really brought a lot of energy to it but this is a big this is probably the biggest change is just in our philosophy so it says our philosophy is to empower students on their unique journey to Wellness recognizing individuality our diverse curriculum aims to guide students to find personal meaning and connection to Movement we prioritize physical activity for well-being socialization mental health and Stress Management we guide

009students to identify intrinsic motivation individual pace and intensity we offer a variety of activities cultivating connections with ourselves and others ultimately we strive to promote a commitment to lifelong learning and overall well-being you might remember your your experiences in p and I hope they were POS positive but unfortunately for a lot of people they w't people were in the Panic zones instead of in their comfort instead of in their stretch zones where we want them to be sometimes now they're in their comfort zones a little more than we want them to be we want to be in that stretch we're learning and that's what we're going to try to do is positively encourage students as they go through just like I Tess here went through former students nice to see you up here um the

010background of PE and where we're coming from the trends in physical education this is something you work again closely with slippy Rock they came down and presented to us Dr Hannah Hall and Randy Nichols the big National trend is that PE is the two big National Trends now is the influencer of school wellness and the school Wellness is about empowering the school the community and the whole whole school the whole Community the whole child to pursue their Wellness through lots of different areas that kept coming up again and again as we had student focus groups this time around last time we did a fre review We surveyed parents Community this time around we had a focus group in every school and what came around again again was that need for wellness and we'll get to

011come back to details there but that social emotional learning and how students feel about their activity and how they realize how physical activity can be something they get to do like Dean said earlier it's not what they have to do it's what they get to do that can help them to move forward and have a better quality of life the background that's the benefits that we feel we don't we talk about physical fitness and that used to be years ago in our reviews that was our biggest Focus was Fitness and while that's still still important that's a byproduct of all the other things we do we're helping to make sure they feel increased energy and vitality that they reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety they opportunity they have opportunity to build relationships through physical activity

012they've improved cogn cognitive function improved sleep and improve quality of life and if they're touching base with those and when we debrief after classes if they're tuning into those areas of their life they're more likely to be fit for active for a lifetime which leads to a healthy Lifetime and and within their goals and their lens which talk about later I love this word cloud that Mr Smith created for us he basically took the philosophy and put into word cloud as you can see there's no accident that students came out as the biggest focus of what we're doing it's about the students it's about their health being physical in a way that they helps guide them towards a liftime of fitness and wellbeing um getting into our recommendations we kept it simple I think last

013time we had 12 recommendations our last review we're down to five this time we tried to tweak and stay focused on the important messages of what we teach recommendation one we want to implement best practices in the meaningful health and physical education model MP throughout instructional units and lessons meaningful physical education from my friends who were at our national Convention last week was the headline that was the buzz of the whole convention people around the country are trying to catch up with what we started a couple of years ago we brought in Dr Scott ketmar who's a professor of Meritus from Penn State University um he came in free of charge spent the day with our Department last spring talking about this he's the the founder of this model and since he's retired other people

014have run forward with it but the idea is it's about providing a opportunity to tweak what we do it's not changing our curriculum but it's looking at our curriculum through different lenses trying to be very deliberate in how we teach to give kids opportunities to enjoy their activities in different ways and to connect with them in a more meaningful way rather than us as teachers we all come from a certain lens we love physical activity we loved challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves and now what we're finding over over time is well that's a great thing we also want to balance that out with looking through student lenses who might not have the level of activity that we have might not want to push themselves as hard as we do and frankly the the longest lived

015people if you look in the Blue Zone studies around the world are active throughout the day they're not just about exercise and working out that's great if that's what you want to do we're going to look through different models so you see us hiking you see us bike and you see us out outside doing different type of activities that are lifestyle in nature as well as Fitness activities and for our next recommendation we're back to Dean for a moment so recommendation number two is to identify any additional opportunities to increase physical activity and social connection uh and and as Dave mentioned the the picture up there that is from our 201819 curriculum review uh and it really supports our student Focus Group that we uh surveyed this year so so what I want to point

016out is approximately 89% and again this was fourth grade parents uh that we surveyed wanted more physical activity time throughout the day and wanted more physical activity and physical education throughout the day as well uh we know the the many benefits of physical activity not just on our body like Dave mentioned but also for the brains um firing our neurons to be focused uh and there's just such a strong connection to the social um connection as well right um some of your best friends might have been somebody on your sport team might be somebody that you can walk with take a hike with run with and just building those connections uh through physical activity uh the survey that we took this year was student focused and uh the same information came up this was the

017number one thing that our students said is we we want more time throughout the day uh to be active so great to hear it from both the students uh and the parents as well our recommendation number three is to refine the K through2 scope and sequence of the health and physical education curriculum and activities to align with major strands in the shape of America standards that's been hard to do over the last several years was our Pennsylvania standards have been done and waiting for approval for about four years now they still haven't been approved by the state of Pennsylvania yet Department of Education our national standards were in process at that time our new national standards were just announced last week at the National Convention um there's no major changes a lot of things are

018tweaked similar to our curriculum review being tweaked uh the new standards that came out are very similar to what we had before so no major shakeups or changes but we've been putting it on the back burner in redoing our updating our scope and sequence for that reason and the length of our brevity the brevity of our PR review wasn't didn't have time time to do that now and we have access to materials now that we do next year that'll be one of our biggest Pro projects is three or four of our days in in our department meetings we'll be looking at rewriting our curriculum updating everything the current terms so as our new teachers come in they have access to written curriculum that is updated and current um our recommendation number four enhancing secondary scheduling

019and course progression when we did our focus groups the kids said again and again about we sit too much we're not physically active enough we need we need to get up and move more um and this is part of that I guess but it's also listening to them about wanting more Choice a little more autonomy in what we do we have a curriculum at nii that is two years and it repeats itself uh at Nash they have a two-year cycle we want to try to better sequence it from n9th grade through 10th grade A year one and year two curriculum so they're getting exposed to more activities we also want to give them more choice so what we're looking at doing is designing a way maybe p next year or work on at small pieces

020in shortening up the units that we currently teach to allow at the end of each nine weeks or at the end of each semester for student Choice activities where they can take the things that they've learned throughout that grading period and dive deeper and so they're getting exposed to a lot of things at the high school that they don't get anywhere else at nii that they don't get to the middle schools so as they're building from one level to the next they have all these repertoire of things but they haven't had a chance to dive deeper so the autonomy will allow them to select the unit whether it's mountain biking hiking and camping uh and getting out in nature more or maybe they're more Fitness focused but that's up to the individual students again with

021a meaningful PE looking at it through their lens recommendation five back to De so recommendation number five uh we're going to uh update our current adapted physical education classes with uh it's a newer model it's called unified physical education so right now every one of our bu buildings is fortunate that we have an adapted physical education class in addition to our regular physical education class so we we saw this as a great opportunity for leadership and just um the students to come together and just share that uh share a bond and just have that welcoming learning inclusive environment uh where where we're bringing in helpers students who are interested in a leadership opportunity um to come in and maybe help some of our adapted students and we started to do this at a few of

022the buildings uh and you can you can see uh a couple of the pictures up there but it has been extremely rewarding for for both sets of students uh for for our adapted physical education students as well as our our leaders um so we're just looking to kind of continue to build that and bring in more students and just continue to take that where eventually maybe uh some of these students if they want to go into the field if they want to work with a special olymp it'll um just eventually bring some additional opportunities as well as bring the bring the schools together um just to Foster that great um learning environment and and one thing I did forget to say was on the uh adding social connections and additional physical activity time uh when

023we're doing our research a couple of the top schools we uh we looked at Finland um and they have every 45 minutes to an hour over there uh they they take an activity Break um and and they found just the benefits again not just physical but mental and socially on the students have been just tremendous um so that pretty much wraps it up um again I want to say a huge uh thank you the staff here um I learn something from him every day I get to see him it's just such a caring uh passionate staff of uh of teachers so we'll open it up for comments and uh thank you again for the opportunity to present thank you so much do any board members have comments or questions Dr Gibbs thank you I don't

024know why I'm always the one to start but um so I have two two comments and then a questions so one I just want you wanted you to know wanted to share with you I was talking with my daughter my oldest daughter not too long ago and I asked her what are some more memorable things about na that she remembers liking and the first thing she came up was the physical education program so for her it was a really positive experience I just wanted to share that with you so kudos to you all for that uh secondly I want to say I was very I was very happy to read this report I found um a lot in there that I like I particularly like you talk about the four pillars you talk you you

025have this emphasis not only on on physical fitness but on on um sociality and mental health I really like that I like the recommendations particularly I think in recommendation number three you talk about having Health as a pull out um as opposed to the way it is now or having a separate course as opposed to the way it is now I'm not sure how big a lift that is but but I think that's a really good idea but but but and I was I was reading all this these are really great ideas but I'm wondering what what the next step is so like this this really isn't a plan right because there's no there's no timeline of implementation so forth so I'm wondering what happens next in the process how you know how how does

026this go from these great ideas to um implement and how long does that take thank you for your question and your kind words about your DA's experience um that's one of the reasons we scaled it back this time around we had 12 recommendations last time and some of them did get lost and we first thing we did at our first meeting was go back and look at our last curriculum review what we accomplished what we didn't accomplish and we didn't accomplish everything was in that so we try to scale it back and we do have a plan what we're going to be doing now that scope and sequence analysis and recommendation two I believe it was was to go back and specifically with the health skills we want to interject focus groups ask for more

027Health at the senior high school I wouldn't be a separate course but what it would be is taking some time some of that extra time we create by shortening up units would be chance to a chance to have specific lessons that are student driven that we can add into Health lessons at the senior high in all of our PE PE classes from sixth grade through 12th we have some pull outs in the sixth seventh and eighth grades we want to try to minimize those and get kids as physically as possible and teach more mini lessons for instance at ni right now we'll often have the kids come in do instant activity where they're getting a warmup in right away and then we'll do a short Health lesson if it's on nutrition for instance we're talking

028about the the dangers of dieting we don't want our kids going on weight loss diets we want them crowding out you know crowding out more unhealthy foods with more close nature foods and eating more good food not cutting it not cutting so much and and getting that posit message so we try to do that throughout our curriculum and that's the goal is with the sequencing is to be more deliberate in the way that we do that uh as we started off we have a lot of passionate teachers that want to run with it right away well we just want to make sure we have shorted experiences and that'll be in our department planning meetings starting next year four those meetings are be dedicated to just sequencing those activities out and making sure we have a

029more of a consistent message well we don't want to take away teachers autonomy because we have individual talents and needs or abilities we do want to make sure that okay at this grade level we're we're working on this Strand and this topic and this in this way so we're being consistent we're not contradicting each other we're going most importantly with best practices what's out there so I hope that answers your question thank you Mr Mur thank you Mrs Warner um recommendation number five has the picture of the Adaptive bike on there that we just have the one of those um actually no that's our newest uh again thanks to the foundation that's our newest adapted bike we have right now we have two side by-side models where students can ride side by side on one

030bike uh and then we also have I believe four three I think we had three now we have four with a new one okay so four of the the model you see there two that are a little bit bigger and size and then two that are a little bit smaller like the one that you saw in recommendation five in case you're curious that was this picture here it's a little bit smaller one but there there are five of those so now the big issue was we had students that didn't want to share they didn't want to take their turn so we have right now we have enough bikes so we can have every student on a bike at the same time just like we do in regular PE classes we have enough bikes for everybody

031now our that class we have enough for everybody we have two of those different models smaller for elementary element okay and and I think the request last year to the foundation was for two bikes and you got one so I just encourage you to make another request this year oh will there was there was a lot of U lot of enthusiasm behind that okay so that was kind of neat um and uh you know accolades to the program um I'm sure you guys are are are familiar with the uh the event that one of your students put on last year the 100 mile relay Vin Runo uh put that on down at nii last year and he was a senior well lifelong learning here and lifelong Fitness he's doing it again and I just got

032an email from him today um that it's going to happen I I don't know that I know the date yet but it's it's somewhere on my phone excuse me but uh but that'll happen in about two more months so there'll be 100 mile relay 100 times competing teams it's a really neat event for those of us who are runners in here anybody who's just do a mile yeah that's almost everybody I hope but uh but no that's that's that's really kind of neat that you you know your programs inspired a student to do something like that he's continuing it on now Happ here and hopefully we can work with him again this year it's one of things we take pride in is trying to encourage our kids to do outside events and give them credit

033for that you know so that they can expand their Horizons in the real world outside of class so thank you great presentation Miss Hardy thank you Mrs Warner um thank you so much for a fabulous presentation and a and a wonderful report I really enjoyed reading through it um I couldn't help but note the many successes the Department's had getting grants to help fund the department as shown in the slides and it's really very impressive um I appreciate your team going to any lengths necessary to make things possible for students and offering some really unique and fun aspects to the curriculum but I was was wondering if um I was wondering if there's a way for the district to further support your efforts there in the department uh I guess that's not really way one

034for me to answer uh but I will say I will say this in support of our superintendent um I know when he came into nii short story he came from came from another district and be honest we didn't see ey ey the first the first couple months but then we got we got together talked about it and he saw what we were doing for kids and he was probably our biggest supporter uh from from then on and really supported us financially as well as had our has supported us in what we were teaching kids so you know hopeing we can continue those types of good relationships excellent I appreciate that um uh yeah I just really appreciated your updated philosophy statement I thought that was fabulous how you included students and parents in your review

035with the survey that's really unique and and really enjoyed their voice in this as well your focus on best practices in students and looking for ways to better engage students with our health and physical education curriculum in general with the special focus on including um students with identified needs as well that's excellent I'm really excited to see how that progresses um so thank you so much for this report and I'm excited to see what comes next with health and physical education at north alghini thank you Miss BR doer I didn't want to prolong it but I have a question again uh to Echo uh Mrs Hardy's words uh thank you for the presentation um it was mentioned about looking through the students lens and I believe in recommendation number four you discuss the opportunity for

036students to take a deeper dive into different um areas but I'm wondering is there currently an option for students to select what activities they want to do uh is there any flexibility there uh that's what we're looking at that that's spe the specific Target of of unit four or the recommendation for currently at ni we do offer Min units where they can come in and they can have choices in what they choose okay uh what we're looking to do is expand that both at the 9th through 12th grade levels have students come in and so let's say for instance and this is still in study but right now they have nine we units at at any at Nash the discussion is possibly to move those units back to six weeks each then at the end

037of each nine weeks they could have choices and that's going to be a scheduling thing how do we supervise those Cho properly supervise those choices and so there's some Logistics to work out but we want to provide them with opportunities to dive deeper into things they enjoy maybe and expand the curriculum a little bit with some other choices that aren't already in the curriculum but those we're looking at that as something that might be student driven that we want them to have more input if there's something that we haven't covered then we might be able to add it for those Choice units but it's going to have to be partnership between the students and the staff and what they want and how we could meet that need sure if not it could just be something

038maybe they say well I really like this activity I can go dive a little deeper into that activity great thank you sure miss modic thank you um I just wanted to say I've been through the whole be program and I loved it I mean obviously I like to move and be outside but all of the teachers are awesome it was good to see all the friendly faces and I think that the focus of it like from my experience if I was asked to reflect upon it I feel like your philosophy does fit what my experience was even already um yeah and I think that there's not necessarily enough focus on Mental Health throughout the school day but the PE Department definitely is like a moment to relax and exercise if you know to whatever extent

039you feel is enjoyable and really get to calm down so it's always a highlight and my it was always a highlight in my day and I really loved it thank you Al I'll close with a few questions and comments one more from test over here I'm so sorry miss pagado my apologies I just wanted to repeat everything Isa said I really enjoyed my experience um and I just always remember little Tess loved te it was her favorite day of the week in elementary school um and also I would like to add for the m to meals um it is a great cause you should definitely come out Vincent is one of me and isa's friends and I participated in volunteered last year and the date is May 18th so write that down Dr sovak in

040in contrast to our student Representatives uh Miss chano made me run outside in the cold every day for an entire year and I despised every minute of it except for the day we did the Jane Fondo workout in the wrestling room but this morning when I woke up early did my workout and then was doing my strength training with the proper form that she taught me uh I just wanted to give you guys credit for the lifelong learning um and the commitment to Fitness that you are fostering thank you very much I agree this was a wonderful report I just want to highlight some of the things that really jumped out at me that I was really excited to about what you guys have done as a department the jump for the hills I think

041that is such a great program to partner with nhco much better than the um the previous group you worked with and all those little prizes that no one parents really wanted their kids to have anyway um the bike program fourth grade bike unit was what got well what one of my kids is what got her um to actually try riding a bike because she knew she was going to have to do it in school and it pushed her to do it the summer before and I know there are other children in that same position um and I appreciate you pushing her to do that so that I did not have to face all her resistance Alone um and the unified PE I'm really excited about you guys exploring that concept that seems like it could

042be a really great program for an A and I'm so happy to see that in this presentation um I have a couple questions um the focus on Fitness class that was mentioned in the report I had never heard of that I have a grad and two kids in high school and I think I'm more familiar with the program of studies than the average parent and that was news to me could you explain a little bit about that sure the focus on Fitness class is an is one of the offerings of the senior high school we've had advanced physical education thanks to Mr light uh of course we're going to miss him and Miss Cho recently passed away two of my favorite people in the world um but he started an advanced eClass at nii back

043in the late 60s early 70s as far as I can recall but that was our our effort to get that in into high school we had a lot of students who wanted to take a advanced PE type of course at the high school but what they were able to offer is an every other day equivalent of that so students who wanted to be more focused on Fitness that's the name of the course and because most of the high school curriculum is a little more recreational focused and so for that class they come in they'll work out they'll train for whatever activity it is and there's more running more weightlifting more things like that than the traditional curriculums that we we offer for the regular course excellent is that a substitute for the regular PE class

044is it one or the other no for that one it is a substitute that course yes that is that is news to me and I think it's something maybe some of my children would have been interested in and I'm not like just a heads up maybe some kids don't know about this what we do or maybe they're not telling their parents that might be more as we do at every fall when scheduling time comes around every teacher goes in great detail with the kids about okay these are your options next year we definitely try to promote those courses because it's good for them and it's an opportunity that I got to tell kids you get pre personal train in advanced Fitness or in focus on Fitness pay a lot of money for that outside of

045School set and it's just your tax dollars at work I joke around with them but it is they're getting a great opportunity where you have an opportunity to exercise every day and you're not going to have that the rest of your life uh to do it as part of your what work day so they don't always see it that way though we try um I also noticed in the report you were talking about adding an additional middle school health class during like the the unified Arts period And I just like I do want to say I have some concerns about that just based on um how little time some of like the Arts the art program and that family consumer sciences and ju and um that we don't even have any business at the middle

046school and so just something going forward if you're going to explore that option I think that's something to think about that a lot of kids do find their place in art and they find like FCS and those are things and so there's just so little time in the day um how we fit more PE into the middle school when you guys already have every other day that's something that I hope if you go forward pursuing that option that that's something that's taken into consideration um that I I 100% on board with one of the things I love the reason I live in North alagan is I love that we have our kids have all those options art music the technology class as you name and our kids have opportunities for and I believe in all

047those opportunities uh I think that might be a little bit of a misunderstanding I don't think we're trying we're trying to create a way to not have the pull outs because our focus groups very clearly didn't want to miss physical activity time for health instruction so what we're trying to do is find ways to to do that a little bit better than we currently do it to meet the kids needs and wants uh that's going to be a study to figure out what's going on we don't have one right way yet okay that would because I love how you were talking about doing it at the high school and maybe switching the changing the units down to six weeks and then having both that choice and I assume that could also be maybe an opportunity

048to bring in the more Health opportunities that people at the secondary level we're looking for so while the health is so vital in the Middle School when we if we pull them out s them in a classroom for four weeks we heard about that a lot kids didn't like it and it's important so we had to find a way to balance what's what we know is important for our children and they want to be active every day so that's just something we're going to look heavily into a better way to accommodate that excellent and I do also want to Echo what uh Miss Hardy said oh how I really appreciated you having focus groups with the students at all levels I have to say I was not surprised to hear that makeup PE was a

049stressor that's something I've heard from my children and from other parents um that I talk to that the makeup class does it it stresses the kids out so anything you can do to um now that you real now that they've told you that's a problem anything that I think the department could do to work to make that less of a a hurdle for students after they miss school um I think that would be fantastic that's something we we've begun piloting and we'll expand it through our meetings but currently we do have a pilot program we're going where students can make it up online they can do things on their own and document it share with their teacher take the curriculum outside and school would do it on their own time uh we really don't want

050them skipping lunch come down and make up a class or anything that so that's something I think some kids have done that we really don't like either we don't want that we want them to you know eat their lunch and do do what they need to do and have downtime to so we will continue to look into it great I really appreciate that thank you thank you so much thank you guys and thank you all of you for coming this evening we really appreciate everything you do to support our students I did have one final comment I'm sorry gives your question with the next steps the action steps so all too often um in every school district you do a qcing review and it becomes a review and it kind of ends right there and

051then five six years down the road you have another culum review and you look at the the 15 recommendations were made and you try to figure out which ones did we carry out so what we're doing now is we're creating action steps so we take this this plan it becomes a living document and and we uh work with our team on creating those action steps so we look at start dates end dates we look at attaching people to uh the action steps um so we can have eyes on those specific steps and then we have notes so that we can capture history so when the next team comes through a review we have everything captured that we know what was started how it went or what needs to change and that's going to jump start

052our next review process so we're not starting from scratch I guess if I can just follow up so I'm just curious for what you have in your review if you were to implement most of what the ideas you had in your viiew would that be A Five-Year Plan would it be a one-year plan or what what yeah no it could be more toward the five like the duration of the next cycle um so starting off would be we talked a lot about prioritizing these recommendations so we would go back with the team look at the recommend ations begin prioritizing in um putting a timeline for that out thank you if I could add one thing uh I think Mr Schmidt uh kind of Hit the uh nail on the head uh when we first met

053but I will also say that um imitation is the best form of flattery and when I went to my previous district one of the things that we did was Implement many of the strategy IES that the health and PE Department put in at north alany um one of our proudest days in my former district is when we had 50 bikes delivered mountain bikes and that was a direct result of that imitation uh of the department that's here at North alagan so um you know those types of things when people follow your lead uh that's pretty indicative of a pretty powerful department so for that I thank you thank you so much and now we will move on to our na Empower annual report okay we have Jenna Fraser Tommy guess and Mr dero who have

054worked diligently from the beginning of the year and have really taken the lead uh in moving forward on the na Empower diversity equity and inclusion and I know they're excited to give their presentation tonight so I'm going to turn the mic over to them good evening everybody wanted to say great job to the PE department on their way out great job guys uh my name is Jenna Frasier I'm one of the assistant principles at Marshall Middle School um I first wanted to say thank you so much for um Dr Highland entrusting on behalf of Miss guest and I uh to be up here this evening and speak on na empower the diversity equity and inclusion Committee in this District um it's a privilege and an honor and um we are looking forward to sharing all

055of the great things that our district is doing our history and also where we see next steps going with our diversity committee so we wanted to start with uh reviewing what the na Empower mission is and then we'll go through how na Empower um inhabited its name so the na Empower mission is to empower all of our students and our staff to create a more inclusive community that recognizes honors and celebrates our differences we have four visions that we set out to strive for that would be giving our students and our staff the power to impact more Equitable policies practices curriculum and instructions strengthen North Alan's commitment to diversity equity and inclusion identify the needs and concerns of the community and then support the development of culturally competent individuals a little bit of the historical

056context of North Alan's diversity committee and I personally had the privilege of being a part of the diversity committee when I was a special education teacher I started around 2011 so I've really seen um a a long history of transformation and commitment within this work of diversity equity and inclusion so just some background about um in the 1990s that was when na diversity team was first assembled in the district and the original committee assisted with creating harassment and tracking forms and processes and the diversity expression contest which we are very excited um Dr came back and he said we need to get this back up and running so um Mrs guest is going to talk a little bit more about that but we're very excited to bring that back to the district um as it's

057had a little bit of a a law for some time so the committee has been made up of a combination of Staff administrators and community members over the years the committee was renamed the Dr Marsha Martin diversity Unity Committee in the early 2000s and it was named after one of our district late administrators who led the beginning years of the diversity committee a report such as tonight on diversity has been presented to the board of directors each year for about 30 years on March 24th 2021 Na and power was introduced to the entire nasd Community during a board of school directors meeting so some history specific to na ower North alig's District committee was founded in 1992 to help serve our diverse needs of every student in our district during the 2020 21 school year

058na power focused on restructuring our diversity committee mandatory training programs were discussed increased recruitment of diverse candidates and updating reviewing our anti-bullying cyber bullying unlawful harassment in hazing policies was a big focus and still is the inaugural na ower commit included 30 students and staff members from buildings across the district throughout tonight's presentation we'll capture all of our 12 buildings uh efforting toward celebrating diversity equity and inclusion so here is just six Quick photos of um some of our images that we have throughout the district that we're really proud of some of our other history that the diversity committee has um has done in the past and current our our Title 9 training our committee meetings with all stakeholders we reviewed calendar holiday recognition and discussed what goes on our district calendar that we distribute

059every year we continue to review District policies we're looking at how we can continue to welcome our new staff students and families and make connections to different families throughout the district we also examined our current student clubs and activities and we were able to pull some of those advisors and see what the work has been within each of those committees such as within our Multicultural Student Union our gay and straight Alliance and then positive behavior intervention in schools as just three quick examples district and building level diversity events we discussed we also looked at the Anti-Defamation League no place for hate we took part and ouch that stereotype hurts in the past and then as a district we also look at bullying prevention programs we're active in our sap Student Assistance programs the esap program

060that's what's within the elementary um age span and then our student services department from K through 12 okay now Mrs guess is going to talk about what our current work looks like good evening uh I am very honored to be here tonight and to be talking to you about our current work and some of the the future um ideas that we have for this committee I have not been a part of this Committee in a past I am a a newer employer in the last four years I joined during um our covid time so I'm excited to be a part of the committee this year and share with you what we're doing and uh where we're going so as we've already said ma power is comprised of a large group of stakeholders students staff teachers

061parents Guardians School administrators executive counsel board of directors and community members I think that's really important that we want to hear everyone's voice we've had uh five meeting dates so far this um year with one coming up uh the September meeting was a community members only meeting onboarding new parents and community members to this committee and then November 28th January 23rd and February 20th were meetings that we had as a full committee with May 21st being our final one for the year a little bit of a recap of what those meetings entail on November 28th uh we met to review the committee's mission and vision members of the committee also completed a survey and then we reviewed the history of and considered the continuation of the diversity expression contest as a committee we decided that

062building awareness and appreciation of all of our students uh would be really well received in this contest coming back so as uh Mrs frer already said uh Dr Highland had left uh the district come back to the district and said this was something he really enjoyed that he had a lot of great experiences with and uh wanted to charge us with bringing it back to the district and I'm very happy to have been tapped in to bring that back and and to help bring off the ground on the 23rd meeting in January we voted on this year's contest theme uh we also reviewed the committee's November survey results and then we determined to prioritize uh ongoing membership as something that the committee needed to work on during our February meeting we reviewed the timeline related

063to the diversity expression contest and we created four teams uh those teams would be to help get this contest off the ground and back into uh this year's um kind of getting it off the ground and making sure that we um are successful and it takes a team to do all of those things so we have a submissions organization team we have a judging team we have a display team and we also have natv video leads and that's something that we're really excited about having our students as part of the natv do some filming for us our committee determined that uh we really wanted to also honor Dr Dr Marsha Martin the name of the committee has changed but we did want to honor uh the work that she's done in this district and across

064other areas as well and power uh meeting we also talked about this upcoming meeting uh March 20th that we would be having a report due to the school board and then we also reviewed again the committee survey results and future work our next meeting will be May 21st all right looking at our survey results so uh a survey was provided to the full list of our committee members 56 members um were given that survey 28 responded to it uh the greatest survey responses came from parents and administrators 25% of the survey respondents responded but decided they were no longer able to continue to participate that would be seven individuals and we did have two students respond to the survey so from that we also asked this question let's top three priorities for the group to

065work on after the diversity expression contest is initiated and these are in no particular order but they are a representative of those specific responses from 28 people review and update policies cultural awareness and celebration data analysis and Reporting staff training and education student and Community involvement and promoting the inclusivity and combating bullying bringing back the history of the DI diversity expression contest has been part of this year's major work in the past the diversity expression contest has had different themes uh part of my task was to look back and see what themes have we had in the past and what might we want to consider for the future and so you can see some of the themes that have happened are where everyone knows they belong we weren't able to find the theme for the

0662014 2015 year but through 2015 and through 2018 and again in 2019 2020 uh the more we respect and understand one another a better world it will be was the theme in 2018 and 2019 school year diversity the art of thinking independently together with the theme and this year we tasked our members with voting on a new theme for this year this year's theme is share our similarities celebrate our differences I'm very excited that that's theme for this year uh that's a an idea that came out of one of our committee members so it feels freshh it feels new it feels relevant to the people that are currently on that team and I do think that when we think about diversity equity and inclusion it's also important to note that there's so much about us

067that is the same right so sharing our similarities is just as powerful as acknowledging our differences a little bit about the contest name including uh Dr Marsha Martin who is she what was she about uh she was a longtime educator she was an assistant principal reading specialist and a teacher from 1973 to 1989 she became the principal at Carson Middle School in 1989 and led that school for 15 years during her career she served as a committee chairwoman of the North alagan School District's gender equity and training diversity training program she won the Gloria fitzg award for gender Equity work the outstanding educator award from the American Association of University women and the 1995 da ion award in recognition of her outstanding middle school program so certainly a wonderful Legacy to leave behind here at

068North aligan and worthy of honoring so this year's diversity expression contest is currently in the middle of our submission window as you can see here our theme is share our similari celebrate our differences we promoted that contest through the district website and and newsletters on February 23rd and March 1st we are currently taking submissions now both digitally and in person at their school uh we are hopefully going to reach an additional audience through tonight's meeting hopefully if those are listening online or here in the room you have a child in the district who would like to participate please encourage them to do so we'd love to see them Express themselves what makes them unique and what makes them the same as some of their peers our natv filming crew uh will be coming around to

069buildings on May 6th to interview and uh take some video of student winners and then our student winners will be recognized during the May 22nd board meeting so we're very excited we also have a video of previous contests but at being respectful of everyone's time I will let you look at that at another moment but it's really powerful if you've never experienced the contest I have not experienced it before now uh this video really gives you an idea of what our students are capable of why this is worth doing again you'll be really I think uh astounded by what our students are able to come up with and the beliefs that they hold about uh empowering themselves and and the people they know and then I'm gonna pass it off to Mrs Fraser thank you

070and what's really interesting about that video is that uh I actually saw one of the students that uh was in that featured in that in 2019 and now she's a senior so I said to her hey do you want to come to the Schoolboard meeting I'd love to have you share you know what you've done and how that has inspired you and she said no thank you but she said please don't show that video oh she's so cute um but it was just so neat to see some of our students back in that video from 2019 and now that you know they're up at Nash and ready to graduate and see all of the the work and progress they've done so we're we're really excited about that um and to recreate that video and to

071share that with our community um as it comes through uh we also thought that it was really important to um to recognize that our students are the biggest piece of of this work uh we're all here because of our students because of our children um and we we were able to um to talk with some of our nii and Nash clubs and activities and specifically we wanted to find out a couple things we wanted to find out first how many clubs and activities do we have that are operating in the 9 through 12 level and tell us specifically what are you working on um and anything that's acknowledging educating celebrating student culture diversity and history within our district we wanted to know that so we sent out a survey to Nai and Nash clubs and

072activities advisers and sponsors um and we we wanted to ask questions based on um how often you meet and uh what how many participants are in your group and what are some of the things that you focused on so as the data came through uh we saw that there are over 40 clubs in activity offerings in both nii and Nash um we have 100 plus staff sponsor sponsors between both of the high schools our participation with students spans between five members to 266 student members across all clubs between nii and Nash Our clubs and activities with over 100 students are our National Honor Society tigerthon project water Key Club strolling strings Deca and then student council and this is just a a graphic of the breakdown we had about 50 participants respond to the survey

073that we sent out and we broke it down into trying to see what the uh the span was of clubs versus um supplementals activities so you can see that um the majority are clubs there we thought it was also uh noteworthy to just mention some of our other clubs and activities that add diversity equity and inclusion as a focus or it just happened to be um embedded within their work that the students with their sponsor do um weekly within their work or on their own and this can be seen throughout our buildings on our walls um through our morning announcements in conversations through our Blackboard announcements through emails through after school activities that they're doing within our cafeterias or I know at nii in the space out right outside the main hallway but if there

074are spaces within our buildings our students will find them um and some of the clubs that we have that we thought were noteworthy to mention are listed here um Stand Together unified Bachi team our Multicultural Student Union our Muslim Student Association our black student union student council Key Club best buddies our Jewish cultural Club Hindu Heritage Club specific languages German French El Club Spanish GSA Walker home and then we have several more and just some context about clubs and activities and I'm I'm sure some of our staff here that are are sitting here have probably been approached by students that say and these gals here may have been those a couple of those two individuals that come to us and they say hey I have an idea hey I'm interested in this can can I

075have a sponsor are you are you interested in helping me lift this I have some other friends that also um want to have individualized time to grow this and to promote it and that's really all that it takes is that conversation and then a sponsor to talk through some of those ideas and I think the big thing with our work that we want to highlight and continue to grow is student voice we we want to hear what our students are interested in and we want to continue to help grow and Foster their um their interests and um what they're also curious about and help guide them through those things diversity equity and inclusion across the district we were able to collect from each of the 12 buildings um this is a link here this should

076be in the um the board notes that you can pull up and see but this is a presentation of um each of the 12 buildings I'll just go through so you can just oh we can't see that one sorry about that um no it's just SL that's okay we can go back to the other one okay so within um the diversity equity and inclusion uh title there there's a link and if you click on that link it'll take you to another slide deck that has each of our 12 buildings in all of the the great work they've been doing throughout the school year and what Miss gas and I just asked is just um put some things together just a high level overview and um our community can look at that at their Leisure but

077it's really just a great celebration of our students and all the uh the awesome things that they've done um to just show their uniqueness as themselves and um uh celebrate each other through throughout the the school year okay this is guess I'm going to pass it to you to talk about what's next sorry and I'm fting a cold so I promise if my voice squeaks uh to restate whatever I said before um going back really quickly to the last slide where you have a chance to look at different buildings and what's happening in those buildings you will see especially at the elementary schools I can speak a lot to what's going on in those particular areas i' I've talked to my colleagues you'll see uh book displays in the library you'll see longest table events

078at our middle schools and this year at Franklin We hosted our first uh longest table style event where we had different country showcases uh you'll see that there are a lot of different ways that each school is is embodying this in their everyday and activities that happen outside of school so please take a moment to look at that if you can all right moving forward what are we going to do um we know what we're doing now we're working on that diversity expression contest we're meeting as a group uh but going forward what does our group want to do and that really comes back to the survey question list the top three priorities for the group to work on after the diversity expression contest is initiated and there are a lot of wonderful ideas on

079here but a little bit to the point in our um health and PE review is that if you uh focus on too many things then you can't really accomplish much and so the first thing that our committee really wants to focus on is that student and Community involvement sorry and the reason is because as you saw earlier in the slide presentation only two students responded to our survey and this is a student um kind of or organization we want them to be a part of what we're doing we want to hear their voice we want to know what their experiences are at the school of what are we doing well and where can we improve but we won't know that if they're not a part of this group and so our committee is really focused

080on membership uh and that being the next big step to take and making sure that we incorporate and include students in this process so maybe some of the students that were a part of this uh Committee in the past have graduated and moved on and it is our due diligence to incorporate students that maybe didn't have the opportunity in the past but are ready to join us now so growing our committee membership is vital to our ongoing work this is an African proverb that um I think about often not just with this committee but in life in general if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together and I think that speaks uh really to the idea of this committee and what we want to do we want

081to go far we want to do great things and we want to do it together so we need to build a robust membership where all voices are heard and valued so student membership we want to leverage current student organization and clubs at the secondary level youve heard a little bit about uh all the wonderful clubs that are currently happening we don't have to recreate the wheel but why don't we pull those students in that are interested to be a part of this committee and share with us their ideas their perspectives developing an elementary student subcommittee of our grade four and five students doesn't have to be just our fourth and fifth grade students our third grade student might have a really great idea but if we're thinking about student leadership and building that capacity that

082would be the group that we really want to focus on utilizing students in the judging filming and celebration of our contest winners so we don't have to wait until next year to do this work getting them involved we want to tap uh into that that student population now as you can see uh natv is going to be a part of filming our contest winners we're going to offer them opportunities to help in the judging process and hopefully celebrate our winners this year and then building level representation uh we've had transition of new uh staff members and new Administration and so we want to make sure that each building in our uh district has a staff and student representative we think this is really important in relaying information to the buildings about what our committee is

083doing but also relaying information from our buildings to to our committee about what their needs are what's going well and where can we grow the diversity committee had four um subcommittees previously uh the first subcommittee uh had a goal of developing and formalizing plan for welcoming new students families and employees to the district kind of idea the idea of that black and gold experience checklist and I know from the past reading through some of those reports that is something that they did work on and accomplish so uh while that works is uh still ongoing we know that that has already uh taken off last year with some some checklists and welcome packets subcomittee two was to develop a plan for reviewing policies practices and curriculum and instruction as you heard tonight curriculum instruction is something

084that's been review most of the time whether it's a health and PE or math or Library uh so many different parts of our school go through a curriculum instruction review and so just making sure that uh as you even heard tonight that mental health and and students uh what they need are part of those conversations subcommittee 3 is really the focus that we're going to have this year which is developing a process for inviting members of the student staff and Community to join Na and power next year uh we want to see more voices and more perspectives and the last subcommittee is to build awareness and appreciation for multiple cultures uh while the committee certainly cannot take credit for all the great things that are happening in all 12 of our buildings we know that

085there are great things happening in our buildings that that was part of our slide deck already and that we have the contest as just one of the many things we want to do to celebrate and acknowledge uh who our students are and what they bring to this District so those are the things that we're going to focus on this year uh as always if you have a concern uh and you need to report something we have a student title line coordinator uh Dr Amy DeLuca she's our director of student services and our employee Title Nine coordinator Miss MJ Tracy the Director of Human Resources so if there is a concern we want to know about it and we want to address it that concludes our slideshow but we do want to go back and show

086you our video now that we know that there was a little bit of time and um I think Executive Decision we want to show the video and uh on behalf of the entire committee I'm going to keep my words brief and defer to the most powerful voices that are still not only represented the video of represented in our schools um I've never had the privilege or honor to meet Dr Martian Martin uh but I'm sure in her memory and to honor her memory and to have her Legacy live on not just in practice but in people and I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the efforts of both uh Miss Tommy guest and Dr jennif Frasier in keeping that Spirit Alive there's nothing more important that we do I know and I clearly remember

087upon Dr Highland arrival to the school district in the conversation that he had with me as building level administrator at ingamar what are we doing for children and how do we know that they feel like they belong um and even though they may not all be Steeler fans uh at ingamar everybody is a tiger and we all wear black and gold um and our goal that we talked about as a leadership team is to find and Empower more Marsha Martins so that we continue to preserve and celebrate student voice so please I would like to show the video [Music] for well I think diversity is a very sacred thing and an NA while we wait to see if we can pull up the video would any board members like to make some of their comments

088or have to ask their questions while we wait Miss Black thank you Mrs Warner so I was curious how many students are on your 56 member committee that is that's a great question I would actually have to log on to my computer and find out how many were given the uh initial survey they were students that were recognized last year so I'm going to pass this off to um Dr Frasier who would have been a part of that committee last year and maybe has a better idea as far as how many students that we have it's it's I don't have the exact number but it's something that we need to grow um I would say 20 maybe and we haven't had that number so 56 members you think there were about 20 of them were

089students not this year in the past okay I just was sort of looking at this because um I'm wondering if you tried to ascertain why so few answered the survey you know only half the people answered the survey I answer surveys all the time because it's a way to collect data and to have only half answer it um and then you know for for 25% of those aren't even returning so what's um it just it seemed like very few to me and I thought well students um would be an important part of the group and only two students responded right um so uh I you heard what you were saying trying to build up that membership and so forth but I I as a little bit of a numbers person I'm looking at and thinking

090okay was the survey particularly time consuming or what caused only right only three questions and we couldn't get more than half of the committee to even answer interesting and what I can add to that um I think anyone that has been in the district for um some time remers the surveys that we used to send out from the district level to all stakeholders that has not gone out in a while and I know that um Dr Highland had some thoughts about revisiting that and how we will send out in survey different groups of North aligan and one of those being students so I think the the next thought is um how we gather information from all of our students in a very thoughtful Manner and they all have um the opportunity to respond to a

091survey uh because when we have those meetings they are all after the elementary day ends um I think it was 3:30 or uh or so I believe and we know that a lot of our students are busy we know they're participating in activities um and that time frame is not conducive to all of our students and families that are traveling with students to different things to hop on to those meetings so that's something that we need to be realistic with about when we're going to meet um and the time to make sure that our membership um is reflective of the data that you're seeing we actually were able to show the video here at this moment is that okay to show video yes please it can sometimes be under represented so oh I just wanted

092to participate in something that would bring this wonderful thing into [Music] light [Music] as I was going up my mom would always tell me a story about these four boys that we would always fight so she gave each her their mother gave each one a stick and they could all break it very easily but when they put all the sticks together and none of them could break it so that taught me that one person can be defeated easily but when people are together no one can defeat them and they can cross all the hurdles easily I think a lot of the times we try to put things in a political sense and we think of it from STS and facts and figures we forget to realize that they're real human beings have actual stories and

093lives that they're trying to lead and sometimes even if it's only with one death or one person that isn't able to come to the United States that's one VI that's being impacted if we respect each other and we're actually kind to each other we're not mean we don't bully or anything this world could be a Kinder world everybody makes the world a better place especially if they're different because if they were all just like the same person it would just be a boring and Bland place so I made two hands holding the globe representing um all of the race putting into the Earth and how it really celebrates it a better world it will be expresses diversity and expresses Unity it it doesn't judge anyone based on their color or their race basically you have

094five people all different ethnicities um in a circle almost and there their backgrounds sort of merge with each other you have an Indian woman um in holy and you have a Chinese woman on Chinese New Year you have a Hispanic man on the Day of the Dead you have a European woman on Christmas and a black man on the 4th of July and in the center there is all their heads converge and they sort of have this brain this same one brain in the middle just the past weekend my grandparents came up from Georgia and we'd all been just like sitting around at the dinner table and they started telling stories about their past and it was just for fun but I realized that they all had like a deeper message behind it that was

095important and I've seen something on the na website about the diversity contest and saw how this you inter connected I just decided to tell the story about my grandparents I wrote a poem that um explains how animals and people are different in their own ways I just put like a world and in different kinds of hands like different colors and I do different animals in different places people can be different even tet sand grain we're all different but we're all special in I like our own unique ways when people are together they can never be defeated but when someone is alone it can be really hard for them and they can be defeated very easily so you need to understand one another to know that if you're together that you won't be ever defeated I

096think today especially you have a lot of people's opinions being shared and it's very hard to sort of respect everyone in a way that takes everyone's opinion into a account so now I think it's important to hear everyone despite their background their ethnicity anything and just respect them for the fact that they are a human being and they do have their own thoughts their own life and use that to come to an understanding and I think that's that really speaks to me personally [Music] okay thank you any other questions Mrs Blackburn did you have anything else no thank you so much anyone else Dr Gibs thank you first I want to say thank you to all of you and to the committee for the work that you're doing I personally very supportive of efforts to

097uh increase diversity and increase awareness of and appreciation for multiple cultures so I really like that that this has been going on for some time and that you're all working on this so one one thing I wanted to ask or suggest I know that our executive Council will be putting together working on a comprehensive plan uh coming up and I think it would be nice to have some diversity goals as part of that plan so this might be your committee might be a good place uh to have some of these conversations and to come up with some recommendations ations for what would be some good goals for the next five 10 years whatever for us to work towards personally I think that one way of creating that inclusive culture is to have D diversity in

098our staff and our and all levels of our Administration and I think we struggle with that here so having having some set goals and maybe some also recommended strategies for how we might accomplish that I think would be helpful thank you Mr MCL thank you Mrs Warner um and thanks folks for the presentation um it seems like number one goal coming up is inviting members and growing the membership and some involvement um and towards that end I noticed in the survey it mentions the there's one one parent who had uh who had responded who was a non um not a parent who was a Community member who was not a parent and I there was conversation as this whole thing has developed through the years there was some conversation about how to manage the community

099involvement and one thing that I had um made a point of a couple of years ago was the non-parent Community member because you know we have 85 00 students and probably how many parents uh is that limits our limits our potential Community involvement to maybe 6,000 parents or something like that 6,000 families whatever that works out to be out of a population I think is over 50,000 or something in this area so to encourage individuals for example I couldn't be a member because I'm not a parent any longer I haven't been a parent for a few years other than being on the board I'd be you know I get that but my my point is uh you know so that being thinking broadly that way is encouraged so that uh there there's people with a

100lot of expertise who aren't necessarily apparent any long so um that point and um one of the other goals and it wasn't your primary goal but one of the um items on slide 23 um promote inclusivity and comat combat bullying and something that it might be getting getting a little bit ahead of where you want to be in this coming year but there's been conversation amongst the board and uh I I know Dr Highland has experienced with a program called racials Challenge and I don't know if that's come up or is that getting ahead of it a little bit but it's an awesome program that that I know uh is used in other districts and it's a very specific uh inclusivity and B anti-bullying type of program that is really pretty neat it's very impactful

101so apprciate you keep those in mind thank you anyone else I had a couple questions and I was just um in the report you mentioned that this at least in past years this has also been um we've also received uh harassment data in a report around the same time we received this presentation and so I was wondering if we were going to receive that like we have in past years even if it wasn't in the report we're still compiling with the co Interruption and some of the tracking form transition between Tyler and power school that's still being accumulated uh and the collection process is also more in times of that transition we can get that information for it we're still final great it we just is something we've done in years past and I think

102it would be nice to have that Continuum of data um going forward um and procedurally we've updated our harassment tracking form in alignment with our I think it's 1031 that is also evolved so that fantastic um and then I just this is kind of a tangential question but you know um this ties in with our you know Title 9 related policies and I know there has been talk of updating Title 9 and it's been waiting for a while is there any update on whether that new guidance is out or not not yet okay they're promising it for spring and when and but they've been promising it for quite a a while okay I was just wondering if there was Del it several times I know they have so I last I heard was February it

103never happened in right I haven't actually said in months it's now we're calling it spring I was just I was just curious about an update um and just one thing I want to mention which is when I see that harassment data I often wonder is you know do our students know that they can report things and because Title 9 is specifically sexual harassment but also um but any kind of discrimination also gets reported to our the same compliance officers am I is that correct yes and so I just want to make sure that our students know they can report things and they can report things that are small or large right um and so I when I Was preparing for this evening I did a Google search for I think you know I don't know

104what it was but maybe Title Nine training and I saw what I believe was a presentation that was given to our staff and I really appreciated some of the stuff it said in there that said if you hear about it we the executive counsil and our compliance officers need to hear about it and that if it's not your respon it is not your responsibility to make a determination it is your responsibility ability to report conduct and I would say and I'm so that was in a staff presentation but that would also apply to students wouldn't it that you would like students to maybe the the responsibility piece is not as enforcable or whatever but you would like students to report things if they hear things correct abely okay and and that reports can be anonymous

105correct um um and so I just want to make sure our students feel welcome and if they don't that they know who to report it to and that there will not be we have Provisions in our policy that are Oppo that there's not retaliation and that they can remain anonymous and I think that's an important part of our non-discrimination and our Title Nine uh policies just to let you know Elizabeth that the handful that I have received can you hear me okay the handful that I have received thus far just to to affirm what you're saying have been students that reported the incidents to their teachers I am so happy to hear that yes and I hope that is a widespread message that our entire student body is aware of uh and that's the end

106of my little tangent but uh thank you so much for coming and thank you to uh Miss Nicholas and Mr Cox for allowing us to see that video which was worth the wait and we will look forward to seeing you guys back on May 22nd when the diversity uh contest Award winners are presented to us so thank you so much time you this is just a sneak peek into that other document that was linked in I think that it's now visible thank you for sharing that that was I did not realize that was a link to other things so I will look forward to checking that out later we will move on now to the rest of our agenda starting with our Student Activities report miss modic and miss pagnato thank you very much um

107in honor of wom's History Month the power of she Club had a busy March students and staff were encouraged to wear purple on Friday March 8th in honor of international women's day The Home Room who wore the most purple won Donuts each Home Room was also asked to watch a video highlighting wom's history they sold stickers for $1 each during lunch periods last week all money collected is being donated to her throughout the month utilizing the school TVs they have been displaying honorable women in our school community and throughout history lastly they have been selling cookies and power of sheet apparel and will continue sales throughout the month uh Nai interact officers attended the world affairs Institute conference on navigating climate in in sections they attended seminars heard from panelists and participated in climate un

108simulations they also learned about the importance of Youth voice in our community and how to work to amplify it additionally in their March monthly meetings the club made de decomposable plant holders and planted seeds as a sustainability and graduate project they also finalized judging for the middle school power of world contest that many members participated in throughout the rest of the March they will be collecting clear plastic clamshell lunch boxes and glass or plastic bottles for their upcoming service project they are hosting an earthour participating activity along with continuing to collect letters for the senior living in isolation lastly student council wrapped up their facial hair February event they raise uh 30 sorry $321 for the Carrying Place and raised great awareness for the cost they also hid coins and leprechauns throughout the school on

109March 14th winners were able to return them to the office to win various prizes it went very well and gave students something fun to add to their day as we wrap up the third quarter they prepare they're also preparing for their upcoming P teacher fundraiser and the longest table [Music] event thank you um for student council longest table at Nash held an event to celebrate culture and food throughout the community on March 13th upcoming events include a scavenger hunt for St Patrick's Day a personal care collection with North Hills community outreach and and many end of school year celebration events um the senior class Council wanted me to share that the early bird sale for the senior prom a night in Hollywood tickets are have begun on March 19th and run through the 22nd for

110the early bird sale spe and debate attended four local tournaments including the the biggest of the year at Upper St Clair they placed first in the debate team sweep stakes and second in overall sweep Stakes 44 students qualified for the phssl state championship and 12 students qualified for the ncfl national tournament held in Chicago in May lastly Club officers organized a trip to the Harvard National Tournament from February 16th through the 19th where multiple teams and individual competitors qualifi to eliminate to elimination rounds against extremely difficult competition additionally and more importantly March is the month of the state championship from March 14th through the 16th they will travel to Bloomsburg University with competitors in nearly every single event additionally there are multiple items for board consideration tonight the first is a afjrotc Cadet strip to

111Greenwood Village Colorado for to compete in a stellar explorers stem competition the next is a pmea Allstate band competition in eriepa then there's the waiver of board policy number 241 for field trip section 6B for pmea band The All State Choir Festival in ypa the North alagan School District indoor percussion trip to Dayton Ohio the afjrotc cadets trip to Port Clinton Ohio and finally the North alghini School District PA Junior classical lead to State College College PA thank you thank you both I look forward to possibly seeing pictures of facial hair February results um I saw a video at the beginning of the month it looked quite entertaining so I'll see how I'd also like to see how the month ended uh now we can move on to our curriculum report Miss Hardy thank you

112Mrs Warner this month there are two items for board consideration the first is the approval of the novel what about Will and the second is a student expulsion agreement oh and I just wanted to let everyone know that in compliance with board policy 108 the novel whatabout will has been available for public inspection here at the ceao offices for the past 30 days thank you Mr mccl I was just make a comment about that because um I took that out of the library and honestly didn't read every page but it it seems like an awesome book that I think will be a good addition any other comments I also checked it out of the library uh books and verse are not necessarily my favorite but I did enjoy it and uh I think it will

113be a good addition to our curriculum uh we can move on now to the finance report Mr wener thank you uh this month there will be four items um for board action and two information only items the board action items will be the AIU program of services budget um the budget transfers and student expenditures for January and the accounts payable list and then information only items are the ending cash balances for February and the February forecast which we're still showing about a $4 million um budget surplus projection so that's all good any comments on the finance report okay moving on to the human resources report Miss Brit doer thank you Mrs Warner uh we will have 12 items for board Act next week as follows one resignations and retirements two separation agreement and release three

114creation of supervisor of special education and gifted education four adoption of contract and appointment of school police officers five appointment of coordinator of academic technology six appointments seven wage and status changes eight elimination of positions nine lease of ab absence 10 recognition for additional education 11 honoraria and Club activities and 12 supplemental contracts Mrs Warner if I may I'd like to share some information uh concerning some of the items in this month's HR folder um concerning retirements in this month's folder there will there are 138 total years of service retiring in this month's folder including 92 years of service and transportation we also have two long serving support personnel and Facilities Barbara Elser and Susan uh V Vol ven ven I'm so sorry retiring this school year with a combined 33 years of service to

115the district at the next meeting the board will vote on the creation of the new position supervisor of special education of gifted education in the current structure of our student Support Services model the responsibilities of assigned to the position of director of student services have resulted in a disproportionate amount of leadership time and energy focused on special education as a result not enough time and attention is being spent on the area of proactive and reactive mental health support for our students this new position as well as other changes within student Support Services which include the addition of more social workers will assist us in better meeting the needs of our students this month's board agenda also includes the proposed appointment of two new managers in our transportation department these hires are part of the year-long

116reorganization efforts in the transportation department designed to improve Service delivery and operational efficiencies the new manager of personnel and safety will oversee all drivers driver training and safety for the district and also focus on the Recruitment and training programs for new drivers while this is a new manager position this role is an enhancement to the current training and safety coordinator position that is on the agenda to be eliminated with the hiring of the new manager the manager of customer service routing and operations is a title change and an enhancement to the former Transportation manager role which has been vacant since last fall the position is being renamed to reflect the job duties more accurately this role will oversee customer service routing operations dispatch mechanics and contracted bus routes with a hire of the new manager

117of customer service routing and operations the position of Transportation supervisor is being eliminated I'd also like to note that the board had the opportunity to meet and interview the coordinator of academic technology candidate as well as the police officer candidates and finally I'd like to acknowledge Kathy Nicholas who is working her last board meeting this evening and before I turn it over to Mrs Warner or Dr Highland I'd like to personally thank Kathy for all of the assistance that you have provided me since my very first day on the board you have always been very kind and helpful and knowledgeable in your duties you have always greeted me with a smile and I will miss you thank you Kathy and I wish you all the [Applause] best I would also like to Echo Miss Britain

118Do's sentiment Cathy you are just been such a great I don't know what we're going to do without you I have been coming to board meetings for so much time and you were just always there a steady hand behind the scenes making sure the meetings run smoothly handing out the cards you know handling the hurdles that come up at the last minute when we have to put a video and there's technical difficulties fixing the the the squeaky microphones everything you do and you do it with such a calm demeanor and like a friendly smile and just thank you so much for your service to the district and I hope you have a wonderful retirement the board would like to present you [Applause] are there any other comments on the human resources report okay then we

119can move on to the property and supplies report Mr mccor thank you Mrs Warner we have six items for consideration next week the first being a monetary donation second stage rigging and installation purchase the third being a scoreboard replacement for the north alagan intermediate High School fourth proposal for new tennis court surfaces posts and Nets at Marshall Middle School fifth proposal for purchase of fields and grounds mowers and the sixth a proposal for tennis court improvements at Nash I've got comments of course thank you and I I will defer to um I'm not sure perhaps Mr Kirk on item number one because honestly I did not research the monetary donation I don't know the background um and we um would love some background on why and how we came about a $554 donation From Midway

120USA for the Ry program sure Mr Mur uh that donation was made by Midway the Midway USA Foundation um it's National Organization uh this year they've they've donated approximately $4 million to organizations all over the country um they support youth Marksmanship and uh I think there were um almost a thousand endowments this year given we were one of them um to support our RC program and as you know um ourc program is uh does have a a very um storied uh and successful Marksmanship Program there for our youth right yeah very highly ranked and very very successful so thank you thank you and if there's any way that we can express um thanks to them we'll have to have to follow up on that some more uh the second item was the stage rigging and

121installation purchase um this is a safety item uh this year's inspection identified uh deficiencies and potential failures in the rigging at Nash and this uh is something that's inspected every year and needs to be uh needs to be addressed when uh potential failures for safety item um third being the scoreboard replacement uh anybody who's been down in nii uh at the uh field that current scoreboard is attached to the building um and that was my first question was Chief um if we're going to replace the scoreboard I hope it's not going to be reattached to the building because we may make significant changes to that building in the near future and it turns out and and and you know I think the fact that we just Turf that field down there that that field no

122matter what we do is going to be a part of it so to have uh the scoreboard now mounted on the opposite end away from the school building makes makes a lot of sense and it's desperately needed it's a terrible uh setup down there we don't think could get Mr bazo to find us another donation of a a video board like we have at Nash but but this is a budgeted item and was anticipated uh Tennis Courts at Marshall Middle are this is a resurfacing with new posts uh not to be confused with the tennis court resurfacing up at Nash which is a more significant complete remill and resurface uh so uh big difference in what the projects are big difference in that there's I think only two Courts at Marshall and nine at Nash

123so the last one um is the two mowers which are fairly expensive mowers and um little background on how this whole project came to be for the information of the board who may not have been here at this time uh bringing the Landscaping in house some years ago was a process that was analyzed and found to be cost effective at the time um I think we probably expanded a little bit but the the there's a couple different issues here one of them was um consistency in service we were finding uh that the contractors were having the same problem almost every contractor is having and finding um labor and we were seeing a lot of half-done work poorly done work unsafe work uh so we saw that and then also it's the safety uh on all

124of the fields the soccer fields my my own children grew up playing soccer right out back here and and there were times where we'd show up and grass wasn't cut and uh there were big divots in the field and things like that so the that was that was the other thing was was creating a consistent uh uh playing surfaces and um and then curb appeal too is a part of that getting a good consistent good look to all of it so anyway towards that end the we the district has purchased a lot of equipment these are two items that were identified two years ago and uh weren't available because of supply issues at that time we uh had three mowers requested um to fill the Gap we bought two Ventra units that were available a

125little less expensive a little smaller and um I'm going to defer to Mr Kirk to maybe explain a little bit about what these mowers are and why these are an important ad to our our equipment okay thanks Mr M um the um to to to put things in perspective I think firstly for the board to appreciate um of the um approximately 400 Acres that the in the uh in our real estate portfolio here for the district we actually maintain um about 100 acres and all not all of that is grass and Fields but but a good portion of it is um these Jacobs and mowers that we're recommending here are highquality long life commercial mowers um they have a wider width significantly wider than anything we have right now which is going to mean less

126mowing time and the ability to do more frequent mowings at the same cost they also have diesel engines which if you're familiar with diesel engines compared to gasoline engines there's really no comparison that's why all of your Long Hall trucks have diesel engines they last a very long time uh we'll be mowing these fields 15 20 years from now with these mowers and so we are trying to raise the bar um I think these type of strategic long range purchases are the way to get us there most cost effectively and uh you know we're frustrated by the uh by the supply chain issues um we did our best um to to um to make do um we have um one of those uh two mowers that we purchased previously we will be um working with

127our inventory of mowers and and and fitting those in and deferring and eliminating other purchases that are planned for next year's mowers and so we'll fit them all into the inventory in a very cost effective way um so we're not over buying um but we are buying quality long-term strategic for the uh for the grounds does that does help sir yes thank you thank you Mr Kirk another another issue um that concerned me uh and Mr Kirk and I spent uh about half a day touring um the Marshall campus and Nash trying to be sure we have a place to put these things and um uh nothing's more frustrating to buy new piece of equipment and see it sitting outside or under a tarp or something like that uh and I think we've been successful

128it's going to mean some clean out of an area at uh Marshall middle that is not properly utilized um and also um utilization of a structure out in the field it's it's kind of hard to explain but we found a place to put these things at both Nash and at Marshall and um and then and another piece of all of this if anybody was following um it didn't make it into the public folder but there was a a request for a um golf cart that would have been up at Marshall for use on those fields for when the trainers need to go out um and we have pushed back and Revisited that that was a $220,000 golf cart which was a really nice golf cart and it had kind of a pickup body on the

129back in case they had to put a an injured player in the back but um the practicality of that and what we use at most every other place I think we can probably come up with something that's a little more economical so we took that out and that's um that's where we are in this folder for the coming coming voting session excellent thank you Mr McClure any more comments on this folder Dr Gibs sorry I have a question and I have to admit I have zero knowledge about anything about mowers I don't like using mowers so so I don't mow anything anymore but um I noticed that the cost it's just under $120,000 which is about the cost of two electric vehicle Automobiles and so I have to ask the question these days is there

130an electric alternative uh you know an industrial level mower that has a big battery that you could charge up and you don't have to worry about Fuel and diesel engines and all that uh Dr Gibbs I I have not seen one that can provide this type of capacity um we I promise you we will watch for that um one of the uh past one of the golf carts we purchased last year actually was an electric vehicle we've been purchasing electric golf carts in the past so um we're tuned into that but thank you for the for the suggestion sir anyone else okay we can move back to you Dr Gibbs for the Student Services report oh very good so uh there are two items for board action sorry two items for board action uh at

131the next meeting one is the Wasson Institute education center agreement another is the memo of understanding with the educational development software and for us to um have use of the um District Student Assistance Program software and then there are two items for information only uh one a student teacher request uh for a uh student um to have an experience at nii and another for a uh School counseling intern request for a student from California University Penn West University uh to receive uh uh uh intern experiences in our school thank you any comments Dr Gibs no comments from me anyone else okay then we can move on to Dr sovak and the technology Services report there is one item for consideration in the these folder the technology equipment refresh which is Apple and Windows devices for

132student and staff use and other classroom technology equipment refreshes this is one of the more expensive items on the board folder on the board um list for consideration this week at a total cost of a little over 1.4 million however it is part of the capital funding plan um and in addition after having discussed this with Mr Cox over the course of the last several months as well as the community community technology advisory committee uh I am confident that we are purchasing the right equipment at the right price any questions or comments then we can move on to the superintendent's report Dr Highland thank you Mrs Warner there are three items on the agenda for board consideration next week the first one is the school uh school board meeting dates I think uh that that

133accurately reflects the board's desire to start to move away from combined meetings and it also reflects the board's desire to uh have another week in between the um work session and the Action meeting and the meetings will remain at 7:00 uh the other item is uh an advertising agreement Brad Mo Pine Athletic Association and third is the professional seminars and professional development thank you Dr Highland any questions or comments on the superintendent report I will just point out that there were two changes to an earlier version of this calendar in August uh the meetings are now listed as the 7th and the 14th and in December the meetings are the 4th and the 11th which is different than the original draft uh so now we can move on to our speakers on non- voting items

134uh no one has pre-registered is there anyone in the audience who would like to come and speak for two [Laughter] minutes going one seeing none we can move on to our closing items uh I have no announcements or reminders do any other board members have an announcement or a reminder Mr McClure no no okay oh oh miss Mrs wurn he's not even going to congratulate his wife the the the girls uh swim team and Diving team once again we've we've won another State title so big congratulations to them and like the diving Co so um I I better follow up on that I will in the I will seed uh seed my chat towards you the girl divers did win the top three spots at whii and then second third and 10th at States the

135divers and then they pulled the swim team along to state championship so yes thank you for hopefully she's not listening but yeah so congratulations uh and all of our teams do so well but I always like to recognize when they actually win a State title so congratulations to the athletic department and swim swim team and Diving team thank you thank you Mrs Blackburn anyone else okay well then I shall adjourn this meeting