001Okay, good evening everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. If we could please stand for Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Kelly, can you please call the roll? Mr. Broski? Here. Mr. Cora? Present. Mrs. Drury? Here. Mr. Fiorelli? Ms. Heen? Here. Mr. Montani? Here. Mrs. Sexton? Here. Mrs. Traynor? Here. And Dr. Mariano? Present. Okay, Dr. Costagno, would you like to do the announcements and recognitions? Yes, Mr. President. First, a special notice of a public hearing. It will be held on June 23rd, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. at the Chartiers Valley Primary School Gymnasium. for the purpose of presenting the proposal to contract for the provision
002of the district student transportation services and to receive public comment therein. So we will be here. Our regular scheduled board meeting is 6.30 that evening, and that special hearing will begin at 5.30. On to our second announcement, I would like to welcome Dr. Sable and Mr. McKenna, who is going to do our annual curriculum presentation and some announcements for next school year. Dr. Sabo and Mr. McKenna. Come on Matt. There we go. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Castagna. Thank you to the school board for inviting me here to speak today. Really excited to give this update on the STEM robotics program that we implemented this year successfully at Chartreuse Valley and also talk about where we want to be able to go. None of this wouldn't have been possible of course without the support of
003the board. uh you supporting this program and implementing this program i would like to say a special thank you to dr costagna and dr sable for all of their support as we did this and also the building principals and of course the teachers the building principals from the primary school all the way up to the high school have always been very eager to answer whatever questions I may have, support I may have. If we had to schedule professional development for teachers, they were very willing to be able to do that. So just a wonderful group of teachers, wonderful group of principals that were able to assist me all throughout the process, and of course a wonderful group of teachers that implemented the program that we're going to talk about here today. So we have a
004great foundation in place right now. So we have STEM and robotics implemented from kindergarten all the way up through the high school. So it's in the primary and intermediate school science classes right now. So, of course, the key thing about that is it's implemented during the core academic days. This is something that the teachers do with the students during their regular day. They do also do it in their library classes and specials, but this is not just something that the students get. on a rotation, once every five days or once every six days. What they're doing in that rotation is actually supplementing what they're doing in their core academic classes. So being able to implement it there into that frequency is a really important thing and we're really proud of the fact that we're able
005to do that this year. We also have it implemented in the middle school and the high school robotics classes. One of the goals that we'll have next year is actually expanding outside of those classes. So also get into the regular classes, but we do have a foundation of it there right now. And then also, of course, the high school computer science classes. Again, the work that we want to be able to do was create a STEM experience across multiple grade levels. So beginning with the early science exploration and talking to the primary and intermediate school principals, we thought that science would be the best place to actually go ahead and interject STEM and have them continue to connect those STEM concepts throughout their curriculum. Obviously the hands-on design and building. the robotics and teamwork aspect
006of it, the coding, the computational thinking, all of that leading up hopefully into their high school computer science classes and being able to do some really nice things there. I've had a chance to talk to the teachers a lot throughout the course of this school year. One of the things I'll talk about, I think it's on the next slide, is all the professional development that we did throughout the year and also just the follow-ups that we had. So I had many teachers follow up with me via email. ask me to come and observe their classroom or just have a one-on-one with me. And in talking with them, I always wanted to ask them what was going well and what could we do to improve. And when I say improve, what can we improve from a
007curriculum standpoint? Is there anything that we can improve from a professional development standpoint? Is there anything that we can do to implement things easier in your classroom? And here are the things that we talked about in terms of success. First of all, collaboration. why I fell in love teaching STEM when I was in the classroom. They felt this was an easier way to promote collaboration amongst their students. If they were doing the VEXGO kits in third grade, for example, or if they were doing the metal robotics kits in the middle school robotics class, this was just a much easier way to get the students to collaborate. The students were able to self-organize a lot better to determine how they were working in the group and what they were actually doing and really promote those collaboration
008skills. Problem solving, that's kind of self-explanatory. So the kids were given open-ended projects, whether it was coding something, building something, or doing both to solve challenges. So having students engage in problem solving, not just contained within one 40-minute class period, but over the course of days, and having the students explore different ways to solve problems, that was something that really stood out. The third bullet was probably the one that I heard the most, which was persistence. So I've had many teachers across multiple grade levels tell me that these students are used to trying one thing and it doesn't work and then they quit. right they don't try something else they don't try to do something else they don't try to explore a different solution but with this because of the engagement of the robotics and
009the computer science they really were incentivized on their own intrinsically to try to explore to find different answers to problem or find different solutions so this persistence that they saw there was something that they felt was really brought out as a result of the stem program Communication. So the students obviously had to communicate a lot. This ties back to collaboration, right? You can have students working in a group, but they're probably not working on what you want them to be working on, right? I did that a lot when I was teaching the class. They're talking about what happened in the cafeteria. They're talking about what happened at recess. They're talking about some game that they were playing after school. But the communication with this was around what they were trying to actually accomplish with their
010task, what they wanted the robot to look like, what they wanted the robot to do, what they were trying to code their robot to accomplish. So the communication was really good. And then the last one was connected to the robotics team that we had compete this year, and that was pride in representing Chartier's Valley. So the idea of going and representing their school and their team at a robotics competition around other students throughout Western PA was something that was very exciting for them. just a couple things I should mention before I talk about this here and then we'll talk about what the teachers this is this is Reese saying what I said in the previous slide was a couple of the challenges that the teachers did bring up as I was talking to them also
011was number one storage right so space in their classrooms so Where do we find enough space in order to be able to fit the things in the classroom so they can work effectively? So we've been working with them to help with storage. Making sure the curriculum aligned with what it was that they were trying to do. So what were the science topics that they always felt that were difficult or dry or boring to teach? So can we create... more exciting ways and more hands-on ways to actually be able to make that happen. And then the third one was just getting them used to the technology, right? Actually giving them the professional development that it needs, getting them used to the kit, making sure they knew how to, you know, charge the batteries, make sure they
012knew how to update the firmware, make sure they knew where to find something. If they did have a question, making sure they knew where to go ask that question, who can give them the answer for it, okay? So I talked about supporting teachers throughout the year. So we conducted professional development multiple times at the primary school, the intermediate school, the middle school, the high school, the high school robotics class, and also the high school computer science class. The thing that we talked about throughout those trainings that we did was, first of all, classroom implementation. So how does this fit into your classroom? So just as an example of that, the... K-2 teachers really wanted to know how to start the activity, how to bring the robots out to introduce them to the students, but also
013more importantly how to transition them back to whatever else that they were doing because once the kids start playing with the robots they don't want to stop right so like how do you how do you actually contain the activity and be able to handle those different types of transition obviously we talked about teacher confidence how do i feel confident i've never taught coding before i never taught the engineering design process and never taught these particular things how do we do that so we obviously dealt a lot with that curriculum integration already talked about robotics and STEM instruction, how do you assess these projects, how you introduce to projects, and then how do we do sustainable growth across particular grade levels. This was one of the things that I was most impressed about and going and
014talking to the teachers is they wanted to know what do I have to know when my students leave second grade before they go to third grade, what do they need to know. And then when my students leave, before they go to the middle school, what do I have to make sure that they understand that they know that they can do so the middle school can take what we've done and kind of take it to the next level. And then for the middle school teachers, okay, we have these kids that love being on this robotics team. This year, what are we going to do to make sure that we prepare them to do and take it further when they get to the high school so that was really nice to see that level of teacher buy-in
015that they really felt important to know how they had to grow this program across multiple grade levels so that kind of recapped what we did this this year what are we going to focus on next year one of the major things that we want to focus on next year and this is tied into one of the things that Dr. Sable and I have been talking about, but an emphasis upon writing, particularly in like K-5, emphasizing the engineering notebooks as a learning tool for the students. This also ties into what we were talking about before, the communication aspects that we're trying to foster with the kids, the persistence that we're trying to foster with the students, and also the problem solving. When I say engineering notebook, you can think of it as a scientific notebook, if
016you're used to thinking that in that vernacular in a science class. but having the students actually document their ideas explain their thinking reflect on what worked and what did not work obviously revise and improve their design and use writing and creativity in authentic stem work so this is something that i've normally emphasized after we build that foundation in in following years in schools and this is something that you see really grow really nicely k-12 across multiple districts and i'm excited to get started on this work here for next school year obviously as we talked about before this is something that will definitely work with dr sable and the building principles on doing professional development for the teachers before we roll this out next school year what are the goals that we want to have for
017next year We started the middle school robotics team this year. We also want to start we basically want to branch that out, right? So we want to go down and we want to go up so we want to make sure that we have Elementary and middle school robotics teams. That's why I say elementary. I mean primary school and intermediate school robotics teams. We have the middle school robotics team right now. We want to have a high school robotics team. So the infrastructure for that has already taken place. We already know who's going to do the robotics teams for the primary school and the intermediate school. We also know who's going to do the robotics team for the high school. We've met with the building principals. We've met with the teachers. So all that infrastructure has
018already been put in place for that, and we obviously already have the middle school robotics team. We also want to do a unified. robotics team so the unified robotics team would be a team of special needs students combined with regular education students and putting them on a robotics team together this is something we had three unified robotics competitions last year we want to make sure that we're able to do that this year at short tears valley this was also geared to what the grant that we got from the gray bull foundation was geared towards inclusive education around stem and artificial intelligence this will fit very nicely into that um we want to host the robotics competition that's that's a that's a big ambitious goal uh but we have a beautiful facility here and we really
019want chartier's valley to be recognized as one of the leaders in STEM education, not just in Western PA, but in the entire state of Pennsylvania. So a great way to be able to do this is to actually host the robotics competitions. That's something that we'll definitely be working on towards next year. And we want to build out the computer science continuum. So what I mean by that is make sure that we have a structured pathway so that teachers understand where they introduce coding at the primary and middle school level. where we're actually working towards at the high school level with the goal of hopefully we have a very good problem in which we have students going into entering into the high school and which you have to expand the computer science offerings or go deeper
020into computer science offerings because the students already have such a reservoir of knowledge moving into that and with that i will be happy to answer whatever questions that you may have mr mckenna thank you thank you that was a very thorough presentation of everything that was put in place this school year i i think most importantly and what i want to stress to the board We needed your support to do this. But we have a program now where every child is exposed to this curriculum. And when you walk in the primary, K-2, a thousand students have this embedded into their daily routine, which you're touching upon students that might spark something that otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to that. So I think it's just so important, the inclusivity of what we're trying to do. Mr.
021McKenna, we couldn't have done that without you. So thank you for the work and our principals and staff. Change is not easy. And when you've been teaching a long time and someone comes to you and says, you're going to teach robotics now as well, it's a shock. So credit to our staff for being open to those ideas and really challenging and wanting to figure out how to make this thing work. So thank you. And to add to that piece, Dr. Costagna and I were at a conference down in Pittsburgh with about 60 school districts, and we were explaining our process of how we implemented this, and we had a lot of positive feedback from different districts that really want to learn how we were doing this so that they could try to implement it for
022themselves. So as of right now, we are one of the leaders on this side of the state, but like Mr. McKenna said, we want to be the best in the state if possible. And we'll go on moving on to congratulations to Dr. Erica Pierce. I know she could not make it this evening, but congratulations on her for earning her doctorate degree in music education from Liberty University. Her dissertation focused on the impact of orchestra participation on student learning and performance through musical assessments and student feedback. Another interesting fact is, in addition, she was recently named the quarterfinalist for the 2027 Grammy Music Educator Award and was one of only seven educators in Pennsylvania recognized this year. The district commends her for these outstanding efforts. professional accomplishments and continued dedication to her music education and the
023success of her students. So congratulations to Dr. Pierce. Yes, congratulations. And Chartier's Valley students and staff at the primary school was recognized by the American Heart Association. Again, this year they raised over $20,000 through the American Heart Association. Kids Heart Challenge American Heart Challenge program their efforts will help support life-saving heart research treatment advancements and resources for children and families affected by heart disease Congratulations to Mr. Vaughn for his leadership and dedication in coordinating this successful Initiative and helping making a meaningful impact on the lives of students across the state. Yes. Thank you. That is a lot of money Thank you Okay, anything this evening dr. Castagna for the superintendent's report no no report on to public comments on agenda items mrs. Traynor We would like to invite any resident or taxpayer of the Charters
024Valley School District who wishes to address the board to please state your name and address when you approach the podium. We appreciate your interest. Please keep your comments to two to three minutes. Thank you. Kelly, do we have anyone that signed up to speak on current agenda items? We do not. Okay. Having none, moving on. Okay, I'd like to announce that we had an executive session prior to this public meeting to discuss personnel legal and safety matters On to the solicitors report. Yes under my report You will see the motion to ratify the decision to reject the fact-finding report Okay, may I have a motion to ratify the decision from May 12th? 2026 to reject the fact finders report Second. Motion made by Ms. Heene, second by Mr. Chura. Any discussion on this item? All
025in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? No. The motion passes. On to the informational agenda. Anything from Shazda? Mrs. Sexton. Yes, I do have something to share. There isn't much. They don't get together very often, but Saturday, April 11th, Dr. Castagna, Dr. Craftsman, and myself attended the Shasta Student Recognition Breakfast, which that's where the Shasta Association picks two students to receive the award who have demonstrated significant growth and improvement while also demonstrating perseverance. The keynote speaker was Will Allen from the Will Allen Foundation. He shared some stories of encouragement and explaining his definition of character, which was really interesting to hear his perspective on that. But it also served as an important reminder of the value of recognizing effort of students, building confidence and fostering a culture where all students' progress is acknowledged and celebrated. And
026the two students from Chartier Valley were Junior Joey Jamison. who's planning to be a professional barber, and junior Grace Fisher, who plans to major in psychology. And we just wanted to say congratulations to all the students who were selected, because it's a great honor to receive that award, and we're so proud of Joey and Grace. That's great. On to the Pathfinder School. Mr. Montani. Yes, thank you. Pathfinder held its monthly meeting last Wednesday. School year is winding down at the Pathfinder School. We passed the annual administrative budget for the 26-27 school year at a recent Pathfinder meeting, and all the member districts, I believe at this point, have passed it as well. The last meeting of the school year for Pathfinder is June the 17th, and finally graduation for Pathfinder is next Wednesday, June the
0273rd. We have two CV students graduating, so congratulations to them. Yes, thank you. On to Parkway West and Career Technical Center, Mr. Chura. Thank you, Mr. President. Parkway had their graduation on May 13th at the Robert Morris University. It was very well attended, well over 1,000 people. Charters Valley had 31 students participate, and they were perfect ladies and gentlemen. And Robert Morris did a fantastic job, as always. Parkway's annual summer camp will be held June 17th. That's for the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders who are thinking about attending Parkway. And it's a very nice camp. We provide lunch for them, and we usually get around 800 students. Also, Parkway, we decided to pull away from the AIU Energy Consortium. All 12 districts voted. We found a better company with better service. And last but not
028least, Daniela Halkowski was re-elected treasurer for another year, and I was re-elected secretary. That's all I got. Okay, thank you. May I have a motion to approve the board meeting minutes for May 12, 2026? So moved. Motion made by Mr. Chura. May I have a second? Second by Mr. Broski. Any discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the student settlement agreement and release? So moved. Motion made by Mr. Montani. May I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Chura. Any discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the academic service agreement with Learn Well Education? So moved. Motion made by Mrs. Treanor. Second. Second. Second by Mr. Tura. Any
029discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the human resources report for May 26, 2026? So moved. Motion made by Mrs. Treanor. Second. Second by Mr. Tura. Any discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the payments of the construction invoices as presented? So moved. Motion made by Mr. Chura, second by Mrs. Heen. Any discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the five year agreement with Rocket Alumni Solutions Incorporated for the touchscreen awards display software subscription and related services for the Church's Valley School District as attached. Motion made by Ms. Heen. Second. Second by Mr. Chura. Any
030discussion on this item? Yes, Dr. Castagnum, would you like to address some details on this, please? Yes, so this came out of discussions with our athletic Hall of Fame committee. They were looking for ways to first celebrate our inaugural class but also interact with alumni. While we were looking for an external company to host a website, we found this company that actually specializes in hosting websites, website design, but then also engagement of alumni. So what was unique about this system is they provide interactive screens that we would have. We are going to begin with two of them that will be positioned at the high school that will display alumni and whatever various highlights we want to add to that and it is truly interactive. You could touch the screen. You could see someone's picture, you
031could see their history, you could find high school photos of them from however many years ago, etc. We really think it's going to be a base program that will expand and then build into honoring other areas as well. But it's really a showpiece, I would call it, and also takes some of the work away from our internal IT staff from the hosting and designing of the Hall of Fame website. Okay, thank you. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the basic emergency operation plan as presented? So moved. Motion. You missed the policy. What did I miss? 12.1. Policy. Oh, I'm sorry. You're good. Okay, going back to 12.1, annual review of policies. May I have a motion to approve the annual review of policies 918, 918.1,
032and 918.2? So moved. Second. Motion made by Mr. Montani, second by Mrs. Treanor. Any discussion on this item? Just one point of clarification. This is just a review every year. Yeah, this is a title one mandates that we review these three policies annually and vote on them publicly. This is not the thorough full review that the board approved last meeting that we are currently conducting. Sure. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. May I have a motion to approve the basic emergency operation plan as presented? So moved. Second. Motion made by Mrs. Treanor, second by Mr. Chura. Any discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion passes. On to public comments on non-agenda items. We would like to invite any resident or taxpayer of Chartres Valley School District who
033wishes to address the board to please state your name and address when you approach the podium. We appreciate your interest. Please keep your comments to two to three minutes. Kelly, did anyone sign up to speak on current non-agenda items? Yes. Greg Smith. Good evening. Greg Smith, 398 Woodcliffe Circle, Scott Township. As a parent of two elementary school children here in the Chartres Valley School District, I'm speaking tonight to express my deep frustration and serious concern over the district's failure to reach a fair contract agreement with its transportation employees, a negotiation that has now dragged on for well over two years. Between the board's decision to solicit bids to outsource bus services entirely to continued safety concerns by both people here tonight and countless other area school districts, all with a predictable solution in sight and
034without meaningful transparency to the community is flat out unacceptable. Our children's safety and the livelihoods of dedicated community members should not be treated as bargaining chips. The proposed alternative, handing our children's transportation over to a third-party contractor like First Student, is not a solution. It is a serious safety risk dressed up as a cost-saving measure. I witnessed this firsthand on May 8, 2026, when I observed the First Student bus, bus 452, speed through my neighborhood with the driver visibly wearing an AirPod in her ear while operating the vehicle. The street had several cars parked on it, kids were riding their bikes, and both my neighbor and I yelled at it as it drove by. That is both dangerous, likely illegal, and a distraction behind the wheel of a bus carrying our children. This reckless behavior
035is not an isolated incident. These are not anomalies in this area, and they are in fact a pattern. Beyond safety, the financial case for outsourcing does not hold up to either. You are finding the easy solution to make up a deficit. Our in-house service is something many of you have taken advantage of when your own children came through this district. And now you are finding the easy way out. I can't stress that enough. And you are not working hard for the valued members of this community. We have lost countless valued employees in our district. My kids sitting right there tonight. want to see Mr. Will. They want to see Ms. Christie driving their bus. I would like the same peace of mind that you got to enjoy as a parent when you trusted your neighbor
036to take care of your kids. Dr. Castagna, you said in your introductory press release that you were looking forward to working closely with engaged families to provide real relief to our community. I am here, engaged and ready to support you and your efforts to lead us. This decision cannot rely simply on the bottom line. These are real people, our neighbors, our children, whose livelihoods you've played with for over two years now. The bottom line is simple. The best outcome for our students, our community, and our employees is a fair contract. I urge the school board to stop stalling, come back to the table in good faith, and get this done now with our drivers. Thank you. No more comments. I'd like to announce that our next school board meeting will be on June 9th, 2026.
037May I have a motion to adjourn? Motion made by Mr. Tura. May I have a second? Second by Ms. Heen. All in favor? Aye. Have a good evening.