ASD Committee of the Whole / Regular Board Meeting 12/18/2025

001It's Finance Committee of the Whole meeting. We will take a brief moment for a ceremonial swearing in. Judge Capehart is here to administer the oath of office to Deputy Superintendent Dr. Amelia Coleman. We appreciate Judge Capehart joining us for this special occasion. Judge? And I appreciate you taking me first. Thank you so much. With that, Dr. Coleman, would you please raise your right hand? I, Dr. Amelia Coleman, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity. Would you please indicate by indicating or solemnly swearing or affirming to those statements? Very good. Congratulations. No, no, no, no, no. Yep. You can read your writing. All right. Today is the

00218th, and we'll circulate the documentation, and it'll all be official. Okay. Very good. Congratulations. Judge Capehart, thank you. And Dr. Coleman, I think that makes you officially official. You're going to put, okay. Yes. Good evening, school board directors, members of the public, to my team. And to all the families who are here tonight and the students, good evening. Okay, okay. Before we begin our official meeting, please join me in welcoming the Washington Elementary School Flag and Dance Team. Let's give it up for Washington! As they assemble, I want to thank Principal Grillo, who's going to join them in dancing tonight. That's good. And Ms. Dermer, Ms. Turchinick, and Ms. Pimmons. Let's see. I was saying your name wrong. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, and we are so happy to serve you and your

003children. Do we have another number? No. Okay. So have a fantastic holiday season. Let's give it up for Washington Elementary School one more time. Let's give another round of applause for Washington. So good evening again. So as we begin our final meeting of the calendar, I just want to take a moment to say thank you to our entire LearningMe community for their hard work and commitment to our students, our staff, and our families. I also tonight am honored to officially welcome our newly elected school board directors for the first meeting, the first committee meeting. And I want to thank Mr. Moore, Dr. Johnson, Ms. Michaels, and Mr. Morris for raising your hand on December 4th and saying that you are the best. Thank you. Willing and ready to serve. So I thank you, and I

004look forward to working very closely with you. So thank you very much. Let's give them another round of applause. And then also Mr. Nikoloff, who was on the board previously, who is now going to continue on two more years with us. So thank you, Mr. Nikoloff. You decided to stay, so thank you very much. So please give him a round of applause. I just want to say I'm really happy that each of these leaders bring distinct talents and gifts to our work. And thank you. And reading their biographical sketches and having opportunities to talk with many of them, I'm really, really excited about all the great things that are ahead for us. So thank you so much. Tonight, additionally, we are going to congratulate our board officers. So congratulations to Ms. Noel. She's still our

005newly elected president. She's continuing on with her tenure, so please give her a round of applause. And I want to thank Ms. Audrey Matheson. She's our resident educator who's been in all the roles. And so we want to thank you for your commitment for serving as vice president. So thank you. Before the meeting began tonight, you also saw some slides that recognized the winners of our most recent You Are the Light ceremony. So for everyone who was the December You Are the Light winners, congratulations. And we give you a round of applause for that. The people who were recognized. Last week, it seems like it was 20 weeks ago, but I think it was last week. They were recognized for their commitment to our learning community. Some of those people were very quiet about their

006commitment and service. Some of them do it more voicefully. We call them catalytic. And some people do it very quietly and are willing to serve. So we recognize about 75 people, and there were more than 350 people who attended that event. And it was snowing. So it was a great time. And we invite everyone to attend. And we want to thank you for your commitment to our You Are the Light ceremonies. So thank you. We are really happy about, and I'm going to say all my remarks if that's okay, Madam Chair, in this segment. We are really happy about our work that is underway as it relates to our strategic plan. We came together as a collective community, and more than 9,000 people participated in our strategic planning process. Our strategic plan is entitled Lighting

007the Way, a Blueprint for Innovation and Excellence 2015. We have identified seven priorities, and some members of my team are going to talk about that a little later in this presentation today, this evening. But I want to thank everyone for your hard work. We have a year one progress review. It's a flip book on our website. So if you want to know what the district has done since we have made our commitment, God bless you, to executing on our strategic plan. And then you can go to our website and see the progress. That has been made thus far. Additionally, tonight, we are going to identify some of our key performance indicators, and we will have a presentation by our strategic data fellow. And she's going to talk to you a little bit about her background

008and the work just underway as it relates to attendance, as one of the major drivers within our strategic plan. Tonight's focus on attendance, we are going to give you a high level overview as to how we are going to report attendance. And we said to our community. We said to our community. We said to our community. That we are going to be very intentional and forthcoming with information about our progress as a district. And I'm really excited about our team and the work that is underway to share. I'm really excited about this tonight. So we can't wait until a little later on. Again, I want to commend our elected officials as we close the calendar year and thank them for their commitment to the Allentown School District. And we also really want to thank them

009because the budget was passed. And with the passing of the Commonwealth's budget, now there's more clarity and stability as we finalize investments for the remainder of this academic year. Given that more than 70% of our revenue comes from the state, the resolution was essential to supporting our operations and initiatives and most importantly, our academic program. We are looking ahead. We are having some real strategic momentum as a district. And as we move into 2021, we are going to have a lot of work to do. We are going to have a lot of work to do. We are going to have a lot of work to do. And as we move into 2026, you know, our focus still remains on a few key concepts. As we say often in the district, we're staying focused on focus,

010which means the instructional core. That is the relationship between our students, teachers, and the presence of talent. So we change, if we change one part of the instructional core, we have to change another student's teacher and content. I'm sorry, and content. If we change one part of the instructional core, we have to change another. So we teach, we have to improve teaching so we can improve the work that's underway. And we have to give our students more tools and resources. So we're excited about that work, and we're focusing on transparency, implementation, and partnership as a district. And so I want to thank all our partners who have been very actively engaged. And if you go look at our social channels, you can see some of the things that are happening throughout the district. Our academic

011work, as well as the work that's under the district. as the work that's underway with our partners and our family and community engagement efforts. I want to thank all the families and all the councils that we have in the district this year for your hard work and of course all of our staff, all our leaders. We are here for the children and I am because of all of you. So before I close this segment today, I want each of you, I wish each and every one of you a warm, restful, and prosperous holiday season. To our teachers, our support professionals, administrators, all school leaders, everyone who works in the district, our families, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to the Allentown School District. I want to thank our families

012and caregivers again for allowing us to serve you and your children, for your trust and for your partnership and for your voice. Thank you. Oftentimes we have our council meetings here, we have a special education council, we have a superintendent's advisory council, of course student councils and they really, in this community, elevates its voice so that we can support our children. And I want to thank all of our students because it's because of you and your brilliance and expertise we are here. Again, we hope that everyone has a restful and recharged and renewed holiday season and we wish you all the best and school. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The school resumes on January 5th. There's school tomorrow, everyone, and after tomorrow on January 5th, we will return. So we get better together. All

013of our strengths are needed. Keep lighting the way, everyone. Thank you. Ms. Matheson. Now I'd like to call to order the Finance Committee of the whole meeting of the Board of Directors for the School District for the City of Allentown for today, December 18th, 2025. informational retreat was held with the school board of directors administration and council in addition prior to tonight's meeting an informational executive session was held the purpose of the executive session was to engage in informational updates presented to the board on a number of district initiatives as well as confidential matters pertaining to student safety and personnel an informational update with council regarding negotiations with the teacher Teamsters Union informational updates and discussion with council pertaining to district real estate The board welcomes and invites public comment you may address the board

014on agenda and or non agenda items The first opportunity for comment is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only Comment cards must be received by the start of the meeting which is now We will not be receiving public cards once the meeting begins a copy of the public comment policy is located on the table next to the comment card According to our board's policy any person may address the board in accordance with the procedures and limitations of the policy Either on issues presented in resolutions being considered or at other matters affecting the administration management or operation of the district Remarks of a personal nature directed against any individual will be ruled out of order if you choose to address the board Please fill out a comment card and hand

015it to the board secretary. Mr. Simonson Comment cards are located at the podium near the door once The board will recognize please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record Do we have any? Comment cards this evening, right? We have four action items and one discussion item on the finance agenda this evening Dr. Wharton Wharton B is requesting approval from the school board of directors for Barry Isett and Associates to provide professional engineering services for the design and placement of temporary modular classroom units at Sonia Sotomayor dual language immersion Academy Would you like to? Give us the details, please Good evening everybody Board members, dr. Burks. Good evening and to new board members. Congratulations and welcome to the downtown school district so tonight I have multiple presentations as Has been

016told the first one Sotomayor dual language immersion Academy modular classrooms We're out of space. We need to make more space. We need to do it very very quickly third grade will be coming to Sonia Sotomayor next year we have to be ready for that and accommodate that in order to do that. We have to do some design You know some people wouldn't think that doing Modulars, you know, oh, it's a trailer. It's a classroom on wheels. It's still considered a building in the city so we still have to go through the whole process of Gaining approvals. So tonight what we're going to be doing is starting with the design portion of it and Barry is that's gonna leave that design And we do have a representative from Barry Isaac Here tonight Bob Corp. Thank you

017Bob for showing up. And So that's the first it's a hundred and one thousand eight hundred dollars to go from concept to getting in the ground with construction. So the whole design gamut Actually, I have a question for you. Sure. Having had some experience with modular units how Accessible are they to the main building now? Well currently the modular that's out there students have to access come out And go into the modular this will likewise There's not gonna we are going to try to design it where it's the least impact to the elements kind of like what we over have at Ritter we have the the cover and stuff like that, so It's not going to be attached to the building per se Where it's seamless so they they'll still have to exit to go

018into the main building or their laboratory facilities within the modules We are designing for that. Yes. So there's gonna be a girl that boys and girls bathroom All right Are there any other questions? Seeing none, may I have a motion to bring this to the regular board meeting later on? So moved. Second. We have a maker and a seconder. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? And the motion carries. You're also requesting approval from us for the Miller Sports Construction to provide the following services. Screening, disc sanding, and refinishing of existing gymnasium floors at Trexler? That is correct. Any details? Over the summer, we were able to accomplish four different schools cleaning and resurfacing their existing gymnasium. Trexler was in need of a little more

019than just a cleaning. They need new striping. The logo is kind of disintegrated. So this is a continuation of what we didn't have time to do over the summer. So I'm asking the board to approve. A contract for Miller Sports Construction that has done work for us before in the tune of $40,190. And that will, you'll basically, if you have a wood floor, you're going to go down straight to the wood. You're going to clean it. You're going to prep it. You're going to put the lines back on. You're going to put the logo on. And then you're going to do the clear coat, multiple clear coats on top. This is all going to be accomplished in the next two weeks over winter break. Any questions? That's great. Thank you. Anything else? May I have

020a motion to move this one forward? Make the motion. We have makers and seconders. I think there were multiple ones there. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? And the motion carries. Thank you. And you are requesting approval from us for Plan Con Part D in conjunction with the new K-8 school as required by Act 34 and the Pennsylvania School Code. Thank you. So on November 17th, we're going to have a meeting. Okay. So on November 17th, we had something called the Act 34 hearing which basically lets the public know that we have a project out there. It lets the public have 30 days to respond. If there's any questions, today would have been the 30th day and Mr. Simonson didn't receive any public comment about the project. So the next step is, okay,

021you went through the public hearing. Now there's something called Plan Con. Just to let everybody know, planning and construction, it's done by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. And it used to be a process by which you fill out all these forms and you get a certain amount of money back from the state for your project. They don't do that anymore. However, there's some things in Plan Con still, the Act 34 specifically, where you still have to go through the process. Plan Con Part D is one of those. It's basically saying here's the cost of the project. You had your financial analyst look at it. And they agree to it. So that's what we're seeing tonight. In addition to that Plan Con document, we also have to attach the literal transcripts of what transpired on November

02217th. So whatever was said in public was caught by a court stenographer. Court stenographer then did the translation and gave us the file on Tuesday. So that has to be attached too. Likewise, the actual Act 34 book is not available. It's not available. It's a booklet, which is about 70 pages. Also has to be attached. You don't have it here because it would have been well over 100 pages collectively, but it will be posted on our website. So thank you. Is there any question or comment? May I have a motion to move this item forward? We have a maker. Is there a seconder? We have a second. Any further discussion or question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Then the item moves forward. And as kind of the star of the evening, you are also requesting

023consideration from the Board for the Bridgeview Academy additions and renovations project presentation. And this is a discussion item. That is correct. So tonight we have before us, we have the project architect from KCBA, who is Michael Kelly, and his colleague, oh, my gosh, sorry, Shannon. Shannon Abraham. But we also have Evan from the DI group. And if you recall, last month we had the DI group do the presentation for the Family and Community Resource Center. Tonight is special because Dr. Burks had asked us, hey, bring the two architectural practices together and make sure that the new K-8 Academy and the Family Community Resource Center look similar. So it doesn't look like a one-off. It doesn't look like a one-off building on another one-off building. So what we're talking about is literally making sure that the

024finishes on the outside kind of work with each other. So tonight we're going to do a presentation for you. Actually, Michael Kelly and his colleague, Shannon Abraham, are going to do the presentation. So, Bobby, if you can cue that up, that would be great. Oh, thank you. That's one. Come on. Pretty quick, right? Make it quick. Yeah. Good evening, everyone. This is Dr. Burks. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Dr. Warmbier. As he mentioned, my name is Michael Kelly, Shannon Abraham. We're from KCBA Architects. Very excited to share this building and this project with you tonight. I'm especially proud to do this as a 1993 graduate of William Allen High School. This is a real honor. Don't clap yet. You haven't seen it. But thank you very much for this honor. I'm excited to be home

025to be able to share some thinking and some ideas. So, over the last couple of months, we were challenged to look at the Bridgeview Academy building, the existing or formally Building 21, and look at transforming that into something creative, something futuristic, and something that would be beholden to the academic charge that you're looking to incorporate there. It's a very special project. If you actually look at the 8th Street Bridge, it's over 100 years old, and at the time, it was the biggest and longest concrete building in the world. So, we're literally right next door to something that was extremely innovative at its time. And here we come 100 years later looking at how to build something right next to it for the next generation of engineers and architects. In this building, we want things to

026be very exciting. We want areas for students to experience real hands-on learning. Maybe there's a nursing lab or a work lab. Maybe there's a working operating room where students are able to learn from health and safety. We want them to explore things through modern technology. We want them to be innovative with robotics and new learning and really be able to get their really be exposed to some of that new age technology. And ultimately, as well, we want all of that to happen within kind of an interconnection area where students are experiencing all of those things together. And are not just beholden to just or limited to just their classroom in that exploration. So, we want big open spaces for learning to occur. We've walked through that existing building several times. Again, remember it was an

027old office building at the time, so it's kind of set up that way. You know, how can we make something that's an older office building into something that fits those needs? We've had our engineers walk through and take a look at all of the things that are needed physically in the building as well. So, all of that's being taken into account. We know the family resource and community center is being constructed along Union Street there. Bob Corp actually mentioned earlier is doing a whole lot of civil engineering to those pieces. And so, we looked at that and said, alright, with all of these things that are happening, where can the building go? Where should the additions be constructed? What's left there in order to expand? So, we looked at kind of coming south towards Martin

028Luther King Jr. Drive. And maybe to the right-hand side there as well as far as where the building could expand. So, if we look at this as a computer model, you can see the family center again to the north. And we looked at possibly two additions, an academic addition at the front, an athletic addition, primarily a large gymnasium space to the upper right. Within that space, that kind of interconnection area, we're interpreting or envisioning a kind of collaboration commons. This is where all of the children come out to experiment and work and learn coming off of that academic addition and all of the academics that are going on within the existing building. So, when we look at everything from the side, we're thinking that addition to the front, that's that academic addition that you see

029there. The athletic addition to the upper right. The family center behind this building. We want this building to glow and literally be a building. And we want it to be a building. And we want it to be a building. We want it to be a building. A billboard for innovation. A billboard for innovation. Driving up and down Union Street. People should go, whoa, what's going on in there? People should go, whoa, what's going on in there? This is the Allentown school district? We're forging ahead. We're doing something very special behind those walls. We're doing something very special behind those walls. We want this building to. Let's go back and make sure. There you go. We want this building to be innovative not only on the inside, but also on the outside. Children and the public

030as they're coming here should be inspired. Children and the public as they're coming here should be inspired. As they come to the building. As they come to the building. as they come to the building and certainly as they go inside as well. So even from the outside, what you're seeing here is a two-story building. Those kind of five cubes there hold labs on the other side of them. And then we have some classrooms and things to the left. You can see the family center in the far left up there. We'll have an image of that in a moment as well. So as we're coming across kind of from left to right there, you can see the outside of that building. There may be some lighting and things like that that kind of make that feel

031like a bit of a circuit board or the building itself is actually living and breathing. But most important on the inside of the building, that's where all of our education is happening. So we want in that collaboration commons to feel like these classrooms can really break out and education can happen anywhere in the building, not just within the classroom walls. There may be a day where the robotics studio needs more space. There may be a day where the robotics studio needs more space. They open up the walls and they're out in that outside area. You can see here in a floor plan those spaces. Again, the blue is all of the general classroom spaces on both floors. So we're creating a new building, but we're also renovating a lot of those spaces inside the building

032as well. Again, we want this building to feel very collaborative. It's expected to have sixth graders through twelfth graders here. So right now it's nine to twelve. But with the additional classrooms being, we feel that the middle school curriculum could be included as well. So here we are kind of walking down that community commons on the second floor. You can see areas to the left of the new addition. You can see into the existing building. Again, there's going to be a lot of academics and things that are still happening in the new building. We want a lot of these spaces to feel open and transparent. Spaces like an engineering lab where research can be done, and then we're flying drones inside the building on the other side. We've got computer stations on the second floor

033looking down to those areas. So it's kind of what an architect does, right? We work on models like this, and then we go out in the field and we build those things. So allowing for those types of academic spaces to occur. I mentioned earlier about health and biology. Again, this is something where teaming up with some local partners, bringing in some equipment and allowing students to have real hands-on experiences. Some of the best technology available in research. These are the types of spaces we want to make sure that we're creating. Oops, go back again. That we're creating. E-sports is a big thing that we're seeing in a lot of high schools nowadays as well. So your typical old computer lab, or actually back in my day it was a typing lab. But even these computer

034labs now, certainly during the day we could be teaching software and software design. But this is also an area, and then before and after school, where e-sports as a sport could be addressed as well. So we want all of these labs to be very different, very flexible. So they could be an e-sports lab today, it could be a fabrication lab tomorrow. All of them require just some space and a little bit of room to grow. So we're excited for the opportunities and the possibilities in this space. As I mentioned, a gym addition is up for grabs. This is another portion of this project. High school size basketball court with some seating, a little stage at the end as well for some general performances and things like that. But we also see how this could be

035used as part of the community sessions. You know, kind of shut down the rest of the building to the left. And that space could be used nights and weekends for youth leagues. And just a great attribute in this neighborhood. As Dr. Whartonby had mentioned, it's important to have that link as we kind of go up Union Street to see the family resource and community center. So here we are kind of looking at that facade there. You can see our building on the right. Actually, that darker gray spot in the middle is the existing building. We're going to cover up that old brick. We're going to widen those tiny little skinny windows. So even the part of the building that isn't being covered with a new building is still going to have a new look. And

036then the family resource and community center to that upper left space up there has very similar materials as was mentioned. Standing seam metal roof, some stone as well as some fiber cement boards to provide some color and creativity to the design. So a lot of similar materials. They have their entrance. It's a very beautiful building. You guys did a great job. They have their entrance off of that's Union Street up at the top. And then we have the entrance to the academic side on Lehigh Street as you are looking at now. Do you have questions or comments? Comment. Wow. I am blown. I am the innovation queen. And I feel like this is futuristic. I feel like this is a building that says it's going to prepare our students for the future. I agree. I

037love every part of this. Great job. Great job, everyone. My question is actually a curriculum question probably for Missy or Jen. I know we are integrating. We are doing sixth grade going up to 12th grade. Are the students going to be able to select their career path starting at the sixth grade or you are thinking the ninth grade? It could be something we respond to later on. That's just where my mind went. Dr. Burks. I know when I call on you, you are going to say Missy. You can go ahead, Dr. We are going to give students an opportunity to explore at the middle school level. So we will give initially some exploration to the pathways as opposed to your being tracked into health or tracked into the AI or innovation. So at the middle

038school year, there will be some exploration and then we will be able to assess what students' interests are and then we will begin to help them through that pathway. But we are still working on the model. Dr. Coleman is leading that work along with her team. And so as you know, she just got sworn in tonight. I know. So yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was really mind blowing. Do you have something else? Go ahead. How many students can get into this building? So the plan is 125 per grade. So that's the math of that is 500 from the middle school. So that's 500 from 9 to 12. Add another 375 for middle school. So that's 875 kids between 6th through 12th grade. Anything else? That was a discussion item. We do have

039one more action item. Was there somebody? I'm sorry. Yeah. I mean, this is fantastic. Great job. I had a question. What does the phasing look like? So for the existing students that are in the building, what does it look like for it to go from what it is to what this is? Well, there's a whole other 20-minute slide presentation. The Family Resource Center is starting. That's out to bid and it's not out to bid. The bids are awarded. And that's getting started. So the goal of that is to be done by the end of next year, which is right around when this would get started. So it's construction at one end and then basically you're going to jump to the other side and start there. Anything else? Thank you very much. I have a question.

040I think this is probably very peripheral. Parking. Is there plans for parking for? Put that slide up. I don't know. That's the way my brain goes. I think of all these little details. I think that's in the rest of the slides. They're going to continue. Yeah. So there's, this is the first project ever that there was more parking than you needed. So we're actually taking some away. The good news is, you know, sixth and seventh and eighth graders don't drive. So that's less. Less people coming to the site. So a lot of that parking will remain in the middle. But kind of from Martin Luther King Jr. Drive up, some of that starts to go away. So some of that is part of the plan now. And then we're going to take a little bit

041more of that for some green space. But you have more parking than you need now. And what will remain is an adequate amount of parking for what you do need. You turn it. I do know that. I'm trying to think. So with the green space, I know that a lot of our students that are there already like to utilize that space to play football, for example. So where would they, where would that new location be for those kids who are interested in that? Yeah. That's the goal is that that green space is flat enough for flag football and just outdoor physical education. So we're not building a stadium or anything down there. But it's green space. So it's not parking lot. And it's flat enough for athletic events. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

042Are you ready? Yes. We're really excited about this project. And just to underscore that this project is in three phases. So we will complete the Family and Community Resource Center at the end of next calendar year. It's at the end of December 2026. We will have a groundbreaking ceremony on about the second week of January. So this is going to be a very aggressive project in phase one. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank everyone who's been working on this project thus far. And as we transitioned building 21, excuse me, into Bridgeview, I want to thank all the team, my team, as well as Mr. Ali, who helped us to in addition with some local work earlier on so that we can make the distinction. So I want to thank you publicly for

043helping us to make that transition and everyone as we move on to the next phase in this project. So stay tuned for the firm dates. We're just finalizing a few details with all parties involved to make sure that date is firm. And there's more to come. So we're excited. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have one more action item. Dr. Wharton-Vee is requesting approval from the Board of Trustees. Thank you. From the Board for Microsoft Exchange Online. Let you explain, of course. Thank you. So the administration requests the Board approval to upgrade facility and staff email infrastructure from legacy Microsoft Exchange 2013 to Microsoft 365 current. And it's more cloud-based. So we're moving ahead from a very old platform that will no longer be supported if it were to be updated.

044If it were to go down to something that will be supported. And this is a critical investment. We're asking the Board to approve a maximum not to exceed of $100,000 with Microsoft. Microsoft is sole source, obviously, because it's Microsoft. And you either have Microsoft or you don't. So that's what we're asking for tonight. Thank you. Questions or discussion? In that case, may I have a motion to move this item forward? Make the motion. Second. And a seconder. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, everybody. Happy holidays. Yes. And to you, too. At this time, we are taking public comments on non-agenda items. Do we have any cards? We do not. Okay. Is there any old business to come before

045this committee? Is there any new business? In that case, may I have a motion to adjourn the committee? So moved. Second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. At this time, I'd like to call to order the policy committee of the whole meeting for the Board of Directors of the School District for the City of Allentown for today, December 18, 2025. Do we have any comments? No. Then I'll skip ahead. Dr. Birx, do you have any comments? Just really quickly, thank you, Mr. Nikoloff. I just want to thank the Board and my team for all the hard work on working on improving our policies. And we have nine policies this evening, many of them that fall under in the talent management and labor relations area. So thank you, Mr. Nikoloff. Thank

046you, Dr. Birx. As Dr. Birx mentioned, we do have nine policies tonight. Our first one, Policy 914, General Ramos. It is on relations with our intermediate unit. Thank you, Mr. Nikoloff. Good evening. This policy was laid. It was last addressed by the Board in 1998. So we thought it would be helpful to bring this forward as this speaks to the school board's responsibility and the collaborative relationship that we maintain with the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit. As you know, our board sends a representative to those meetings as recommended and then ultimately approved by the board in January. And so this speaks to that relationship and it also speaks to the work we do when the IU comes forward. So thank you, Dr. DeJuan. Thank you, Dr. Ponsor. Thank you, Mr. DeJuan. And thank you, Mr. Ramos.

047And thank you, Ms. Ramos. Next, we have a policy about policy and two different ways in which policies can be implemented. Our first policy is on the consumer. And we each agree that if we are going to run a policy about a policy, it has to be equal to our objective. And we have to agree that if we are going to do a policy about a policy, it has to be equal to our objective. So we have to disagree in this approach. And we will do that are there. So we have two additional policies. We will take two. So we have three. So we have three. So we have three. 207 which is confidential communications to students this is a new policy and it outlines the responsibility of all staff to maintain confidentiality in their

048communications with students subject to certain exceptions as required by applicable state and federal laws and regulations the board recognizes that certain written and oral communication between students and school personnel must be confidential the board directs the school personnel to comply with all federal and state law regulations and board policy concerning confidential communication of students when the guidelines stress information received in confidence from a student shall be revealed to the students parent or guardian building principal or other appropriate authority by the staff member who received the information when the health welfare and safety of the student is in place. The student or other person's is clearly in jeopardy in qualifying circumstances a staff member may reveal confidential information to the building principal and other appropriate authorities. Any comments, questions, concerns? We have a motion move this

049forward to our regular board meeting. I thought we were doing both at the same time. Oh yeah, 236.1 236.1 is also a new policy and this policy addresses the comprehensive compliance elements of threat assessment and contains language that is generally more procedural in nature. A policy on threat assessment is not mandated however the district is required to establish procedures for implementing section 1302-E of the school code regarding threat assessment. This is this threat assessment policy is fairly long so I'm going to refer to the page numbers and point out some important information. So on page one the board directs the superintendent or designee in consultation with the school safety and security coordinator to establish a threat assessment team and develop procedures for assessing and intervening when students whose behavior may indicate a threat to the

050safety of the student, other students, school employees, school facilities, and community the community and others. Also on page one the superintendent or designee in consultation with the school safety and security coordinator to establish a threat assessment team and develop procedures for assessing and intervening when students whose behavior may indicate a threat to the safety of the student, other students, school employees, school facilities, and community the community and others. Also on page one, the superintendent or designee in consultation with the school safety and security coordinator shall appoint. Page two, we highlighted and put an X next to individuals to a district threat assessment team. Individuals to a threat assessment team at each school building in the district are the two that we highlighted, which is consistent with our current practices. Also, the ones that we did

051not mark, the people who are part of those teams are the same positions that are in threat assessment and the threat assessment, the district threat assessment team and the school threat assessment team. Further, in the middle of the page, the superintendent or designee shall designate a member of the team as team leader for the threat assessment team. Also in the middle, the threat assessment team shall include the school safety and security coordinator and individuals with expertise in school health. Counseling, school psychology or social work, special education and school administration. We did mark the first one, members of the student assistance program team. We also marked members of the safe to say something crisis team and the suicide prevention coordinators and or members of the crisis response and crisis intervention team. We also partner with the

052other agencies as it relates to the specific student's needs and issues. We also have information about the changes in those experiences. That's why they are not marked. At the bottom of page two, the superintendent or designee shall ensure that the threat assessment team members are provided individual and or group training annually. Page three, and we checked all of them. This is also in alignment with our current practices. They receive training on numbers one through 10. In the middle of the page, information for students. students, parents, guardians, and staff. The district shall annually notify students, staff, and parents or guardians about the existence and purpose of the threat assessment team through posting information on the district's website, publishing in the handbooks, and through other appropriate methods. I want to note that the handbook that it will

053be published, it will be on our district site and in our code of conduct that you approve also. The threat assessment team shall make available age-appropriate informational materials to students regarding recognition of threatening or adverse behavior that may present a threat to the student, other students, school employees, school facilities, the community, or others in how to report concerns, including through the Safe to Say Something program and other district reporting hotlines or methods. Informational materials shall be available for review by parents or guardians. In the next paragraph is the same information and how we inform our students. In the next paragraph is the same information and how we inform our district staff. In the last paragraph, the district shall annually provide mandatory training for such staff. On page four, the threat assessment team shall document, assess,

054and respond to reports received regarding students whose behavior may indicate a threat to the safety of the student, other students, school employees, school facilities, communities, and others. In the next paragraph, the assessment team shall assist in assessing and responding to the reports that are received through Safe to Say Something program. In the next paragraph, the assessment team shall assist in assessing and responding to the reports of students who are exhibiting self-harm or suicide risk factors or warning signs as identified in accordance with the applicable law and board policy. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom, members of the threat assessment team shall engage in an assessment of the reported student behavior that may indicate a threat in accordance to the training and established procedures. This process may include, but is

055not limited to, you will see a number of all items checked, one through five. And then on page five, there's the response to intervention. The threat assessment team shall develop an individualized management plan for each student identified and assessed as posing a threat to the student. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the

056bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. At the bottom of page four, inquiry and assessment. school facilities, community, and other. Safe schools incident reporting on page 6. When a reported threat also meets the definition of an incident under the Safe Schools Act, we must report it. I'm going to paraphrase here. At the bottom of page 7, the annual board report, the district is responsible for

057providing information to the superintendent in consultation with the school's safety and security coordinator to annually develop and present to the board at an executive session a report outlining the district's approach to threat assessment, which shall include, and you have 1 through 7, we also put an X next to on page 8. In the middle, the annual threat assessment report shall be presented as part of the annual report to the board by the school's safety and security coordinator on district safety and security practices. Any comments or questions? No, that's a lengthy one. No? All right. Seeing none, may I have a motion to move this forward to our regular meeting? I make a motion. I second. Motion and seconds, both. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Savoy. Next up, Mr.

058Tseng has the luxury of doing our remaining six policies. We can take these all at once, or we can split them up, however. Okay, we'll take them all at once, as long as there's no opposition. We'll do policy 314.1, which is HIV infection, then I'll just leave it to you to keep going. Thank you, Mr. Nikolov. Good evening, esteemed school board and Superintendent Dr. Birx. Just as a precursor, as we move through the 300 series, the series right now for employee policies are split between 300, 400, and 500 for administrators, professionals, and classified employees. The new recommendations from PSBA are that they're all collected in the 300 series. So as we do move these policies forward, it will sunset some other policies in some 500 and 400 series. 314.1, HIV infection is a new policy.

059If you look at the purpose, the board is committed to providing a safe, healthy environment for its students and employees, and adopts this policy to safeguard the health and well-being of students and employees, while protecting the rights of the individual. This policy shall apply to all administrative, professional, and support staff employed by the district. Uh, Taking down the authority, the Board directs that the established Board policies and procedures and administrative regulations relative to illness among district employees shall also apply to infected employees. The superintendent or designee in delegation of responsibility shall be responsible for developing and releasing information concerning infected employees. Moving through that section, infected employees whose employment is interrupted or terminated shall be entitled to available medical leave and medical disability benefits. Such employees shall be informed by the appropriate administrator of benefits,

060leave, and alternatives available to them through state and federal laws, Board policies, collective bargaining agreements, individual contracts, and the retirement system. As you move through, the rest of the policy does have a section on confidentiality, infection control, and staff development. Any questions or comments? We'll move on to 318 then. 318, also a new policy. See straightforward attendance and tardiness. With the authority, punctual and reliable attendance by administrative, professional, and support employees is essential for the operation of district schools and therefore a prerequisite for efficient performance of job functions by employees is the punctual commencement and proper completion of all assigned duties. And the delegation of responsibility shall be the responsibility of the superintendent or designee to assess penalties when a district employee fails to meet the attendance requirements. 221. Comments or questions for this? All

061right, let's keep going. 323. Policy 323 is an updated policy. It currently exists referencing tobacco. It was last revised in 2014. So this policy is updated significantly through, and you can see in the title as well, tobacco and vaping products. So it adds in a significant amount of information based on vaping products. Questions or comments? I saw you move your microphone there. No? Okay. Policy 324 then. 324 is also an updated policy around personnel files. As you look at guidelines, a central file shall be maintained. Supplemental records may be maintained only for ease in data gathering. Medical records shall be kept in a file separate from the employee's personnel file and only information that pertains to the professional role of the employee and is submitted by duly authorized administrative officers. Taxes and rates of gelmiş

062from domesticsis, SPIs and dosto, administrative personnel and the board may be entered into the official personnel file. A copy of each entry shall be made available to the employee except for matters pertaining to pending litigation or criminal investigation. How much your questions for this one? Okay, let's move on to 334. 334, also a new policy does run pretty much concurrent with PA School Code as well as our collective bargaining agreements. The board policy for certified administrative and professional employees that eligible employees receive paid sick leave days annually in accordance with law and administrative compensation plan individual contract collective bargaining agreement or board resolution unused sick leave shall be cumulative board policy for non-certified administrators and support employees shall ensure that eligible employees receive paid sick leave days annually in accordance with the applicable compensation plan

063individual contract collective bargaining agreement or board resolution and unused leave shall be cumulative and as you move through Through there, the Board shall consider the written request of any eligible employee for an extension of sick leave with or without pay when the employee's own accumulated sick leave or other paid leave and unpaid leave has been exhausted pursuant to law or collective bargaining agreement provisions where applicable. MR. That's your questions. All right. Last one, 337. MR. Last one, 337, also a new policy. The authority has the administrative and support staff employed to work 12 months or other schedules considered full-time shall be provided paid vacation. The Board shall provide vacation days for eligible employees consistent with the employee's request and convenience while considering the district's management and operational needs. Vacation time shall be granted in accordance

064with applicable provisions of the compensation plan, individual contract, collective bargaining agreement, or Board resolution. Vacations normally will be scheduled at times when they will not impede the normal operation of the school or district, and all vacation schedules are subject to final approval by the superintendent or judge. MR. All right. Thank you, Mr. Singh. MR. Thank you, Mr. Singh. All right. Any comments or questions? All right. May I have a motion to move these six policies forward to our review? MS. I motion. Second. MR. Error maker and a seconder. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. MR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Singh. Do we have any comments? No? Okay. I'll make a motion to adjourn. So moved. MR. Second. Second. MR. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. directors of the school district

065for the city of Allentown for today, December 18th, 2025. The board welcomes and invites public comment. You may address the board on agenda and or non-agenda items. The first opportunity for comment is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only. Are there any comments? Anything from the superintendent? Yes, I'm really excited tonight about our presentation. So thank you, Ms. Sierra. As I mentioned a little bit of my opening comments, we talked about our strategic plan and the progress that we've made thus far last year. And we shared with the board that we are going to be open with the public as well as the community and all stakeholder groups about our progress. So tonight we have two presentations. One, we're going to share with you at a high level our

066attendance dashboard, as well as we have a presentation, and I won't get into all the details because this is when my team is going to present for you. Mr. I always steal their thunder because I get so excited. We are going to present a very innovative project, a partnership that we have through Digital Promise called Course Mojo and how we're supporting students and providing them with feedback on their learning. So are we starting with Course Mojo? Because I saw that the table is down and we have a student presentation. Okay, we were setting things up, but I know that Dr. Zimmerman is a little taller, so I didn't know that seat was . So we're excited. Dr. Zimmerman is going to come and present our attendance data dashboard. She's going to tell you a little

067bit about her background and how she came to Allentown. So we're excited for the board for voting to bring Dr. Zimmerman to us, and she's doing an exceptional job. So Dr. Zimmerman. Thank you, Dr. Birx. Good evening, school board members and Dr. Birx. I'm so excited to be here. For those of you that don't know me, Dr. Birx just did a great job introducing me but my name is Catherine Zimmerman and I am the Strategic Data Fellow here in the district from Harvard Center for Education Policy Research. I was brought in really intentionally by Dr. Birx as we rolled out our strategic plan lighting the way a blueprint for innovation and excellence 2030. Because in order to achieve success with our strategic plan we will need to use data more clearly and purposefully as we

068put that strategic plan into action. So this work includes understanding what information we need inside of the district to support our schools as well as creating easy to understand tools to help us see progress over time but it also includes us being really transparent with our larger community including our families students and community-based partners so they can see how we're doing and how we're improving toward our shared goals today I'm really excited to introduce our first key initiative in this work a public attendance and chronic absenteeism dashboard just to give us a little bit of an overview of where I'm gonna go in this presentation I am first going to refresh all of our memories on what the actual attendance goal within the strategic plan is and then miss Rama said I wasn't allowed to

069put this on the slide but we're gonna spend a little time getting lit on the literature aka we're gonna review the attendance research and talk about why it's so important that we address attendance in order to successfully achieve any of the goals in the strategic plan we really have to do that and I'm really excited to be able to share with you guys some of the things that we're doing today. to address our student attendance we are then going to make sure we're all on the same page with some critical attendance definitions before I give you guys a first look sneak peek at a public facing attendance and chronic absenteeism overview dashboard that we will be rolling out in the coming months and we'll finally end with some next level work and questions so just

070as a reminder our strategic plan includes a very clear goal focused on increasing the percentage of students who attend 90% or more school days each year because regular attendance is so essential to student learning and success this is a really important goal within the strategic plan coming to school every day matters because each day that a student misses is an opportunity that they miss to learn connect with others and get support from our school staff that can't ever be fully made up later on why is it so important that we are so important that kids continue to come to school regularly well years of research confirmed that not coming to school regularly has serious consequences for student success and truly addressing attendance is critical to ensuring we're able to meet all of our other community

071identified strategic goals attendance is important throughout the school career so starting very early the literature tells us chronically absent kindergarteners are less likely to meet state reading proficiency standards in third grade and they're at greater risk of being retained in school and not being able to attend school. earlier on you might recall that one of the goals in our strategic plan is third grade literacy if kindergarteners are chronically absent we're not going to be successful in our third grade literacy goal moving into middle school chronically absent middle schoolers are associated with 20% lower math performance than their regularly attending peers and they exhibit greater behavioral issues than regular attending peers again whole child development an important goal within our strategic plan that won't be addressed if we can't get our kids to school finally chronically

072absent high schoolers tend to engage in more health risk behaviors such as smoking and alcohol and drug use and they face greater future economic hardships such as unemployment I will say it again you might recall that we have a goal in our strategic plan focused on career development and career attainment and we can't get there if our high schoolers don't come to school obviously attendance is very important it also represents a really ideal place for us to start engaging with our broader community in our data use efforts so I really like this quote from attendance works it's a nonprofit focused on improving attendance across the nation and they put it really succinctly improving attendance is a team not a solo sport it requires a systematic approach we know that attendance is a systems issue and

073our collective efforts are needed to move the needle on chronic absenteeism the evidence is really clear that intentional efforts by all parties involved in the system including not only districts in schools but our families our community members our partners and our policy makers are needed to contribute to meaningful change and attendance patterns we can't make a ton of progress all at once but collective buy-in is the number one way to ensure success by 2030 now this is not to say that there is not a lot that we can do as a school district to support our students and that we should be doing quite frankly and thankfully our community recognizes that and I think you're on the right track. And so we embedded a lot of those initiatives that we can take within our schools

074directly into the strategic plan, as I've called out here, and that we've already started doing. So, for example, related to Goal 4 that we're talking about today, there is an action to implement school-based attendance teams. Those have already started being rolled out across our schools, and they are meeting regularly. And our school-based attendance teams really provide an opportunity for our schools to use their data to identify patterns and trends and start to strategize interventions. But we have some other action items within the strategic plan that are also related to attendance. So a big one is within Priority 4, which is family engagement. And it is to invest in a robust two-way communication platform. Shout out ParentSquare, because that is what we have done this year, to communicate with parents about attendance. There is a lot

075of literature that engaging parents regularly in their students' attendance, both in a positive manner and to alert them when students are potentially getting off track, is a really successful way to make a difference. And school attendance patterns. And then finally, in Priority 6, which is about organizational efficiency, we have an action item related to increasing transportation services via efficient routing systems. Our transportation department is already working really hard to meet this action item and improve our attendance. We know from the literature that transportation is a huge barrier to getting to school. So the things that we can do as a school system to support that are super important. Even though there is a lot we can do as a school community, we can't just do it in one go. So we have to be really

076careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really

077careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. And we have to be really careful. around our attendance available to everyone will really help to create a call to action for stakeholders. The first step is just to make sure that everyone is aware. Here is where we are and here's how we're doing and it can spark an engagement and that call to action and really get people involved. And then it provides transparent insights into those trends and root causes. We can start to understand where it's a school issue that we can directly address and where it might be a broader community issue. Maybe we need to go to policymakers and rethink how we're doing things

078in the community and providing transparency into our data and engaging our community partners helps us to do that. And then finally it'll allow us to collaboratively design strategies and interventions because we're all at the same table and we're using the data as a catalyst to engage in those conversations. And so I know you guys are like all right we're ready to see the data now and I am really excited to show it to you but before I do that I do just want to make sure we are all on the same page with some critical attendance related definitions and concepts. So the very first one is the idea of average daily attendance. You hear this a lot. The calculation is the total number of students present divided by the total number of students enrolled and

079then over a number of days you add that up. In layman's terms what does that really mean? Well it means that on any given day or for any given month this is the average percentage of our student body who shows up to school. So if our attendance rate is 90 percent that means that on any given day on average 90 percent of our students are in the door and at their desks. Chronic absenteeism is a little bit different but it's really important from a literature aspect which is what I showed you a few slides ago. Chronic absenteeism is a very specific threshold and it is most typically defined as missing 10 percent or more of enrolled school days across the year. So imagine a student is enrolled for 100 days and they miss 15 days.

080They've now missed more than 10 percent of all the days that they were enrolled so they are considered chronically absent. And that is where you start to see the difference between the average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism. So you start to see those really important consequences for learning and later student success. I am going to switch us over to the dashboard now because I want to show you how we're gonna engage the community with our metrics around average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism. I will just preface this a little bit by saying you guys are seeing a draft. We are in the internal testing and validation phase so as soon as we are all in agreement internally that we have this will go on our website. So you guys are seeing it within my platform

081today. It's similar to how something like a power school works where there is a platform that you engage with directly but once we go public with it we'll actually be able to embed it directly into our website. So you can go onto the Allentown website and you'll be able to do all the stuff that I am doing within our platform here today. And then before I show it to you I do want to just ask for a little bit of engagement from you tonight if you're willing. My colleagues here will tell you that I never let them look at data without making them engage in some kind of exercise around data use because strategic data use is more than just seeing visuals and knowing numbers. It is about interpreting and finding meaning behind numbers. What

082is something like a 90% ADA really tell us? And so one exercise that we do a lot here is a protocol from DataWise and it is called the I notice I wonder protocol. And essentially what we do is I will share something like a dashboard with our colleagues and we'll all take a minute to process what we're seeing and someone who feels like a brave soul can let us know one thing that they notice. So that is something you see in the data. I notice that our special ed chronic absenteeism rate is 35%. And then in I wonder it is a question you have about why that might be. It is not yet, we don't ever want to get to where we're describing why we're seeing things without first engaging in that deeper conversation and

083engaging in those deeper questions. So it's not explaining why special ed chronic absenteeism might seem a little high, it's instead asking a question. Framing it as a question. What is prohibiting our special ed students from getting to school regularly? Is an example so I'm gonna walk you guys through it a little bit. I'm gonna try not to do too much explaining because I want you to sort of be looking and if there is something you notice and a question that you have and you're willing to take a chance and engage in the I notice I wonder protocol I would really love it. If you're a little bit nervous because this is new to you, I'll make one of my colleagues do it. But I want to make sure, and I'll talk a little bit this

084in the next level work as well, that strategic data use is a system and it's a process and so we want to make sure that we're building every piece of the process and building the muscle to change our culture. So that said, I'm gonna get it pulled up here. So this will be on our website eventually and what you're seeing here is starting at the top for all of the actively enrolled students in our core schools. So that's going to be all of our elementary, all of our middle, all of our high schools, as well as William Penn. And the overall attendance year to date for everyone. And then in this next graph here we're seeing absences over time. So this is the raw number of absences. This is how many of our 16,000 students

085are absent on any given day. Um, I'll let you guys just take a minute to process that. And while you're doing that I will tell you the next one is daily ADA. So what that tells us is on, scroll down just a little bit, it's showing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And what it is saying is on any given Monday 90.76% of our students are in our buildings. We realize that the text is too small. We are working on getting it bigger so if you can't see it, please let me know. I'm also thinking next time we roll out a dashboard, we'll get you guys all iPads so you can engage with it yourself. But if you can't see anything and you want me to say it out loud, please let me know. There are

086alternative texts built into the dashboard so they are ADA compliant, but before we put them up on the website, we will internally test that to make sure that that is working and all of our community is able to directly engage with the dashboard. Scrolling down a little bit, we also have monthly ADA by year. And then we have the monthly ADA by year one, which is the last one we're going to be using. So that's what we're going to be using. And then we have the monthly ADA by year one, which is the last one we're going to be using. And then we have the monthly ADA by year one, which is Scrolling down a little bit, we also have monthly ADA by year. So this one is showing us sort of trends by month

087over time. And then switching out of ADA into chronic absenteeism now, what you're seeing is our chronic absent rates for our students. So right now we're at 29.8% of our students are chronically absent. That is so far this year. So as school days go on, it is likely to grow, but we also are actively doing those things we talked about, and we're going to start engaging our communities. So we don't want it to grow too much. Last year we ended the year at about 36%. So if we can beat that this year, we're already well on our way to our 2030 success. And then, of course, we break that down into some groups. So we break that down into ethnicity, gender, economically disadvantaged. So you can see if there are trends, for example, in special

088ed, where potentially we're seeing a larger group, the dark blue is our chronically absent, or a smaller group. Our EL students, they're at about 24% of our students seem to be doing well this year. Their numbers tend to look a little bit lower. They're at 24%. And a really cool thing is, let's say I wanted to know all of this information for just EL students. There's also these really cool filters built into the dashboard. So I could say, just for my EL students, let's look at this information. So here we're seeing we've got about 4,000 EL students right now, and their overall year-to-date attendance rate, is about 92%. So that is essentially what will be available on our website. You can break it down by school. You can break it down by grade. You can

089break it down by EL status, gender, IEP status. And it gives you a sense of how we're doing over time, how we're doing by day of the week, by month, and by subgroup. And those are going to be the critical ways that we start those conversations about where and how to intervene. So I'm going to go back to the slide. So I'm going to go back to the slide. So I'm going to go back to the slide. So I'm going to go back to the slide. So I'm going to go back to the slide. I'm going to go back to the full district dashboard here, if it will let me. Did anyone see anything that stuck out to them, that they noticed, that they had a question related? We can do two too. Okay. We'll

090do teamwork. I noticed that the graph drops to zero, and I wonder why that is? Yes. So that is actually – I can answer that one. So sometimes the wonders we don't answer right away. I will answer this one. of the things about a brand new system like PowerSchool which is where our data is being held is that we are learning it as we're implementing it which is great it means that we can find and identify issues and solve them and so a continuous improvement process that I am going through right now is that one of our students had a temporary medical leave and they were assigned temporary medical leave over Thanksgiving and they should not have gotten an attendance code on Thanksgiving because no one was at school on Thanksgiving and somehow they have

091now received an attendance code on Thanksgiving and rather than just delete it I want to make sure that we understand that that won't happen again that we know why that happens so I submitted a ticket to PowerSchool IT to get that addressed and so I haven't deleted it yet but it should not be zero because we didn't have school on Thanksgiving so that was a great question I appreciate you asking that that will be fixed do you notice anything that happened right before Thanksgiving though Epsom tea isn't one up a lot right before and I think that's because families are taking kids on holidays early and absolutely and what what are some questions that we might ask to help address that so I mean I wonder did they submit that they were gonna be absent

092beforehand and we just didn't record that with our data and so we're misrepresenting the fact that they were absent when it was excused so that's a really great wondering and that's the kind of wondering that starts our work right because when you think about chronic absence you're not going to be able to get a job right so that's a really great wondering and that's the kind of wondering that starts our work right because when you think about chronic absence you're not going to be able to get a job right so that's a really great wondering and that's the kind of wondering that starts our work right because when you think about chronic absenteeism in the literature it's actually the fact that you're out of the classroom that matters so in the state definition of chronic

093absenteeism any absence even our excused ones are counting towards this chronic absenteeism but as we start to dig into trends and patterns and reasons and thinking about intervention strategies we might break this out more and do a little bit more analysis on what type of absences are these and where can we maybe focus our intervention efforts if they aren't excused or some other question that might come up and so that's why we do the I notice I wonder protocol is to like start thinking about those deeper analyses and so I love that example and I would love to let you guys keep engaging in this but I don't want to keep us too long because I know we have a student that's really excited to present but this will be up on our website in

094the new year and so we will keep having these conversations and keep engaging and I think that is actually the perfect transition into our next level work which I will finish this off by talking about can you take me back thank you so much so where do we go next well the first is what I just told you about it's this attendance dashboard rollout and campaign so there will be an initial launch including guidance around how to use it we're not just gonna put this up on the website and hope that someone goes to look at it we are going to be really intentional about a larger attendance campaign with clear guidance on how to engage with the dashboard as well as messaging to help bring awareness and to bring awareness to the dashboard and

095to bring awareness to the dashboard and to bring our families and our community into our attendance efforts we will then use the dashboard to guide the conversations like the one we just had where are we going next how do we start to think about what are our deeper questions and what are our interventions and we've actually already started some really good efforts to engage our larger community so we will utilize the dashboards to launch those conversations in settings such as with our superintendent's Family Advisory Council or the School Governance Council or our Business Advisory Council and then moving forward throughout the rest of the year we are going to continue our progress monitoring so beyond attendance we're going to continue to use data to monitor strategic plan process progress a few months ago miss Ramos

096and I went to my orientation for my fellowship and Harvard handed us this really nice book and it's all about how to strategically use data in your organization and one of the key things that came out of it is that they will tell you there are four pillars to successful strategic data usage and visualizing and using evidence is only one of those but providing access to a ton of evidence and a ton of visualizations at the exact same time without the proper leadership and planning pillar one confirming data quality pillar two and purposeful communication strategies pillar four won't lead to success we won't see those long-term changes that we want to see by 2030 so instead we're going to invest the time and the resources to successfully embed all of those pillars of strategic data

097use and every piece of work and what this will look like is that very soon you guys will get access to an initial strategic plan process dashboard it'll essentially show every piece of the strategic plan and the actual human efforts that we have undertaken towards those goals and actions and where we are in terms of progress and then simultaneously we're gradually going to roll out dashboards like this attendance one where we focus on specific KPIs and then we'll also look at the data that we have identified to specific goals so in the coming months I will come back here and we might look at a literacy dashboard or a human resources I'm sorry okay okay so that is what is coming I hope you guys are excited about it becoming a strategic data use organization

098requires deep transformation within ASD which isn't going to happen overnight but working together and committing to the process of successfully realize lighting the way a blueprint for innovation and excellence and so as we say at ASD all of our strengths are needed and they truly truly are and then it would be remiss of me not to just go back to what you guys saw when you walked in this morning or earlier this evening which is we like to celebrate because positive messaging around attendance is also important and so calling out our schools with 92 student attendance during November as well as our schools with our top five schools for staff attendance is there any discussion so I did have a brief question I mean great job good presentation I'm gonna nerd out for a little

099bit because I'm a software engineer and I work with data scientists gosh we could use you come hang out so yeah right so okay sorry thanks for protecting me but um one of the things that data scientists really love they're very playful right they like to play around with like the raw data in the actual database and I'm wondering do we have anything on the roadmap to leverage like our partnership with Google where we can sort of put this in the big query and like our community like software engineers like me we can just like mess around with the data find correlations that type of stuff all things are possible yes yes so we'll talk to our friends at Google and other friends and see what we can do um to address the question that

100you post so thank you for raising that question okay thank you is there any more discussion I want to know um a good presentation by the way really awesome what it is that we could do to help the special ed students to attend better that's I know you can't answer it but if their attendance is uh as a little poorer than the average bear what can we do to make that change that's all just a question I love that you're asking that question I think that's a really awesome place I would love to call on one of my special ed or office of learning and teaching colleagues if they would be willing with thoughts sorry Dr Coleman your lawyer could it be that full education students some students suffers which may have a direct I

101think there are extending circumstances when it comes to special education students so we would have to dig into the weeds of like the families and what's going on there to kind of address that right yeah and just so we're sharing these data with you and we're going to actually uh dig into some of the root causes as to why these things are happening we began to have these conversations with my family Advisory Council so we can unpack with them uh Mr Sickett and Dr Coleman that team they're going to unpack that with our special education Advisory Council because families know the answers they're the people who have children every day and they know what's happening there are circumstances we also have been engaging with our community leaders and partners in our interfaith community and try

102to bring them closer to help us to solve some of the problems there's lots of research and I know Dr Zimmerman you have it at the top of your head about the research that why students don't come to school and some of the emerging themes I know she's ready look at her so can you tell us some of the reasons that we found based on the research absolutely a really big one that is coming up right now is the fact that families are really critical in changing that narrative about attendance and uh communicating with their neighbors and with each other to emphasize how important it is that students get to school and then when your friends are going some things like potentially fear or school phobia are reduced because you're seeing your friends that are

103like you are doing it as well. And so that is a really promising direction. And that's what I say when I mean, there is so much that we can do to make that easier, but we need the communities and the families to buy in with us as well. Absolutely. I think for me, I'm just excited that this is happening because we've been saying for the past couple of years that we want to become a data-driven organization. And I think that this is the first step. And I love the fact that we didn't just say it, we're actually making moves towards it. I also love the fact that we're going to be able to see the entire strategic plan and the movement that's happening there and for the public to see it. Because right now in

104the strategic plan, how many people were involved? 9,000. 9,000 people between surveys and focus groups and advisory groups. 9,000 people invested in the strategic plan. They want to see what's happening, what's the progress there. So I think this is amazing. I'm really excited about this. And I love that you make data fun. I try. Thank you. Thank you for listening and engaging with me. I appreciate it. And I'm glad we're all building muscle around data use. Thank you. I want to thank Dr. Zimmerman and our entire assessment team, and of course all my leaders. And I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge our procurement team for negotiating with the vendor to give us more. We asked for more. And they were like, we normally don't do this. And we were like, okay, but you don't

105normally deal with Allentown. So we don't give you as much. So we will create a lot more dashboards, the board eventually, because as you know, we have to validate the data. Before we present it to you. So now we're going to have to enlist Mr. Morris' expertise on this since he called out his gifts to us. So that we have many public facing data dashboards and that the board will be able to interact as well as the public. So we're really excited about this work. And again, I want to thank all members of my team for all the work. It's been a long way of coming and building and growing. And so I really, my heart is very filled right now. And I'm teeing this all up because you know I'm going to come back

106to you probably next month. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to come back to you probably next month. And ask for more Dr. Zimmerman's and more people in the assessment office. So I'm getting ready to see me. I'm trying to do it. Okay. I'm trying. So all right. So thank you. So we have one more item for discussion only, which will be from Ms. Smith. Ms. Smith will present the course mojo pilot demonstration. Good evening, Dr. Burks and school board of directors. This evening, I have the honor to present with Mr. Kaufman, our director of the, the Department of Innovation and Instructional Technology, as well as Mrs. Bischofsky-Thomas, who is a sixth grade literacy teacher at South Mountain Middle School. And one of her amazing students, Ms. Lilly, who is a sixth grade student at

107South Mountain Middle School. So we are very excited because Ms. Lilly will be the star of this show tonight. And you will see course mojo in action. I would like to thank Lilly's mom, Angela, for being here and allowing her daughter to participate. And I would like to thank the principal of South Mountain Middle School, Dr. Bischofsky-Thomas, for being here to support Lilly and Mrs. Bischofsky-Thomas. For our overview tonight, Mr. Kaufman will review artificial intelligence and education with you. I will provide a course mojo pilot update with you. Ms. Bischofsky-Thomas and Ms. Lilly will provide a demonstration of course mojo, and then we will review our next level work. As you know, we have big rocks that we are focused on. So we are going to be working on that. And we are going to

108be working on the next level work. So we are going to be working on the next level work. So we are going to be working on the next level work. And this is going to be a really key focus on within our strategic plan. Tonight, this presentation focuses on two of our big rocks. We will be talking about literacy instruction. And we will be talking about artificial intelligence. Good evening. As we've shared earlier this week, our approach to artificial intelligence in the Allentown School District is very intentional. One of those artifacts that shows how intentional we are, is the document that's listed on the screen. This is our artificial intelligence a learning guide for the Allentown School District. This represents tremendous amounts of national research about best approaches to AI in education, as well as

109the Allentown context. This document is a through line from the strategic plan, portrait of a learner, instructional core, all of those elements are there. So rather than an add on in addition to, it's more about how we leverage the resource like artificial intelligence to accomplish those learning goals and the goals that we've set for ourselves and for our students. It's about 45 pages, so it's a great read this weekend for you. And so go ahead and scan that QR code. But the idea of the context here is that we want to be deliberate, we want to keep humans at the center of our approach to artificial intelligence. So I can read these beautiful words briefly to you, but they are strategic words, and so I'm gonna go through this. Our goal is to strategically and

110ethically integrate AI into our schools, preparing students for a contemporary workforce by meeting all students' learning needs, and enhancing students' complex decision making and critical thinking processes. That vision is through to leverage the AI to hyper-personalize instruction for all learners, including neurodivergent students and English language learners. This is going to ensure that every graduate has the advanced skills, the skills, the skills, the skills, the skills, the skills, the skills, the skills, skills needed to thrive in a future economy shaped significantly by AI. Sometimes the narrative around AI in education gets a little bit mixed up in hype or gets mixed up in some misconceptions. And we view artificial intelligence as a transformation partner. It is not taking the place of any human, but rather augmenting our capacities. And it is an amplifier of human voice,

111and that is going to be the center of a lot of our work around academic integrity, that the student voice is most important. We want to make sure that AI is enhancing that, not being used as a replacement for. So we really view that our use of artificial intelligence is going to be able to strengthen critical thinking, not supplant critical thinking. We want to encourage students to question, evaluate, and refine their ideas. We want students to foster creativity through AI as a collaborative partner, and that is going to be a key part of our generation and exploration. And most importantly, we want to support personalized learning. This has been a vision of education for a long time and a passion of Dr. Birx. This is a huge challenge though, from a manpower perspective, and AI

112will allow us to start to meet those expectations where every single student gets their learning needs met and their learning style satisfied. One of the many products that we're looking at from an AI tool perspective, that will accomplish that, is Course Mojo. And so I'll turn it back over to focus on that resource. Our Course Mojo pilot. The Allentown School District Board of Directors approved a Course Mojo pilot for grade six on June 26, 2025. With this approval, we are participating in national research on AI and literacy. This is sponsored by Digital Promise Philanthropy, so we were not paying for this pilot. Digital Promise Philanthropy funded the student licenses, the professional development, and in-person coaching support, and that was a total investment in this pilot of $45,754. The Course Mojo pilot supports sixth grade students

113by strengthening reading and writing skills through real-time, personalized feedback aligned to grade-level standards. Students receive immediate feedback during reading and writing tasks, promoting their learning and learning skills, and supporting independence, confidence, and sustained engagement. And you will see that firsthand with Willie. One of the most important parts of this is when we are looking at supplemental materials to support our curricular resources, Course Mojo is aligned to our study scene curriculum. So it's not something different. The questions and the support that Course Mojo is providing to our students and our teachers is aligned to our high-quality instructional resources. We do have some early data for you to share with you. Right now we have 1,048 sixth grade students participating in Course Mojo. We have 17 teachers. We have over 500 activities assigned since September. Our average

114student engagement on the platform is 92.5%. And we're continuing to focus on our writing score. We've seen our writing score increase and our professional learning that we will be showcasing in January will focus on writing. Some qualitative data for you. One of our teachers said, Being able to work slowly through the program if students need to dig deeper to get the correct answer. My small group does not feel rushed. It allows me to explain things in different ways. Another Allentown teacher said, I love the real-time feedback that we can give students when they are working. I like that I am able to see which students are actively working as well. One of our students said, I really love how it helps me understand more words and how to spell them and read them. And another

115student said, It is also a very helpful resource. It helps grammar and it helps us with our writing, which is very nice. Some survey data points through 12 of our teachers and 568 students. We have until January the professional learning at the end of January for this feedback. So you will see one of our next level work is to ensure that we have all students answer this survey and teachers. We tried to do a little bit of a push so we had something to share with you. 100% surveyed of Allentown teachers believe Mojo has had a positive impact on student learning. 92% of the Allentown teachers believe that Mojo supports them with implementing their curriculum better. 100% of surveyed Allentown teachers believe that Mojo is a great way to support someone with responding to student

116misconceptions and giving meaningful feedback. And 92% of the surveyed teachers say that Mojo has positively impacted their overall stress and workload. Now for the course Mojo demonstration, I'd like you to give Miss Lily a round of applause to welcome her up to our desk. And Mrs. Bichofsky-Thomas will be coaching her and teaching her throughout this lesson. So Mrs. BT and Lily. You are on. Thank you so much for having us and please excuse my voice. My students have been sharing their germs with me all week. I've been teaching in the Allentown school district for 29 years straight, no breaks. I've worked in elementary school and I've worked at South Mountain. Yay. I've also been an instructional coach. I bring that up because I just want to share with you that with every resource that I've

117had as a teacher and as a coach, this is the best resource that's ever been given to me to support my students. I appreciate that we have had it and I hope that we have it for a long time to go. You good? Alright. Lily's going to do her thing. I'm going to ignore her for a little bit. But what I want you to know is, can you go up to the top right there where it says I don't understand? Earlier today Lily and I got together and we did some work together. And when we got to question four, she knew how to answer question four for the record. I said please type I don't understand. And you can see Mojo's responded to her. Do you like the emojis? I do too. No worries. The

118question's asking you to think about why the author made everything so quiet on the porch and what that silence does for the story. In other words, how does that quiet moment change the feeling or importance of what is happening in the scene? You can't get that with a multiple choice question. There are multiple choice questions in Mojo and then students have to go in to find evidence to support themselves and then they also have to give more additional feedback. And at the end of the day there's a ticket out where they're writing their responses and Mojo is supporting them in going deeper with their thinking. So Lily, while I add a little bit more, would you do your thing? Do a little typing and then we'll check in there as well. I also want to

119share with you that the very beginning, even though we told students very transparently that we could see everything they were doing, you did have your students who wanted to type 6-7-6-7-6-7-6-7. And because we monitored the transcripts and because we can get signals from Mojo and we look and we conference and we bring them up and we say, hey look at this thing that we noticed, why did you do that? They give you the response, okay cool, now I can reset your whole lesson and you get to start from the beginning. So students have learned very quickly that this isn't something that isn't monitored just because they're doing it on a device and there could be 30 students in a classroom with one adult. I also wanted to share with you that I think it's important

120to echo that Mojo does not replace good teaching and Mojo does not replace good student collaboration. One of the things that I do with my students, Lily can you do me a favor, can you scroll right back up to the top for your circles please? There they are. So in this activity you can see that they have seven questions. The last three are contributing towards their ticket out. If we were in the classroom setting, I would have done instructional notes with them, made sure they understood learning targets, built a prior knowledge that we've had. We then would have done instruction with Study Sync on the sixth grade reading standard and then they would have approached this. I tell them that the first, let's say it's four in this one, are collaborative. They may work together,

121have conversation together, use each other as a support. I dig in and meet with students as needed, look at the transcript, look at the misconceptions and when they get to the final three, they're on their own. That's their ticket out because everything builds and layers upon one another. I love as a teacher the misconceptions. I can click, see what they are after I get some data pulled in. I can respond right in the moment with the students regarding what I'm seeing or I can pull them the next day and address it as well. I love the transcripts that I can use. I can pull them up and look with students and say, what are you working on? How's it going? In a group, they can go back another day, look at their answers with mixed

122groups of students. Mojo's recently pushed out two modifications. They had an ability to do conferences. When you looked to see who you could do conferences with, they would group the students, but it wasn't immediately clear what I would confer with them about, so I would still look at the transcripts on my own. What I like about Mojo and Hope is how responsive they are to teachers. So by reaching out and saying, this is something we're wondering about, now there's an upgrade. When I click on conferences, it groups a couple students together or shows individuals and what they specifically would need coaching on in addition to my own observations. This is the most responsive program with the humans behind it that I've ever dealt with in my life. And then the other thing that's new that

123I really love that I'm just starting to roll out with my students is called celebrations. If you click on celebrations, it will call out students' names and some amazing responses that they've made. And then you can see what they did and why they were so amazing, and you can do little shout-outs, too. So Lily, how's it going? Yeah. Rock star. And it shows me how much I can improve my reading skills and my typing skills on certain things. So like in any stories or paragraphs or anything specific that I have to read, if I don't understand something, Mojo gives me an explanation and evidence on why this is the answer to something or why this question will help me understand a specific section that I may not have the best skills in. And when I

124do get something right, Mojo still explains why in case I didn't fully understand, but I did understand a section of that answer. So if I get a partial, Mojo will explain the other part and will tell me why I missed the other part and will help me understand that even though I got a partial, that I can still understand why I didn't fully get the answer correct. That's Lily. Good job. And that's a credit to Lily as an individual student. She's putting forth her best effort every day. Thank you for that, Lily. I also just want to talk about when she said a partial, the circles that you previously saw as students are completing their work, it will fill it in either a color, blue, if they got the answer correct. It will give them

125a little dot in it if they got a little help from Mojo. It might be yellow if they went through three rounds, and then Mojo very nicely says, let's move on. And then if it's orange and I see that, I know someone copied something from somewhere, and then I do a what for and have a little conversation with them. So I will say that as far as an ethical piece of AI, nothing is happening that I've observed that anything outside is getting in. It's closed. It's respectful. I even played with it with saying I don't like the Eagles, and it didn't. Sorry, that's not a truthful statement if you like the Eagles. I even wrote things like that to see how it would reply to me, and it didn't play with me. It was like,

126let's move on. Let's refocus. Let's go back to the question. So I really appreciate that. How are you feeling about that answer? I chose this answer because I think it's important. Because to the best of my learning ability, I believe that even though the porch in paragraph 25, the porch did grow silent, if we go back a paragraph in paragraph 24, it has like the reasoning on why the porch grew silent, where it says Mr. Avery cleared us through nervously. It's the list I came about, David. I don't want them things no more. The family, oh my gosh, I forgot you're doing fine. What would make them nervous? Like why would this be a situation? It's from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. What would be the situation that's going on that makes them feel

127like it's a tense moment and then they're quiet? So the reason why everybody grew silent is because before around the beginning of the story where Papa told me, I told Mama that on how Mr. Thunderson, Thrustson, Thrustson made a threat on how he might physically hurt the family or may take away something valuable from their family. And then later on in the story around the middle, Mr. Avery admits and Mr. Lanier admits that they are getting forced not to shop there anymore because in paragraph 26 it says on Mr. Garnger making it hard on us, David said we're going to have to give him 60% of the cotton instead of 50. Now that's cotton planted and it's too late to plant more, showing that they have no choice but to plant more cotton and that

128they're not able to do what, they're not able to shop at Vicksburg anymore since, again back earlier in the story in the beginning, Papa did mention how Mr. Thrustson, Thrustson is saying that he might threaten to do something since they aren't shopping anymore at his store and he may not be getting enough money or what he wants. So that's most likely why he may be threatening the people. You're doing an amazing job and just to highlight for you, the family was boycotting a store because of racism and the students had an in-depth conversation about that and the idea of there being physical threats, that was inferences that the students drew based upon their background, based upon what's happening in the world and based upon the text that they're reading. So that's an excellent job. That's

129an example of instructional coaching that would happen in the classroom, not just with Lily but either with the whole group or with small groups as well. Please let us have Mojo forever. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Can I go over my next level work real quick? I love that you're jumping to discussion. You're good. So we are going to ensure that all our participants complete the survey. We are going to continue our Course Mojo professional development and coaching. We are going to continue to monitor our Course Mojo data and next year Course Mojo is expanding to grade seven. Thank you. So we will be expanding to grade seven and eight as well. This is a Course Mojo was not using StudySync prior to this pilot. They chose StudySync primarily because we're using

130StudySync. So they're building as they go but are seeing the success and want to continue to expand. Okay. Now is there any discussion? I have a question. I'm a little bit skeptical of AI usage. So since it mentioned strengthening critical thinking skills and we saw a little demonstration, can you just articulate a little bit how this program will actually strengthen critical thinking skills in a way that they can't otherwise get through our excellent teachers? Our teachers are still the core support to our students. When you have 30 students within a class, Ms. BT could be working with Lily in a small group while other students are on Course Mojo. And what Course Mojo is doing is they're not telling, Course Mojo is not telling students, Course Mojo is taking the students' answer and asking them

131to reflect on going back to a paragraph. Lily was saying in paragraph 24. So Course Mojo will give some guidance that way. But then it's up to Lily to think and answer the question. Ms. BT is amazing at providing support to all our students. And Lily's answers here, yes, Course Mojo helps, but so does Mrs. BT. So I think that's a good answer. Thank you. It's a combination, but it's one that allows teachers to have an iPad and they're monitoring how students are progressing and being able to provide that individual support, that differentiated learning that our students need in order to be successful. Can I ask Mr. Kaufman to also, and thank you, Ms. Smith. Mr. Kaufman, if you could just build on that answer from your scientific perspective. Absolutely. So it's an excellent question,

132because like many tools, Like many tools, they can be used different ways. And in this particular classroom, which I got to visit the other day, that's exactly what was happening, was deep critical thinking where the amount of practice, the amount of engagement was increased because of the feedback that AI can provide while the teacher is working with small groups, closing other gaps that might exist in the classroom. The other important bit is that in that classroom, it's not a student interacting with Course Mojo, it's interacting with Course Mojo many times in small groups and they're having the kinds of conversations. And that's what I got to hear. And the Course Mojo just stimulated metacognition. It helped them think about their thinking in ways that, you know, in ways that, yes, a teacher could do that

133and will do that, but the amount of immediate feedback and the amount of personalized feedback is overwhelming in many of our classrooms. So it's a tool, when used appropriately, will strengthen critical thinking. It'll increase reasoning around evidence. And so the two things, it helps both with the metacognition, but also access to evidence. That's one of the powerful tools of critical thinking is, can I extract more meaningful, more exacting evidence that I'm thinking about? And so that's what the beauty of this tied into our StudySync curricula is that they're asked to pull text-based evidence. But what I heard, what we're students doing is pulling evidence from their lives, pulling evidence from their lived experiences simultaneously. And that, again, takes masterful art of the teacher to create that classroom environment where that's happening. It's not the AI

134solving everything. It's the AI in the hands of really qualified teachers that can really make that critical thinking possible. Nick, just to add. Yeah, great answer. This is no child left behind. Meaning any child that's in the classroom, sometimes when we're in the classroom, it's 10 to 15 students and no one's on the same level. No one's comprehension skills is on the same level. So if we have the AI that's helping them to dissect a paragraph and the teacher is, it's one teacher and an assistant in the classroom, the child is not being left behind. There's some kind of support there to walk them through it because a teacher is not going to get to spend a lot of time with one individual. They have to tap and go around to each individual. So for

135me, this is no child being left behind. Right. My focus was more on the genesis of critical thinking. Yeah. Great answer. I want to thank my team, and especially to Miss Lily and her teacher. There was a hyphen. I want to call her the last name. Tom. Tom, yes. We're really excited about this partnership with Course Mojo. All of our sixth grade language arts teachers are receiving this complimentary from Course Mojo. And I just want to put in context for our students, new school board directors, we are part of an organization called Digital Promise. And in my role, I'm part of the League of Innovative Schools. There's an aspect where superintendents are part of the League of Innovative Schools. And so, and as a result of our partnership, Course Mojo wanted to work with us.

136As Miss Smith said, we were working last year really hard on how do we personalize learning for our students. And Mr. Kaufman and others on our team worked very closely with me on this project because we really, truly believe we want to have each one of our children, every child have an individualized educational plan. And we want to use AI to support us with that. And so as time went on, just almost less than a year ago, the technology was not as advanced as it is now. So we were, Mr. Kaufman especially, and I was trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we solve this problem? So I will be remiss publicly not to say we have to thank our friends at Digital Promise for affording us with this resource for

137our students, as well as a part of our partnership with Digital Promise, our student, the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program, which you saw her using her Verizon issued device, her iPad that was complimentary to all of our students in the district. And we have five Verizon Innovative Learning Schools as a result of our partnership with Digital Promise. So we're happy and I have to publicly thank Daisha Toll, who is the CEO of Course Mojo, because she really, she was like, we don't do this. And I was saying, but come on. And she said, all right, we're going to make this happen for Allentown. And I will let Ms. Smith say the feedback. And Ms. Smith, you can talk about some of the feedback that's happening with this as part of this partnership, something that they

138weren't even going to do. As we discussed the data that you shared, one of the data points is we've increased our writing in response to our students have increased their writing scores. They're not where we want them yet, but that's why the professional work is so important. Thank you. You know, learning is happening so that we can meet our goal. The research piece of this pilot is essential. We look at the data every week. If Mr. Fritz was still here, he would say that I send them the screenshot of their school with their usage so that principals, as the instructional leader of their schools, have the data on a weekly basis of how their students are doing. Dr. Burks, is there something, anything else to add? So, oh, I will say when Hope, who is

139our course mojo liaison, came, she told us we were superstars because she was so impressed on what she was seeing in classrooms like Ms. Bishofsky-Thomas's and classrooms at Robb and classrooms at Harrison-Morton and classrooms at Trexler. So we're taking this pilot very seriously because it's in what's best for our students, but we're excited for the opportunity to expand the program to support even more students. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Is there any more discussion? Seeing and hearing none, we will be moving to the next item. The last action item is being presented by Dr. Savoy. Dr. Savoy is requesting approval for the School Board of Directors for the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding with Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley to provide prevention presentations, group support, and individual counseling at all ASD secondary schools. Thank

140you. Good evening again. Turning Points of Lehigh Valley. They offer classroom prevention education, small group support, and individual counseling designed to foster healthy relationships. This service is not a new service. Turning Points has been a part of the Allentown School District's support for the whole child framework for the last four years. There are students attending our secondary schools receive prevention education in identified classrooms. Students will receive small group support tailored to their needs. To ensure their individual needs and interests, individual counseling will be offered to students affected by domestic abuse. Turning Points is going to offer 24 hour crisis helpline service. This includes the confidential crisis intervention, counseling information, and referral as requested by students. They provide general counseling. I mean general guidance and consultation to our staff. Upon request, they will also discuss general

141student needs, trends, and needs to improve hours and minutes of learning time for native students. They offer general guidance for the hub locations for students in parents and staff moving, new Lego improvements three frames a week. Turning Points is already nãoaffle, but this is a sale and a resale! Alice Williams teaching. That's where students come to level us up often. That's where students come to level us up often. That's where students come to level us up often. That's where students come to level us up often. services provided an additional service that will be beneficial to our students and that lastly they will offer in-person and virtual training to our staff they are mostly connected to our social workers and counselors is there any discussion um i do have a brief question like i think the

142support sounds great i'm curious what are the student outcomes that we're seeing as a result of this four-year partnership with them i cannot tell you that now but i can get you that data what i do what i can tell you the trends we talked about attendance earlier today we're talking when we think about the whole child framework and our supports for um the priority to safety and whole child development there are a number of partners that we have that offer mental health services social emotional services relationship services to our students so specifically turning points i cannot give you that information but i can find out from our staff maybe a little bit different anything is that difficult again they will tell us the trends in our data not necessarily and they can tell us

143the number of students that they've seen but not necessarily malika was in a relationship and through that counseling i'm no longer in that relationship they wouldn't be able to give us that confidential information okay any more discussion okay may i have a motion to move this item forward to the december second awesome any discussion all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed all in favor say aye aye hearing and seeing none at this time we are taking public comments on non agenda items is there any comments no okay is there any old business to come before this board any new business may have a motion to adjourn so moved second any discussion all in favor say aye aye we will take a quick five minute break and then we'll go into our regular scheduled

144board meeting thank you who's not back trying to soft launch this thing with okay and no one made her good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the meeting of the board of directors of the school district for the city of Allentown for today December 18th 2025 the board welcomes and invites public comment you may address the board on agenda and or non agenda items the first opportunity for comment is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only common cards must be received by the board of the meeting which is now we will not be receiving public cards once the meeting begins a copy of the public comment policy is located on the table next to the common cards per our board's policy any person may address the board

145in accordance with the procedures and limitations of this policy either on issues presented in resolutions being considered on other matters affecting the administration management or operation of the district remarks of a personal nature directed against any individual will be ruled out of order if you choose to address the board please fill out a comment card and hand it to the board's secretary Mister Simonson once recognized please come to the podium state your name and address for the record we will not have a roll call Mister Secretary please call the bell yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes nine members present. Thank you. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence. And for my Board President remarks, I will keep it brief because I know

146you guys want to enjoy your holiday season coming up. Thank, I know, we have one more day, okay? But we're counting it down, but thank you guys so much for all the work that you have done for the year so far. We have made tremendous progress. We are working and moving in the right direction. The foundation is being laid and not only that, we're building on top of the foundation. And I want to encourage everyone to rest. Rest, you know I am the self-care queen, okay? Take the time you need to spend time with your family, relax, enjoy the holidays, regroup, refresh. And I know when we come back in January, we will be ready and ready to take on the rest of the strategic plan and build upon the work that we've been doing

147so far. I appreciate you guys so, so much. Thank you guys for all the work that you've been doing. And that's my remarks for the night. Dr. Birx? Good evening again, school board directors, members of the public, to my team, all the families and students. I just want to wish everyone a joyous holiday season. And as our president said, take some time to sharpen the saw and I wish you a happy and prosperous new year. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we are only taking public comments on agenda items. Great. Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. May I have a motion of approval of the minutes? Make the motion. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Dr. Johnson? Ms. Matheson? Ms. Michaels? Here. Ms. Moores? Yes. Mr. Nikolov? Yes.

148Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Mr. Bercio? Yes. Ms. DeMora? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. Now for our information updates. Is there any update from the Allentown Public Library? Not at the moment. Thank you. Any updates from the Allentown Recreation Commission? No updates at this time. Okay, there is an update from the ASD Foundation. Over the past week, 25 district educators from 11 schools learned through surprise announcements that they were selected to receive teacher innovation grants. The foundation awarded a total of $25,399 with a maximum grants of $1,200. Grant funded projects will be implemented with students from January through May, culminating with a reception and a project showcase in early June. Special thanks to nine volunteers who read and scored the grant proposals and selected the recipients as members of our Teacher Innovation Grant

149Committee, as well as several district administrators who helped review the proposals. I think we should clap for that one. A lot of people got . We're also pleased to share that the foundation has officially received a $10,000 grant from the PPL Foundation to support the expansion of our I Am On a Bookshelf program. Isn't that amazing? Literacy, literacy. This investment allows us to further advance the foundation's and district's shared literacy goals by empowering elementary students to become authors, strengthening early reading engagement, and improving their learning and learning engagement. We are grateful to the PPL Foundation for their continued partnership and commitment to education and equity for our students. If you have not seen a copy of our recent published 2024-25 annual appeal or report entitled 16 Years of Igniting Possibilities, please pick one up from

150the rack in the lobby. As detailed in the report, we raised over $648,000 during the past fiscal year to support the foundation's and district's education and education programs. We also have a $10,000 grant from the PPL Foundation to support the foundation's education and equity for our students. We also have a $10,000 grant from the PPL Foundation, which has supported the foundation's education and education programs throughout this fiscal year and provided programs for 11,037 district students in Pre-K through grade 12. The total number of ASD students impacted by our programs since our founding in 2009 is more than 73,000, and our total revenues exceed $10 million. Our 16-annual High Notes Gala will be held the evening of March 28, 2026 at the newly-rendered All-Star Hall of Fame. renovated Palace Center. So there's a change in location.

151Please join us for a wonderful networking opportunity featuring a delicious four-course dining experience, an exciting silent auction, and dazzling entertainment by seven performance groups from Dieruff and William Allen High Schools. After the gala, each of these groups will receive a grant from the foundation to support their music, theater, and dance programs. And that's the end of my report. There is no report for the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit. Any reports from LCCI? Thank you. And now for our student representatives, Ms. Brianna Potter from Allen High School. We are pleased to present the William Allen High School highlights for the month of December 2025. This report showcases the wide ranging achievements across our school's community, reflecting the dedication and hard work of our students, staff, and faculty. The following sections detail successes in community service, student leadership,

152athletic excellence, and academic recognition, demonstrating the positive impact our students are making both within the school and greater Allentown community. The Environmental Club participated in SGA's Penny No Wars contest and won. They raised almost $108 to donate to Foxy's Cradle. The Key Club members are having an active and service-focused year, participating in a variety of fundraising and volunteer opportunities. Members ran a snack fundraiser during the Homecoming talent show and raised money through Penny Wars to support Foxy's Cradle. The club participated in volunteering at New Bethany EC Church and took part in a service trip to the Lehigh Valley Humane Society. In collaboration with Rob's Builders Club, they created holiday briefs for Phoebe home residents for both Halloween and Christmas. Additionally, the club held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the

153Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting

154Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. The club also held a Halloween costume swap and donation drive, benefiting Allen students and the Salvation Army. students volunteered at South Mountain Middle School's Winter Wishes event. JROTC participated in Manchester High School's recent drill competition on December 6. JROTC students will be going on a field trip today to the UCC Intrepid in New York City. The Health Career Club members created over 30 holiday notes and cards for the staff at St. Luke's Emergency Room and residents at the Phoebe Home sharing uplifting messages and words of encouragement. The club also held officer elections this

155year. Breonna Potter was elected president, Angel O'Tonnes as Vice President and Rosa Bly Castillo as Secretary. William Allen Athletics has a new digital touchscreen Hall of Fame displaying all of our past alumni who are in the Hall of Fame with an interactive way to search and learn about their careers at William Allen. Former William Allen Canary and current Brooklyn Net Tyrese Martin teamed up with the New York City Athletics Association to create a new digital media centre for students to participate in a school game. This is where students and staff can connect with members of the athletic department Allen High School Outreach Department and St. Luke Sports Medicine to help provide Thanksgiving meals to families in need. Tyrese donated over a thousand dollars in gift cards, Brooklyn Net gear, and even came along to the

156home deliveries. This was the first give back by Tyrese's new foundation, the Tyrese For You Foundation. The Allen boys basketball team is off to a great start, as well as wins over Emmaus, Bethlehem Catholic, and Pocono Mountain East. The Island swim team has also enjoyed some early success with the boys winning back meets over Salisbury and Pocono Mountain East, and the girls also picking up a win over Pocono Mountain East. Island basketball is partnering with 21st Century after school program to host our ASD elementary students at William Allen to see a varsity boys basketball game with a special 4.30 p.m. start. Island girls wrestling is also off to a great start with several girls already winning bouts this season. Next year, the girls team will officially participate in a full league schedule. Our history teacher,

157Mrs. Dreher, and her third period students participated in building global apps, an eight week program that allows students to interact with students in Lebanon and build apps in Madlern that address a global problem. The program aims to foster interpersonal and design thinking skills by connecting high school students in the United States and Lebanon through mobile app building. Building global apps is implemented by Digital Promise Global in partnership with Madlern and International Education, and it's supported by the J. Christopher Stevens Virtual Exchange Initiative. The Stevens Initiative, a program of the Aspen Institute, is an international leader in virtual exchange which connects young people to dialogue and discovery through everyday technology. Upon completion of the program, students are invited to join several alumni networks, including the U.S. Department of State's Exchange Alumni Network. They can also earn

158a career ready micro-credential through Digital Promise. And that's Island. Thank you. And now a report from Yasmiri Munoz-Guterres from Bridgeview Academy. Apologies. Good evening and happy holidays from Bridgeview Academy. Just before Thanksgiving, our students hosted over 200 student-led conferences with teachers, staff, and families. These conferences strengthened our homeschool partnership and ensured that all students benefit from a robust collaboration between classrooms and families. As a senior, my conference with my father and my advisor was full of joy and a few tears. As I look back at how far I've come since I was a freshman, after all the work I've done, it meant so much to see how proud he was. Part of our monthly schedule, at Bridgeview is our grade-level town hall meetings. Each month, every grade cohort gets together to celebrate our achievements and

159to set goals and build community. This month, our juniors and seniors were given passports to post-secondary success, and we used them to track our journey through college career explorations, college admission and financial aid applications, and progress towards graduation under Act 158. Our underclassmen, continue with team-building activities designed to strengthen relationships in our learning community. In partnership with Verizon, year three students at Bridgeview Academy have teamed up with students in Lebanon, that's Lebanon the country, not Lebanon the town in Pennsylvania, to develop web applications dealing with both local and global issues. Bridgeview students have successfully developed applications dealing with top-sec, dealing with topics as diverse as mental health, the environment, food insecurity and immigration. We are proud to welcome Phoenix alumni Liam Garecki back to campus as our new Foundations of Technology teacher. Mr. Garecki was

160the valedictorian of his graduating class, and will now be creating experiences of our ninth grade classes to help them take full advantage of all of the resources now available in our technology supported innovative, and innovative programs. Mr. Garecki is the first graduate student at Bridgeview Academy, and will be joining us in the next two years to be a part of the Bridgeview Academy program of study. I was proud to be part of the first meeting in the Bridgeview Academy School Governance Council. Fellow student rep Jaden Santos and I met with teachers, parents, and community members that Mr. Rosado brought up us today on the progress and goals of our learning community. Speaking of Jaden Santos, we hope you all made the time to listen to the first ever episode of ASD's new podcast. We're excited

161to be at the forefront of ASD's innovation around technology and AI. And Jaden made a great spokesperson for our school. And that's the news from Bridgeview Academy. Thank you, and remember, as always, together we rise. Thank you. And now, George Ramirez-Vallalpaldo from Deerhoff High School. Close enough. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Here are some of the activities that our various clubs and teams have been hard at work at for this past month. On November 20th, the National Honor Society organized a blood drive with the help of Miller Keystone Blood Center, in which a record 60 people were processed and resulted in the collection of about 1,500 gallons of blood. The National Honor Society also fundraised a total of $1,500 with all proceeds going to the Teen Cancer Center at the Lehigh Valley Riley Children's Hospital. The

162Key Club and Interact Club also collected hundreds of toys for their toy drive, with all those toys going to local shelters and to the Riley Children's Hospital at Lehigh Valley Hospital Cedar Crest. Our theater department welcomed a new theatrical team and debuted with the fall play, Almost Maine, which had successful showings this past November. We are looking forward to the spring musical, Chicago, with tickets going on sale in April. On December 20th, the National Honor Society will be hosting a live concert in Chicago. On December 6th, our winter track team participated in a track meet at Franklin Marshall College, where two school records were broken and one was tied. Aniah Holder broke the indoor 60-meter dash record with a time of 8.01. The girls' 4-by-200-meter relay team broke the indoor relay school record with a

163time of 1.53.72. Laquae Hamilton tied the indoor 60-meter dash record with a time of 7.18. Aniah Holder also qualified for the Indoor State Champion Championship with her 60-meter hurdle time. Our girls' basketball team has started off the season well, with a record of 5-1 so far. Our boys' basketball team, likewise, is doing well, with a record of 4-3 and 3-2 in the East Penn Conference. They continue to look forward to a great season. Both the boys' and girls' basketball teams are holding a special needs basketball clinic on Saturday, January 18th. On November 22nd, our Air Force Junior ROTC drill cadets went to West Orange High School in New Jersey to participate in the school drill competition. Our drill cadets showed hard work and perseverance on the drill floor, and as a result, they won five

164trophies. In particular, they won second place in unarmed regulation, second place in armed team exhibition, third place in unarmed dual exhibition, third place in unarmed team exhibition, and third place in armed regulation. They hope to have an even greater showing at the Piscataway High School Drill Competition in Piscataway, New Jersey, on January 18th. That's everything from Deerfield. Thank you. Tonight, as a part of the Board of Directors' report, I must share the passing of Joseph Kovacs, and I will be reading the obituary minutes and resolution. It is with sincere regret and deep sorrow that we record the passing of Joseph Kovacs on December 7th, 2025. In recognition thereof, the Board of Directors submits the following obituary minutes. The obituary minutes are as follows. Joseph Kovacs was a faithful and devoted employee of the Allentown School

165District for almost four months. And whereas in his position as a paraprofessional at Ramos Elementary School, he carried out his duties in a caring and professional manner, and whereas he treated colleagues, other staff, and students with a cheerful attitude and willingness to help, and whereas he provided the students of Ramos Elementary School with a pleasant and encouraging environment, and whereas his passing is marked by a deep sense of loss across the district, be it resolved that the Board of Directors take note of the untimely death of this faithful employee by causing this obituary and resolution to be spread upon the permanent minutes of the Board this 18th day of December 2025, with a copy to be sent to his bereaved family. And whereas in his position as a paraprofessional at Ramos Elementary School, he carried

166out his duties in a caring and professional manner, and whereas in his position as a paraprofessional at Ramos Elementary School, be it resolved that the Board of Directors take note of the untimely death of this faithful employee by causing this obituary and resolution to be spread upon the permanent minutes of the Board this 18th day of December 2025, with a copy to be sent to his bereaved family. And whereas in his position as a paraprofessional at Ramos Elementary School, he carried out his duties in a caring and professional manner, and whereas in his position as a paraprofessional at Ramos Elementary School, be it resolved that the Board of Directors comfortable with the Mr. Morse? Yes. Mr. Nikoloff? Yes. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Tabersio? Yes. Ms. DeMoore? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson?

167Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion for approval of the Secretary and Treasurer's Report? Make that motion. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. DeMoore? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morse? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion for approval of the Superintendent's Report? Make that motion. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. DeMoore? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morse? Yes. Mr. Nikoloff? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion for approval of the Personnel Report? Make that motion. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Tabersio? Yes. Mr. Moore?

168Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. DeMoore? Yes. Ms. Eggn Please call the roll. Dr. Berks?什麼 abbiamo? No halo. Mr. methods? Yes. Chloe Gumbs, our new assistant project coordinator for the 21st century schools. We also welcome this evening Miss Nicole Fisher, our new director of mathematics. Let's give one final applause to our new administrative appointees. Welcome to Allentown School District. Yes, thank you all very much. May I have a motion of approval of the finance report? Make the motion. Second. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Mr. Burcio? Yes. Miss DeMora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Miss Matheson? Yes. Miss Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nikoloff? Yes. Miss Noel? Yes. Miss Sierra? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. At this time we're only taking public comments on non-agenda items. Is there any old business? Any

169new business? May I have a motion of adjourn? So moved. Second. Have a great night everyone.