001Good evening, everybody. We are going to begin our committee agenda at 6.01 p.m. Dr. Ober? Thank you, Madam President. Good evening to members of the Board of Directors, to administration that is here in attendance, to our teachers that are here as well, some community members and students. We have quite a lot to cover tonight in committee, so I will begin. First, as we always do, we have our Middle School Student of the Month. So, Mr. Justin Wise, our Associate Principal for the Middle School, will introduce our Middle School Student. Good evening, everybody. My name is Justin Wise. I'm the Associate Principal of the Middle School, and I'm honored to present our May Student of the Month, Elijah Gentile. We're also excited to have Elijah's family here today. Thank you guys for coming to support Elijah.
002We will now play Elijah's video. Justin Wise, the Associate Principal of McGuffey Middle School, it's my honor to introduce you, our Student of the Month for May, Elijah Gentile. Hello. Congratulations, Elijah. Thank you. All right. I'll ask some questions. What is your name? Great. My name is Elijah Gentile. I'm in sixth grade, and I'm involved in band, chorus, the McGuffey Gitche Program, and pro-choice. What do you like to do outside of school? I love to read, write, cook, and do brandy dishes. What does being a Student of the Month mean to you? It means a kind student to everyone. Question why? My favorite subject is math because it's very complex at first, but then it gets easier as you progress. I love to learn. My teachers have been very helpful and very great. What advice
003would you give to students? Be very kind, follow Ron, and make sure that you do your homework. Thank you, Elijah, for... Thank you, guys. Thank you, Elijah. Congratulations. Next, and actually for her last time as our Student Council Representative, I understand Maeve is going to Washington Jefferson upon graduation here as Maeve Cattola to give our Student Council update. Maeve. Good evening. My name is Maeve Cattola. I'm a student council representative. My name is Maeve Cattola, and on behalf of Student Council, I will be reading some school updates. The McGuffey FFA will host their annual breakfast and awards ceremony on May 28th. Almost 100 students spent the past two weeks taking almost 200 advanced placement exams. These students are looking forward to the release of scores in early July. Almost 30 out of 120 seniors took
004the NOCTI assessment for our school-based CTE programs of General Agriculture, Agriculture Mechanics, and Engineering Technologies. engineering technologies. This shows that all three programs remain very popular. With an average score of 92 percent scoring competent and advanced, our students are also building skills and demonstrating knowledge in these programs. Graduation week will be quickly upon us with the week of senior activities including the senior breakfast, awards day ceremony, senior sunrise at the stadium, elementary walks at Claysville and Joe Walker, baccalaureate and commencement on June 5th at the stadium. Nine seniors and their families and coaches participated in our annual collegiate signing day breakfast and ceremony last Friday in the library. The middle school and high school chorus held their spring concerts last week in the auditorium and the middle school and high school band concerts were held
005this week. Here are some sport updates. The varsity baseball team finished the season with an overall record of 9 and 13 and 4 and 6 in the section with a young team they're excited for next year. I'm going to turn it over to the board. The varsity softball team finished the season with an overall record of 10 and 7 and 7 and 3 in the section. Another young team with high hopes. Sophomore Miley Main achieved their 100th strikeout. They won their first round playoff game against Hopewell High School but lost to Elwood City High School in the second round of the Whitfield playoffs. The varsity track and field sent 17 athletes to compete at the Whitfield level bringing home a few medals for top 8 finishes in certain events. Junior Ava Ulam will be competing
006in the shot put at the PIAA Track and Field Meet this weekend. Thank you. Thank you Mayne and best of luck babe in your future. Okay. Next as we attempted to do every month is to share a little bit of what's going on in our schools and our buildings and tonight very pleased to bring back actually this is a second time a presentation on our gifted and talented and what's happening there. They say that Jen is not someone you see often because she quite often is out with our students at expos, showcases, a puffer of competitions. But when you do see Jen, Ms. Horgan, you always see a smile on her face right there, proving my point. So tonight to talk about what our Gifted Talent students are up to currently and also to give
007you an invitation to tomorrow night, I want to give more away on that, is Ms. Jen Horgan, our Gifted Talent teacher for K-12. Hi, everyone. Good evening. I'm very excited about tomorrow's opportunity for the Gifted Student Expo night, and everyone is invited, teachers, community members, admin, to check out what the students have been doing this school year. I also put together a slideshow. I didn't plug it in yet. Sorry. I think we're all worried. All right. Sorry. I put together a slideshow in order to show a little bit what the students have been up to this year. So let me just. Slide this over. So I'm going to start with the elementary school levels just to give you highlights of the year, because I know it's a little bit too long to cover tonight. But
008if you would like to know in more detail, please come check out tomorrow night between 5 and 7 in the school cafeteria. So the Gifted K-5 students this year, we started off the year with Remake Learning Days down at the Children's Museum. This was meant to inspire students to do projects and to just get excited about learning. So there were many things that the students got to experience hands-on at the Children's Museum, more so than what the exhibits normally are. And I have some pictures to illustrate that next. We also had for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, we did have a student that placed in the fifth grade over at Clayesville, first place for a poem about barriers still exist for veterans. So the students gave a lot of thought to that. Some students made
009posters and others did poems. And that was Jake Ziegler, fifth grader over at Clayesville that won first place in our region. Last year we also had two students placed. We took a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo because the younger students were learning about Jane Goodall and also the one and only Ivan. And we delved deep into those advanced level books. And they learned about the real Ivan as well. They studied all of that. We did a lot of literature techniques. And then we went to the zoo to see the exhibits. We had primary STEM challenge was one of the events that McGuffey hosted for the K-3 students. We also hosted the primary, I'm sorry, the intermediate level fourth and fifth grade Math 24 event. We did the NACLO competition, which was online this year at
010the high school level. And we also did the middle, sorry, the fourth and fifth grade literature festival was hosted at McGuffey. So we had a lot of different events that we did that were here this year as well. Spook Squad, I wanted to start talking about that. We had some students that made it into a book this year. So they did a 100 word mini saga. And we had some of our students in there. And this will be featured tomorrow night. I did have some middle school and high school that also did on a different level and made it into the Fright Club Dark Places book. So we're very excited about that. And just going on. I listed some of the students who were at that level that made it into the book as a
011finalist. We had Quiz Bowl, Science Bowl was at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. And then we had Math 24 at both levels. America Bowl, which is when the students have to learn all about the states and the capitals. And then they go and they practice that with other gifted students at different schools in this area. So I'm just going to go ahead and start. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to go through some pictures. So I can keep this a little bit more brief. These are pictures at the Children's Museum for Remake Learning Days. Students in that bottom corner, they had to wear goggles to see what vision would be like with a horse. If you were a horse, and then they had to find ways without touching each other
012to lead them through an obstacle course. We had bicycle pottery, which was a creative thing that the students did. And they got to do virtual reality goggles to see inside of a hearth. And we have aviation was another thing there, as well as STEM activities where they got to build a maze and then code Bebots through the maze. So lots of, like, great learning enrichment opportunities. These are some pictures when we went to the zoo, and this was K through 12 all came. So the older students, they were looking and trying to figure out what it would be like to have a career as a zookeeper. The younger students went and did the rainforest rhythm program so that they could learn more about primates as a novel extension. And these are just some highlights of
013some of these pictures. This is the event hosted at McGuffey High School, K through 3 Halloween STEM events. The students use critical thinking skills. They are doing puzzles. They're doing a lot of math and STEM building at this competition. And we did have a first place team. We did a first place team at that competition. Intermediate quiz bowl. The students do general knowledge just for enrichment with local schools. And this was our winner of the Paralyzed Veterans of America poem. So that was actually Jake's poem there. And those are pictures. We had the representative come from PVA. I'm going to go a little faster and go on to another level because I know there's a lot on here. So I'm going to just skip around a little bit. Middle schoolers. We started the year with
014SIP's Eco Challenge. So they were talking about events that matter with the environment. Clean energy. Ways to help out. They actually each took a microphone at the event and shared some of what they knew and participated hands on at SIP's. They also do the math 24 but with double digits at that level. So they have to manipulate four numbers using all operations in order to make the number 24. They went to the Pittsburgh. We have a lot of helpers at this level. So they went down and helped to work. Clayville Steam Night and run some stations there. They also help whenever I host events up here and they help gain leadership and communication skills. How do you solve science for the Carnegie Museum. That was four through eighth grade. Boss IQ is a very memorable
015trip that is available for girls seven through 12th grade. They go down to tech works in Homestead and they have a lot of hands on. Experience with a particular engineering field. So some of them got assigned to biomedical. It might be mechanical engineering electrical but they go and they do little workshops and then they get to experience a big floor and network with other places that are there. Some colleges and some businesses. We is a women's engineering that's that's there as well. So they get to talk to engineers. These are just some highlights. And I wanted to say that I'm a little bit more of a science person. I'm a little bit more of a science person. I'm a little bit more of a science person. And I wanted to say something about the middle
016school kids. They are the bridge pictures which will be coming up a little bit later. We do a lot of them down in the classroom as well. To foster those critical thinking skills. That was a police unit. Math 24. We had some students that placed in that competition. We always like to do something together afterwards too. But this team in this picture right here out of 25 teams they won first place. So each student won a $100 gift card and $1,000 for the classroom. So it was a very big deal. And I just wanted to make sure to talk about that tonight. I'm proud of all of the students and I know that they were very excited. I'm going to go to high school now. Just to jump around. Oh my mouth. Sorry. I'm looking
017for where. And this is the bridge building here. That's what I wanted to show you. So we had high school and middle school. Students went to the bridge building competition. Sorry I'm trying to make my mouth. There it is. Sorry about that everyone. This is the group that went to the bridge building. So they worked for a couple months on and off. Engineering they had to research. Keep a digital notebook. They were only allowed to spend $100. There were parameters for the middle school. They were only allowed to use 125 popsicle sticks. And they had to stand 20 inches. Had to hold at least 10 pounds of weight. And they had to be able to do it. So they were able to do it. The winning team that I talked about. Their bridge held 285
018pounds. Wow. Yes. And all of the teams did very well. And held at least 100 pounds. So I have some pictures. You can see they put it on cinder blocks. This is them afterwards. And the bridge. It was still pretty structural. Structurally sound. Even after that. My other team. They were in third place. And they ended up ninth. So this is just going in there. And those were the middle school scores. You can see McGuffey is over here on the right. And the other team as well. For a long time they were in third place. And they ended up ninth. So both teams wonderful job. So I will let you go. I know I said a lot tonight. But if you would like to learn even more about our program. Please come tomorrow. Between 5
019to 7. Thank you very much everyone. And I will see you in the cafeteria. In the cafeteria. It was wonderful last year. So I would definitely recommend it. Thank you Jen. All right. Next I received an email right before spring break. And I thought it was a response to my email to the staff saying. Hey have a great wonderful spring break. You know. And I saw quickly. And then I had to do double take. This was much more than thank you Dr. Oberg for wishing us that. This individual wanted me to know. And consider over spring break. That we are going to be having a spring break. And I was thinking. I was thinking about the idea. Of allowing our students. To. Partake in fairly unique opportunity. And that would be an international. Opportunity for
020students to travel. And so. When I was talking to Senora Bowman about this. We've had subsequent meetings. She's had meetings with. Travel agents. I said you know I don't even know the last time. I'm going to have to go and see. What the next time. So it's been a while. So tonight. On your agenda. You will see the ask of the board. To approve a trip. And again. Mrs. Bowman will share with us. What that looks like. What the timelines are on that. But I'm excited by this. And so I'm fully supportive. Of this unique opportunity for our students. I'm excited. And I know you all have a lot of thoughts. What's the future. And I'd love to hear from you. And we'll be back. Good evening. I'm Lisa Bowman. One of the Spanish teachers.
021Here at the high school. And yeah. As Dr. Over had mentioned. This is something that I have been kind of. Chewing on here for a couple of years. Honestly. really digging and doing some research, resulting in us providing all of our students, all of our current Spanish students, our current Spanish Club members with a survey just to say, would you be interested, where would you go if you could go abroad to study and learn and better your language skills and that kind of thing. And hands down, believe it or not, Costa Rica was at the top of their list, only to be followed by Spain and traveling to Europe. So I'll try and make this brief enough but clear enough so you have a fairly good idea of what I'm looking at. So EF Tours
022is the kind of primary leading tour company for educational tours abroad. EF actually stands for Education First. So they have been around for 60 years. They are used by thousands of schools across the nation. And as you see here in the slide, nearby schools in our area who have used them in the last year or two, we have Cannon Mac, Avella, Bentworth. I know Trinity High School took a group to Europe last year using them. However, theirs was not a school affiliated. But this is just kind of showing how wide the use this company is. Education is very much first and foremost their kind of focal point. Let's see here. I want to make sure I cover everything. They are an accredited tour company, meaning they are accredited just like most U.S. schools are accredited.
023This one is a little bit different. This would be an eight-day tour in Costa Rica. It says beginning in San Jose. It actually begins just outside of San Jose in Alajuela. And you see we spend a day in Alajuela, two in Tarapique, two in the Arenal region, and then two on the Pacific Coast in the area of Guanacaste, the province of Guanacaste. The sheet that I actually passed around is slightly more thorough. So if you even just look at what the entrance is, like the entrance tickets included on the trip are, it is quite a bit more involved than just what you see on the screen. There is quite a bit more detail to it. However, this is the trip in a nutshell. And let's see here. Just as I said, the tour company does
024align its tours with current use. So if you look at the map, you can see that the tour company is in the area of Guanacaste. And you can see that the tour company is in the area of Guanacaste. And there are also walking around the island and in the area of the island is to be able to go by the US educational teaching standards. So we are not just looking at, we're not just looking at, I want to say connecting with teaching standards from a language and culture point of view. But it's much deeper than that. It is ecology, Costa Rican economy, how it plays a part in the world's economy, you know, lots of plant animals science, lots of earth science angles being hit here. here history geography everything you can everything you can
025think of so that's just kind of it in a snapshot we are looking at if if the board would approve and again what we're asking for is just the chance to present this to McGuffey families it's not necessarily hey we're going to have a huge turnout of families interested we hope to but our goal is just to have permission to just present this to the families we would be looking at two years from now so July of 2028 so we would be enabling families and myself time to help fundraise to help families and students fundraise to make this a reality for their students they do ask that you block off kind of this larger window of time with confirmation of specific tour dates provided by the board and then we would be looking at the
026time to be able to provide the best price for families within about two to three months range before travel so that just helps the tour company to be able to provide the best price for families what is included in the tour you have a full-time tour director who would be traveling with us from the time we land in San Jose until we leave Guanacaste all roundtrip airfare all of our meals apart from food while traveling, food and drinks while traveling, overnight stays in all of our hotels, expert-led sightseeing tours, tickets, entrance tickets to everything, and something I was not terribly familiar with, but actually the option for our students to receive academic credit for the trip, pending that they enroll to a program outside of 30 days prior to travel, a program provided by the
027tour company, and then this would be a later Dr. Godfrey conversation for us to have to see whether or not those are credits that the school would recognize for our students. And also they offer something similar for the educator chaperones. So, for example, if they are a student who would be traveling with the group, providing those educators, if they enroll in a post-travel program, the ability to receive some Act 48 credit hours and that kind of thing. So, little digression there. But, yes, they offer also 24-hour traveler support and emergency support. So, if a student loses a passport, we can help them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if they are a student who is not a part of a program, we can contact them and they say, you do A, B, and C.
028If a student leaves their luggage, you know, at destination one, God only knows how, we call them and they say, you follow steps A, B, C, and D. So they are very much a support there for us. And this was just a brief. This is the optional credit options for our students. but to enroll in a post-travel opportunity. Is it that one? Yes, it is that one. The cost is included in the cost of the tour. And basically it is doing an asynchronous course after the travel to be able to achieve possibly a high school elective credit, again, pending conversation with Dr. Godren for a later time. But again, this is optional, totally optional. Also included in the tours, I wanna point out that all of their hotels are vetted for safety, security, cleanliness, just
029operational efficiency, that kind of thing. All of the meals are also included in the tours. Students would eat their breakfast meal at the hotel each day, and then they would have their lunch somewhere in an authentic, setting in the area that we are in at the time, to be followed by dinner in some sort of a local setting also. Excuse me. The only things that families would be responsible for outside of what was mentioned is passports, baggage fees, tips for the tour director and bus guide, bus guide, bus driver. However, those tips can be included into the tour package ahead of time, so that that's not something that anyone needs to kind of manage once the trip has begun. Snacks and meals, primarily, again, that's just in the airport settings, coming to and fro. Room
030upgrades, probably no one's that worried about a room upgrade, but you never know. At this time, the pricing is as follows, And I do want to point out, I know this comes up in just a moment, for every six students who go, one chaperone cost is covered. So there is a six-to-one ratio, one chaperone for every six students. But the cost per student would be $3,989. The cost is noticeably more expensive for adults, primarily because that's looking at a double-room occupancy versus a quadruple-room occupancy. The reason we are, aside from the obvious of needing to fundraise, the reason that we're looking into this so far out is to give families the flexibility to space out pricing. Because, as you see here, they have the option. They have the option of doing biweekly payments, monthly payments,
031and that kind of thing. Should the board approve that we present this opportunity to our McGuffey High School kids, the price would look a little bit different if we were to present something like this, say, September or October, just because we would be getting that much closer to the travel dates. Let's see here. Just, again, want to show you. And I know this is. It's taking just a little bit long. Monthly payment plans are kind of mainly the way I think people cover these costs. But there is flexibility. You can do automatic payment plans, manual payment plans. Some families may just opt to pay for this in full. All payments go directly to the tour company. Nothing comes to the school. Nothing is processed through the school. Fundraising that we would do as a group
032as a travel group would probably come through me. And then I would send that directly to the tour company to be allocated to the travelers. Other than that, all family payments originating from the families would go directly to the tour company. Never through the school district. It's $95 to enroll. And essentially. Um. Anyone who enrolls has up to 7 days after enrollment for a free. For a full, excuse me, free full refund. If they are not totally competent in their decision to commit to this. Um. So I wanted to mention that also students are eligible to apply for a global citizenship scholarship to help pay for the cost of their trip. Um. By completing a short 2 to 3 minute video. Um, yes, tours is extremely, extremely concerned with and on top of just student
033safety. It is their primary. You know, focus apart from education. Um, see here. Okay, so again, they did mention there is a 24, 7 emergency response option. Um, they do have. Offices in 115 countries. Um. So the nearest office to where we would be would be in the country of Panama. Thankfully, a connecting country, but not that that should be an issue. Um, all travelers are required to sign yes, release an agreement, which includes a release of liability of the group leader, the school and the school board. So, again, we, we would present this as a McGuffey school board approved trip. That is fully run by EF tours, therefore. The school board is not liable for anything should anything happen. See, okay, and I did mention the tour director meets us at the airport states
034with us the entire time. Uh, the short director is also a trained educator. They go through hundreds of hours of training to. Um, lead and guide. Our students. In. what it is that is being presented to them. They have extensive knowledge of the destinations, and they manage everything from helping us get our luggage, hotel check-ins, just getting any odds and ends questions kind of answered and figured out for us. This is my buddy Scott. He has actually, he lives near Maryland. He has actually come and met me at our local Panera in Washington multiple times now because he's also always out in our area meeting with other teachers in Washington County who are currently planning trips. So, he is actually available right now via Zoom call. He is waiting on my computer currently. If anyone
035has any questions or anything specific that i have not covered i don't know if there's anything at this time yes ma'am i just had a question about is your price locked in per a particular number of students or that is a very good question and i honestly i don't know what the minimum required is and so i could find that out could i get him on oh yeah yeah it doesn't matter to me anyone else have any particular questions that come to mind right now with the enrollment after the seven days what happens if somebody were to change their mind so they actually encourage all of us to purchase their insurance plan their cancellation cancellation insert cancellation insurance plan and essentially if you cancel extremely far out i believe you're just down a certain dollar
036amount but the rest of your money is fully refunded um i could get him on to tell us specifically like what that timeline looks like and dollar amount looks like if you would like for me let me just for for time's sake but also this is on the agenda so if you need those answers to make your decision tonight absolutely i i first i think we need more sure yeah absolutely sorry everybody okay well hello sir can you hear me me yeah i can hear you okay yes i can thank you you are in our school board meeting welcome yeah hello um we were just curious what is the minimum number of travelers required to get the price as we are showing tonight for example even though we know it could change between now and
037september yeah great question so we they start racing off of a old charter bus you are not required to fill every seat on the bus the minimum number of travelers required is three seats so you for you is once you bring the same travelers that earn for any 60 on that you earn an additional free space but let's say you bring a group of 12 our job fill the rest of the work with other groups same itinerary in the same window same itinerary to keep our prices as low as possible because we're and it's not unless you wanted to be a private group then it would increase what we call a consolidated group of allows us to keep the price low for every person who's in that and one thing I forgot to mention is
038that every adult traveling with this tour company undergoes extreme background checks so this is separate from the background checks that they have to be teaching in our public schools this is say John Smith's dad wants to come chaperone he isn't he doesn't have his background checks his clearance checks he doesn't have his background checks he doesn't have his background checks he doesn't have his background checks he doesn't have his to be working within a school setting therefore EF tours does provide extensive background checks which is part of the tour cost I did mean to mention that one second that was it was that it okay and then your question ma'am is specifically if they cancel outside of the seven days what does that look like as far as their their refund I mentioned that there
039is an insurance package that we are also encouraged to you know encouraging the travelers to purchase so what does that look like outside of seven days so there is a our cancellation window and how we'll get back depending on how actually cancel if they're over one year from departure they get everything back minus the $95 that it takes to secure their spot down payment and it's explicitly mentioned in the booking terms and conditions when they enroll that if they cancel they're going to get back the money that they're going to get back but that's not going to happen unless they cancel any time after the seven days the $95 becomes not refundable year before departure everything back mine as you get closer and closer there is a cancellation fee on top of the $95 up
040until a point where it's not pot refunded there than 60 days before departure they can't get anything back because we've already allocated their funds to pay for the portion of the day we're going so from one year there's no spot unless they were to go with it option we do have to allow them to have more cancel much closer. Sure, sure. How does the cancellations affect your total number going and your pre-sponsorship? So, you know, we have, let's say six, and then all of a sudden, you know, close to time to go, one cancels. That sixth one was what got the pre-spot for the adult. Are we required then to fill that spot? How does that work? On a prorated scale, well, so let's say it also comes down to the timing of when someone
041cancels. So, the prorated space, or sorry, the chaperone spaces that are coming, travelers, 59 days. So, any time there are new enroll cancellations, that impacts. For example, you've got one pre-cast, 59 days, probably cancels. Then the group leaders, you would be expected to cover the 59 days prior. So, if you've got someone, if you've got 16 travelers and one cancels, you are not then expected. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Yeah, so the same thing. It does work even, sorry, it does work even. Okay. Mr. Barner, thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good day. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, you too. Bye-bye. Well, thank you for your time. We appreciate it, all of us here at Diasda High School. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you
042for investigating that. Today was a very special day in our district at Claysville. It took me back to when I was, I think I was six years old in 1976, but I was eight. It reminds, I could be in an older, I'm not sure, but it reminds me a lot of what's happened this year in the 250th anniversary. So, a presentation that I was joking with them that needed to be 10 minutes, 12 minutes, or whatever long, because this is really important. Jen Janowich, Jenny Ely, Erin Donkels, Kelly Katrupas are here with us tonight, but I think, and they were spearheading the efforts for a time capsule that was buried at Claysville at the original elementary that was there. It was dug up, reburied again, and then today, for all the students to see, it
043was unveiled. And it was. It was a very special time to be there, and I know a lot of work has gone into this, again, to Ms. Janowich, Mrs. Ely, and Ms. Barner. Well, Ms. Koutropis, again, thank you for all that you did and all the other teachers and everyone else that had a big part to play. This is something that the students at Clayville K-5 are going to always remember. And then they, too, are going to pay it forward in that they're going to – am I giving too much? I told you to be brief, and now I told them to be brief. So with that, Ms. Janavich. I'm glad you could break with us and enjoy it. So we've been super excited counting down the days for this day today. And we started
044probably early in the year talking about it. There's been a placard outside of Clayville Elementary with this specific date on it. So we knew that we had to do something, and we had to do something big this day for the kids. So it was a day all about the Time Castle. So as you said, the Time Castle was buried in 1976. So we planned a program. We worked for several months. There were a team of 11 of us that actually got together. And worked on this, preparing for this day. We worked so well. Everybody just sort of had their jobs and their roles, and it came together. It was fantastic today. So we wanted to bring a little piece of it to you tonight. So we gave you a copy of the slides. We also
045gave you a copy of all the items that were inside of the Time Castle. We had no idea. When we first started this, we were hoping and praying that there would be something inside. We had tried to reach out to several previous teachers, not all of which really remembered much about this day. Some of them weren't teaching. We had heard from Mrs. Noble that she thought that there was the eraser inside the Time Castle for a chalkboard. So we really didn't know what we were going to do. So we planned anyway, and I think we were all surprised when we saw how many items and what time and effort that the previous teachers in 1976 had put into this Time Castle. So everything's on display tonight at the Fire Hall in Claysville, and they had
046a huge turnout. They had, when we left 430, there had already been 100 people there. So it was pretty fantastic. So I think we're going to share more online. I think our PTO and our school district can share some more videos and things. So we just wanted to give you a little snippet of the day. So we had several guest speakers that came to the school today. We started with Mrs. Marty Main. So Marty had a close connection because her mother was Mrs. Marge Drost. So Marge was, Mrs. Drost was a teacher in Claysville when this happened, and she played a big part in the role. She was the principal of the original bearing of the Time Castle. So it was really great to bring Marty back into it. So she was a guest speaker
047for us today. She actually also received something her mother had put in the Time Castle for her. So she, that was very sentimental. And I did not let her tell me what it was until after the program, and we both cried. It was wonderful. So she walked the kids through. It's just hard to imagine what life was like back then, and the school itself was completely different. So the school had been demolished in 1992, 1993. So she showed the kids, talked about that, and then the new school, of course, being built and what it looks like today. So it's been pretty fabulous. They actually held a reburial of the new Time Castle on a Sunday, we heard today. They came in and buried it again. There's been rumors of another Time Castle out there. We
048did not locate one. So if you happen to know more details on that, it's like a treasure hunt, really, to dig these things up. Just hope that you're going to get it in the right spot. So we dug with the help of some of our boys and husbands and things to get that and find it. And it was great. So Erin, you want to talk? So one of our important – I'm Erin Donkels, part of the committee. And one of our guest speakers today was Mrs. Jane Noble. And Mrs. Jane Noble, she was a fourth-grade teacher, and she was one of the teachers when I was teaching. And she was one of the teachers that was in that team. But she was able to be there today. And here she is in 1976. And a
049story that she shared with us was that she made the cake. They did not have red candles back then. So she wanted red candles, I believe 200 red candles. So she hand-dipped all of them to make red candles. And so here's her picture. And then there she was today. And we had a beautiful message for our students today. It made a lot of people cry. So it was a really special event to have her there. This is actually one of the pieces in the time capsule, but it's the original program. It was created by a student. So this is something that we shared with the students. And it was part of the time capsule. Right. So today was really based around what we try to instill in our kids in Claysville. And in 1976 it
050was there. It's here again in 2026 of patriotism, leadership, service, school spirit. And we, you know, really embodied that today, I think. We had our Boy Scout troops speak today. We had some young ladies from the Girl Scouts, as well as our junior auxiliary. We also had a group of young girls from the Girl Scouts. We also had, go ahead to the next slide there. Each year the country has an Americanism essay contest. And so third, fourth, and fifth grade, I do believe it happens in the middle school as well, each of the children write an essay based on a particular topic that they have. And these were our essay winners. At the local level, I believe we have four students moving past to the county level. We've had students move on into the next
051level. And then we have students move on to the national level as well, too. So it's something that we really make happen. That patriotism is a big part of Claysville Elementary. Then we have, we had the high school band, which was just perfection today. It just added excitement and energy. And the kids, after we had everything displayed, the high school kids were the first to get to the table. They were just like, what is this? So we enjoyed them participating. Mrs. Fisher. Mrs. Kitty Fisher. You might know Kitty Fisher. Her husband, Robin, Roger, Raymond Fisher, he was the guest speaker at the original time capsule burial. So she was there to honor him today. And we had her sing God Bless America along with the students. And then this is Donkels. I'm going to let
052you talk about your girl. So when I was in elementary school, we had a meteorologist, Joe DiNardo, come to our school. And one of the things that we did to celebrate was to, the cheerleaders did a cheer. And I thought, well, this is really special. I still remember the cheer if you want me to perform. No, no. So I still remember it. It was just such an impactful thing. So we gathered, or I gathered the fourth and fifth grade students at Claysville. And they had been practicing at the recess for over a month. And so they were so nervous. But so excited. And it just was a memorable moment for them. So I was glad to be able to coach again after years and years. And they did a great job. And so that was
053part of our program. And I think they'll just remember. So their time capsule cheer is there. If you want to read the words, they had a great time. So when your mom's a teacher, you get volunteered to do many things. Or when your wife's a teacher, they get volunteered too. So Clayton and Aiden helped to dig the time capsule and get that out for us. And then Clayton's older brother, Lane, got to come today too. So we have a short little clip of a video that we created to share with the kids to make them think that it was all happening live today. But that was super fun. The kids enjoyed watching that and seeing all the power tools. You got to see everything we revealed to the kids. We made it a really big
054deal. The boys brought the kids. The boys brought the field time capsule in today on a cart. By the way, Katie Kay was there, and we were just on the news just a little bit ago. Our boys made a big impact on our kids today. So it was great. So please pan through the photos and check out some of the things that were there. I think 107 pictures. I mean, there's a maximum amount of things that were in that small, little area. Yes. So that original time capsule had been donated by Jessup Steel. So that was a really big deal in 1976. And we purchased, we got a new time capsule created and made. So we had several things that we had collected and gathered over the last few weeks to put a new time
055capsule into the ground. So for our future 2076, as we celebrate our country's 300th birthday, those kids 50 years from now will be able to enjoy. So it was a, like I said, a fabulous day for us. Do you want to talk to anything else? We did take a copy of this and put it on the zip drive and actually put this into the time capsule. We had some cassette tapes in our time capsule, which we were not able to get to play today. We're hoping we can somehow get those digitized and be able to hear those little voices. The energy and the temperature of the room today was just, I mean, I loved being in front to look at their faces. Because they just were glued and mesmerized and excited. So it was a
056wonderful day. And so many things and people to thank at this time. The new time capsule was made and created by Steel Bound. His name again. Bubba Alexis and John Duncan. Fantastic. Put that whole thing together for us. United Fabricating down here in Claytonville donated the steel and polished it and bent it and got it all ready and made a new bracket for it. Like today. Like did it a while back and then made it hands on today to make sure it fit perfectly at the new ground level that we have. Harden Machine Works engraved that for us. Claytonville PTO. We had parents everywhere today helping out with those. McGuffey Alumni Foundation is sponsoring tonight all of those items, like we said, from 4 to 8. Everything on display. And then we're going to figure
057out a way to promote so everyone else can enjoy them as we go through. D&TT has made these fabulous items. Thank you. Now we have some fabulous shirts that were all paid for by McAdoo's Towing and Crane. So a massive shout out to every student, every staff member, paid for by them. Range Resources also donated money for all the fun stuff that the kids did this afternoon. There was bubbles and popsicles and dancing and hula hoops and tattoos and you name it. They were busy and excited. And again, the committee members. But one last thing here. bonded together and everybody kind of took we had committees of the committees and it was just remarkable um just a memorable experience for all of us and i just want to make sure that everybody's name is heard
058mrs jennifer janovich mrs jennifer ely mrs aaron donkles miss mackenzie shaffer miss angel rose mrs kelly katroupis mrs johnny suaro mrs sarah silvers mrs becca mccartney mrs ashley ward and mrs aaron stall and we could not have pulled this off without them and whatever was needed they jumped in and one really quick last thing is leading up to this wonderful day we had a lot of celebration in our school and it was so exciting to see we did decades so we did uh 90s on monday we did 80s on tuesday wednesday and then i'm going to you you covered and i think they were standing ovation one comment also i was actually in mrs neville's fourth grade class in 1976 unfortunately my picture was well preserved because somebody sent me a facebook writing back then
059doing the time capsule as i'm sure it was today digging it up and looking at everything excellent job thank you thank you so much that was excellent thank you no actually yeah follow that up yeah well interesting that you would say that and actually mrs ely set the next presentation up very well um one of the things i think that i've seen in my time here at mccuffey that we do very well is our understanding of our history celebrating our history making sure that all of our students recognize we've talked about 250 years we talked about 1976 that there is a creaking that supports citizenship that supports the things that we value as americans And so today was an example of that. Our next presentation actually is representing really about five years ago we started
060the curriculum refresh. It's six years that we look at all of our core resources, look at the scope and sequence, how it goes from grade to grade, our assessments, and we're actually, believe it or not, towards the end of those six years with all of our core resources being addressed. Starting last year we started with middle school and high school for social studies. This year we worked on the K through 5. So tonight, I am long-winded. I'm trying to keep it. But tonight for our presentation is Dr. Gotren, our director of curriculum and instruction, and Ms. Bobbie Borley, first grade at Clayesville. So we'll give it to you. All right. Well, I'll talk about high level of competition for committee presentations tonight. I thought I was just going against, you know, Mrs. Harborshaw with the
061budget, but I didn't know what have you. I was just going, you know, towards the Costa Rica and . But anyway, as Dr. Oberg was sharing, and this is kind of neat or full circle, if you will, that five school years ago we set out to try to address core resource supports in each core content area. And K-5 social studies, as we stand here today, is the last of those areas to get addressed. And the reason that we have K-5 split out is when we did the first two years, and we did K-12 math, and then we did K-12 ELA, and then all of our elementary people were kind of like, hey, like, we just did a whole lot for two years. Could we have a little breather? Which was very well, you know, pointed
062and necessary. And so but the secondary people were kind of like, hey, like, we all teach different subject areas. And so the third year, we paused the elementary. We went ahead with 6-12 science. And then last year we circled back with K-5 science and 6-12 social studies. And so now this presentation and this year has been the final piece of that for core content areas. And so that's pretty exciting. And, you know, pending, you know, how this plays out and, you know, with the opportunity to provide that kind of support. So, you know, we're excited. We're excited to see what happens. And so I think that's a great way to bring this in place. It would then set us up for every core content area to be current resources. We then have a two-year window,
06326, 27, 27, 28, where everything would be under that six years that Dr. Oberg mentioned. And then after that, we would start going back through with math and then ELA and see where we're at at that point. And then we would then go back to the other content areas. And so we would have a smaller core group of teachers that were kind of selected by their interest in social studies. And then I worked with the principals in each building. We wanted to make sure, and this is kind of our standard, that both buildings were represented. And we wanted to make sure that a variety of grade levels were represented. And, of course, you see K-1, 3, and 5. And so we wanted to make sure that K-1, 3, and 4 were not part of the
064process. It just means that when we have our small group that's doing the initial conversations, we like to try to keep it small, partly because when you pull more and more people into a process, it gets a little bit difficult. But all of the teachers in both buildings did have opportunities to give input and give their interest. The grade level chairs were very helpful, especially in the final steps, as we were trying to figure out exactly what each grade wanted. But rather than me taking up all of the air and oxygen, I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Boardley because she is here, and she is one of the four people that were part of this, and she was willing to come up. So, Ms. Boardley, it's all you for the next couple here.
065I won't take up much air either. I just wear my shirt today because I think it was very fitting. We are celebrating 250 years as a country. Thank you. And it just aligns so well. So we met. We also, like Dr. Dockins said, we met with the other grade levels in our building during our collaboration times to make sure that we could have a curriculum that met all of our standards and vertically aligned. It's so important to help our kids understand we live in an amazing community, and McGuffey is a great district, and we want to make sure that we are preparing We are preparing our kids to also be great citizens of the same community when they're on their own. So we went through a ton of different curriculums, and we looked at them.
066We met with some of the representatives. We picked ones based on a lot of just things that we know they need across curriculums, and not even just with social studies, but that they address some of, especially in the lower grades. They have to kind of go all the way across. So we reviewed a bunch of samples. Everything is online. One of the most important things that we did was we wanted to have a book, especially with all of the research that's coming out and how important it is to still be reading actual things and writing with actual pencils in our hands. And so we decided on Park Road Hill with the Nystrom. The Glitter. Those are just an excellent hands-on tool. In kindergarten and first grade, we don't have 40 minutes every single day all
067year to be teaching science and social studies. We are in every other. So we may not always need both. So when you see the year-by-year breakdown, we're not always having cards for every classroom. Some of us are just going to share. It just didn't seem kind of like it was worth all the money to send. But the programs are. Very comprehensive and outlined. And everybody likes the same one. So it was a win. I know that was incredible. So just to kind of close on that process, and we're doing Dr. Oberg our good word on trying to be brief. So I'm so proud of everyone in the elementary for their diligence, their kind of thoughtfulness throughout the process. And so. Like Ms. Wardley shared, we kind of landed on McGraw-Hill Impact K-5 as the primary
068social studies resource across the grade levels. But then within certain grade levels, there was an interest in the Nystrom and Compass, which was the picture of the cart that you guys saw a couple of slides ago. And just the hands-on component of like you can hold the globe and they have atlases and they have maps. And so kind of the research. So that's a great point. And I think the reason that they're with the grade levels that you saw on that slide is so that kindergarten, of course, right? Like your earliest learners. And that's why the McGraw-Hill for them is the digital piece, because they're going to really lean into holding the cart, holding the maps, the physical, tactile. First grade and second grade, the carts are very similar. And so it's not that first
069grade teachers will not be able to use those. But the second grade classrooms could potentially. So we're going to share those if we get to a point where we feel that more carts are needed. We can certainly look into purchasing additional ones. We were just trying to be conscious of both student needs and fiscally responsible. And then the reason fourth grade has those is that fourth grade is where we do the PA-specific history. And there is a PA-specific version that has like Pennsylvania maps and like atlases specific to Pennsylvania. And so it made sense for that grade level to have its own. Set of resources. And so from a budgetary standpoint, and I every year when I do this, I try to recognize that, like, when I say district budgeted funds, I take that pretty
070seriously. Because even with budgeted funds, right, like we are trying to be very, you know, diligent with being fiscally responsible. And so I can say that two things. One, that this number, this would be the max number we could expect next month. Whenever it comes for a purchase, because both of those are quotes that are in hand. And I love having quotes in hand because then anything anyone kind of might try to say differently once they realize that, you know, we've picked them. You know, I can always lean back to, oh, well, you said this in January. And so if anything, I would probably expect that this number will come down about 5,000. I have an email I'm awaiting from McGraw-Hill. With a couple of questions, a couple of things that I think she's going
071to be able to bring this down from 70 to probably around 65. But I put this number in because this is the number that is for sure confirmed as of tonight. And so I'd rather come at 93, almost 94, and then it ends up being under 90, right? So I do think it's likely that the McGraw-Hill number will come down about another 5,000. But since I had not heard back from her as of when we were getting ready to present. I plugged in the number that we definitely have confirmed. A couple of notes about that, how that budgeting would work. With everything being on a six-year rotation, the consumable materials for the McGraw-Hill printed content, this cost is for the six years of renewal. So some of that is not renewable, right? Like the hardcover
072classroom book, we'll get those and we'll reuse the same book. But there are student journals. There are other pieces. Just like. The other content areas that every student gets their own. And then the next year over the summer, we reorder those. But those are paid for with this initial purchase. So we won't have a recurring item for those. The Nystrom, the carts come also with a digital access component. And that will be included for six years. So the carts, of course, are a one-time purchase. But that purchase includes six years of access. And I do want to give them a little shout out. I hope it. They do all their things on a five-year. And so the digital access would be five years. But when I explained to her our timeline, she said that she
073got approval to give us the six-year with what would normally be a five-year purchase. So they were both companies I was happy to work with. They've been supportive. And then I just put there at the bottom that there may be some annual costs. Now that we've got every core content area in order, we've started to try. We've got a budget, a smaller amount for just upkeep, additional materials that may be needed, like I mentioned with the carts. If there is a classroom or grade level that maybe does not have carts at this point, but they start seeing it in action, we realize, hey, like, we kind of need more because of the sharing of them and, like, social studies time. And so there will be some amount budgeted each year for just upkeep of all
074of the content areas. So I did want to point out that that's a. A potential recurring cost, but the largest cost for the content area will be this year from 26-27. And that is when Mrs. Harborshaw presents in a few minutes here, this number is within the amount that's budgeted in her bigger budget. I'm glad I – this budget because she's got a whole bunch of budgets to keep up with. So when you're considering that budget, know that this amount, this cost. Is part of an already accounted into the bigger budget that you guys will be discussing. So the last thing I have here, unless there are any questions, is like we've done with the other ones on the district website, on the social studies page. There is access for public review because certainly, you
075know, the teachers in the elementary have done a lot of legwork. They've been pretty thorough in vetting it. But we decided when we first did the math one, we want to be as open as possible. So we're going to be able to get the math one. We want to be as open as possible. We want to be as open as possible. So we're going to be able to get the math one. We want to be as open as possible. We want to be as open as we can. We want to be as collaborative as we can. And we want to make sure everybody who would want to has access to see, hey, like here is what would be coming into the building. And so between now and the June meeting when we look to have
076this as a vote, anyone who would like to, whether it's board-wise, community-wise, that link on the website will give you two things. One is a sign-in to a demo account for the McGraw-Hill impact. And that will give you access to each of the five grade levels. Or six grade levels, I guess. Yeah. I wasn't thinking of kindergarten. So each of the six grade levels. And then it will also give you, there is a link to go to the Nystrom and Compass site where it will show you what the teacher resources look like, what the actual materials are. Just because, you know, it's a little hard to have carts just available for everybody. Plus until we actually would purchase the carts, they didn't want to give us a whole bunch of carts, which I understand. So
077that's a little bit of a different story. So that's a little bit of a different story. So they did give us a link to where you can get on and see information about the and Compass resources. And then, you know, we'll kind of go from there. But it is exciting to be at this phase in the process. I'm excited for the next two years to have even more time to dig into curriculum scope and sequence, follow up on how things are going with each of these adoptions. Because the resource, while a very big invisible piece, it is one part of the puzzle. And so the next two years, while we don't have a resource to worry about, I intend to try to really work with each department as well as giving some more intentional focus
078to the elective and itinerant departments as well. So that's kind of what we have for tonight. Is there any questions? Yes, Ms. Jackson. One question I just want to say, and I say this every time you present one of these, but thank you. You've done an amazing job in this position. Thank you. And I just want to publicly again say that you have, and then I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And as always, from the bottom of my soul, truly appreciate the transparency for the community as well, and giving them the opportunity to look at materials and everything, and thank all of your team. You guys
079have done an amazing job. Thank you. No, thank you. Thank you. It's much appreciated. Absolutely. Any questions? Dr. Autring, Bobby, thank you so much. Thank you to your team. Great presentation. Speaking of wonderful staff, Craig McKeeter of Buildings and Grounds does a wonderful job. Unbelievable job with his team as well when it comes to both intentional fixes that have to happen. They have a lot of tools in the toolkit, but also what Craig does for Char and myself is he's always forward thinking and looking at projects, capital improvements that need to happen, and need to happen in a timely manner. Nothing great about putting up roofing, or I'm sorry, shingles and such, but Craig keeps us on, and so tonight we're going to have a. Presentation on a bond that's going to look at the
080next few years, capital improvements that's going to happen across the district. And with Craig tonight, we have Chuck McShane. Chuck is John. I'm sorry, I always say Chuck. John, I apologize. From Saipul Public Finance and Anthony Ditka. Yes, that Ditka. From Dinsmore and Scholl to present about that. So, Mr. McKee. Good evening, everybody. Just very quickly while we're talking about time capsules and international capitals. We're going to talk about international travel. You know, back when the biplanes ruled the skies, I actually did two international travel in high school. We went to Columbia one year and to Spain the second year. So I would definitely like to see the students have that opportunity. It was a lot of fun. You know, great experience. Tonight, basically, you know, as the board understands, we've been been looking at
081some projects that need to be completed and so on. And I have our bond experts here tonight. Unlike Dan right now, I don't have a, you know, concrete bid in my hands because I need a significantly higher amount of money than what Dan's asking for. And, of course, the way the bond market works with interest rates and so on. And, of course, then my projects being what they are, those prices also fluctuate right now with the things going on in the market. So, I'm going to talk about that. Thank you. Thank you. And, apparently, one of the things that we're seeing in the world, if we look at oil prices, one of my big projects is paving here and Joe Walker. Well, clearly, if I were to bid that today, man, my estimate's probably way
082low. So, basically, they're going to come and explain, you know, how the bond issue works. We're also going to ask for some leeway to say, hey, if we move forward with this project, we'd like some time, but, you know, to watch the market and say, okay, well, We think we're at a good point between what the interest rate is and what we expect our costs to be. We have some time because these projects all require several months of summer work to get done. We're already past the 2026 construction schedule, so these things wouldn't really start to happen until next summer. So that also does allow us this flexibility to watch the market and then for me to go out and really work these contractors and so on. So with that, I'm going to bring them
083up and they'll explain. Great. Thanks, everybody. Thanks to you all again. With me is Anthony Dick from Densimore Shoal. They've been your bond counsel since I've been here and I've been here since 2004. So our goal, as Craig has said tonight, is to tee the ball up. We're not going to issue bonds. We're not going to fund the project tonight. That's not what you're voting on. You're voting on a resolution that's going to allow you to issue up to $6 million sometime in the future when you're ready because this is the start of the process. The next steps are we prepare a rating packet. You have the district rated just like you have your credit rating. The district needs a rating. We prepare documentation for the investors to buy the bonds. This whole process could
084take up to six weeks. So from the start. Start of today to six weeks from now, then we'll be ready. Even then we might not do the bond issue. And the reason why, and we'll just go quickly, I think I was here in January talking about the market. If you would have told me that I'd be back here in May saying we're in a war and rates are higher, I would say you're crazy because typically in a wartime situation, there's a fight to quality and people want bonds except that that war involves oil. And that's the case here. We're seeing a lot of bonds. We're seeing a lot of pressure, whether you're talking about mortgages, energy costs, everything's going up, including interest rates. So we're sort of at this soft period in the market where
085even if you were ready, we wouldn't necessarily recommend unless you needed the money today to go up to the bond market. So this is actually going to buy you some time and potentially you could be in the market as early as September or July, but I don't foresee any time sooner than that. As Craig had mentioned, we're in the middle of the year. We're in the middle of the year. And we're really excited about the future. We're very excited about the future. We're excited about the future. Our goal is to be ready by July and then potentially pull the trigger in early September or even late. What we don't want to do, and this is our clients, when you need money, you borrow money. We don't want you to second guess interest rates or if
086we knew where rates are going to be tomorrow, we'd be making a lot more money. We want to fund projects when they're ready to go. We do have a window here where we can kind of monitor it. But if it's September and we're close enough, we'll probably just issue the bonds in because any time that we think we know we're going to get, rates are going to go in the opposite direction. Same with you. So we don't try to put you in that situation, but we do have time now. So hopefully across the finger, war's over, rates start to come down. You can already see the impact of inflation on costs across the board and what they're doing to the economy, which most likely, if you were to look forward, I hate to use that
087bad R word, but most likely a recession is going to be coming and you're going to stop seeing a growth in GDP. So all that's great for wars, bad for the economy in general. So what are you voting on tonight? The resolution talks about a not-to-exceed number of no more than $6 million in bonds to fund this project. So once you vote tonight, unless we come back and re-vote, we cannot issue any more than $6 million in bonds. On top of that, we said... We don't control interest rates. We go out into the marketplace and get the best interest rates in the market at that time. But what this sets the maximum rate on those bonds is 5%. When we drafted that resolution three weeks ago, 5% wasn't even in the cards. Today, it's in
088the cards. Now, if something goes drastically wrong, we can be back here and say, oh, my God, just so you know, we want to redo that schedule. Do you still want to do the project? Because we busted that cap. We don't. Think we'll be there because we still have room. But those are the two parameters that you're setting tonight. And that as long as we can fit within those parameters and everything comes into place, we'll be locking rates in anywhere from August to September. And then your project's funded. You can go out and bid those projects knowing you have that money in hand. That summer... Oh, the final piece, we talked about this before, how you're funding it. We're using a 20-year wraparound funding. And if you look at that handout that you had, the
089final page, shows you how that works. What that does is we look at your whole debt service, whether it's this bond issue or the other outstanding bond issues, as one package. So we fit it together like a puzzle. So we minimize the impact of this project on your budget. And as your whole debt pays off, you then start to pay this. So if you look at that schedule in the light blue column, the first of the light blue column, you're going to see in the year of 27-28, a payment of... I was trying to read over your shirt. I have it right in front of me. First year, 2027, which would be next year's budget, $174,000. That's the first piece. The next year, that payment jumps up to $304,000. That is the impact. You're going
090to spread the impact of this project over two budget years. And then once you put that $300,000 into the budget, the project is fully funded. Even though if you look at that schedule, you're going to see in 2040, the payment jumps up. So that's okay because what happens in 2040 is your whole debt's paid off. So if you look at the combined consolidated debt service chart, your payment remains unchanged once you put that $300,000 in. So if you say to your constituents, what's the cost of this project? The cost is $300,000 to the budget. Hopefully less when we get on the market, but this is a worst-case scenario. Are there any questions regarding how it's funded or timing or the market? So I had to answer the 20-page legal document. Anthony can answer the 40-page
091legal document. If you want to get through that, Anthony is more than happy to answer your questions on that as well. I have a clarifying question for the community because it's a question that gets asked often in the past, which is we were presented with a list of things that the list of projects that we would like to spend the money on or that we're being asked to approve money for. I know the agreement states- President, could you- Yes, it's on. Sorry. Thank you. Maybe we need a new one for me. Thank you. You're welcome. In the agreement, it does state the specific projects and it says all or some of the following. So we are not bound to those specific projects. We are bound to those specific projects in the future if we were
092to approve this bond. That's a perfect question for Anthony Dicke. Thank you. Good question. The answer is that the Local Governing and Debt Act that governs the issuance of debt by any local government in the Commonwealth requires that you give the public some specificity as to what you're borrowing. And it's required that you have, you know, some idea of what it's going to cost before you cash your votes. So the answer is there's nothing that could prevent you from changing your project down the road and we intentionally word it as some or all of the following because we anticipate that things can change over time. Now, of that list, you've got HVAC and tract and things like that and cameras and a bunch of other things, if you scrapped it all and said what we
093really want to do is something different, we would want you to amend this. Right. Okay. But there's nothing that says you can't and you just have to follow the normal protocols. We'd have to probably re-advertise, tell the public what you're amending to read and go again. Okay. Thank you. This is not deserving of follow-up. This is a good job presenting though. My question was you said if we approve it tonight and then you were talking about the timeframe July, September or whatever, how long do we have? Like is it? Well, I would like to get to a point where I'm like with the asphalt, you know, typically you'll get price adjustments beginning of every year. Really any of these projects. I can lock in at 2026 prices, even though I can't do installations for most
094of them until 2027. That's what I would like to do. It's a little tougher for me to do if I say I don't have money yet. You know, but that's kind of so by the time we get really towards the very end of this year, I really would like to have that completed, the bond part completed so that, okay, we can lock in where we can get, you know, take advantage of some positive pricing for us. So does that mean? Yeah. And you still have to vote on these on these contracts and so on. So, you know, as they come, you still have to vote on. I just want to be clear. So does that mean it could go to the bond anytime between like August, September or October, November? Yeah, that's the practical answer.
095The legal answer is if you adopt this, it doesn't have an expiration date. We have seen these go into place. Where it's a different project projects, not like this one where you are going to vote to refund the outstanding debt when you hit a certain target. That target may not come for two years. That's already a minute ago. So there is no outstanding. There is no expiration date. This having said that, if it gets to a point where it feels a little stale, you know, board members have changed. We're down the road. You know, that won't be the case here. But if it was down the road a couple of years, we would just refresh it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, last time. Yeah. That's all right. We're
096good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. In May, school districts across Pennsylvania are required to, as a board, to approve a preliminary school budget. This is in keeping with staying in alignment with ACWIN index. But also, it allows districts to have full transparency for their community from the approval of this preliminary proposed budget until January 2nd. until the June adoption, community members are invited to come in for public inspection of the preliminary budget. Work on this budget tonight has been through the budget committee with board members and Ms. Charlene Habershock. So tonight to present the preliminary proposed budget, again, that we're asking for approval on, is Ms. Habershock. Charlene. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm just gonna start off with a quick budget update of where we currently are for 25-26, as
097I normally do. So right now, this is as of April 30th. Our expenses were budgeted at 37 point, little under 3 million. And to date, we're at 28 million. So we're about 75% through our budget. And then revenue budgeted was about 35 and a half million. And to date, we're at 31.2 million. I did receive notification from the state that we're getting, almost $3 million deposited on June 1st. So we're gonna be very close on our revenue. So that's good. All right, now quickly going into the 26-27 budget. This hasn't changed too much from the numbers that you have seen previously. There were some small adjustments made. I did add money for fuel costs because that is high right now. And we just don't know where that is going to lead. So we have to
098take those things into consideration. I'm looking at an overall expenditure of 37.7 million. There are the various categories. You have in front of you the actual proposed budget that was pulled from the state system that gives you the line items of all of these expenses. So what's driving costs this year? Our salaries and benefits make up about three or two thirds of our budget. And that is no different this year. It is the main driving cost. And we are no exception. So we're up about 440,000 in salaries and 425,000 in benefits. Increased energy costs are also driving up. And of course, just the inflation and the economy. I did wanna go over some of the district's efforts to reduce costs and show you historically what we have done as well, starting with the increase in
099the cost of electricity. So we're up about $440,000. That's the 2018-19 school year. And really highlight the number of positions and staff that we have lost over the years to try to control the costs so that we do make it, I don't wanna say easier, but a little easier on our taxpayers over the years. So I'm not gonna read all of these to you. You have them in front of you in the presentation. What I do want to highlight is that we have lost revenue. Not only have we been trying to control costs, but we have also lost revenue along the way because of all of the coal reassessments. Once the coal has been depleted, we lose the tax dollars on that resource. And then just quickly going through what I want you to realize
100are the number of positions that we have eliminated since 2018. Four secretaries and one administrator over those years. All the while, looking at student enrollment. And our student enrollment, the state came in at one point and said, we're predicted to have a lot less students by this time, and we have not. So over that same time period, we've only lost 47 students. So that averages out, if you would average it out per grade, four students per grade. So we are doing more with less, but we're also doing more with less, because we are not having less students. I thought it was good for the community and for you to also see some of our local school district data and where we compare to the Washington County schools. I have this listed by highest millage rate
101to lowest, and you will notice that McGuffey is fourth from the bottom. I wish we had assessed property values like Cannon Mac has, because we could then have a very low millage rate as well. But I thought this was very interesting and that the community should also see it. Here is the overview of our revenue, and you will see three different columns based on three different millage rates. So the first column is what our revenue would be, keeping our millage rate the same. The second column, the middle column, what our revenue will be if we go up to 15 millage points. The last column, what we can go up to, by the Act One Index, is 15.29, and you see that there. So looking at our expenditures and those various revenues based on those various
102millage rates, you'll see where we fall deficit-wise for this 26-27 school year. And what one are you recommending? Mrs. Halbertschalk, what one are you recommending? I and the administration are recommending that we go to the 15.29 full millage. And one reason, going to full millage nets us about $600,000 more in revenue. Salaries and benefits increase over $800,000. So that going up to max is not even covering the additional salaries and benefits. So our current fund balance after our 24-25 audit, again, we can use the unassigned to help balance that balance. So we would have to take whatever our deficit is showing and subtract it out of our unassigned in order to balance that budget. What I am anticipating after June of 2026, based on our current 25-26 deficit that we have to cover, will be
103$2.7 million left in our unassigned. So again, looking at the various millage rates, after the 26-27 school year, so in June of 27, these three numbers here would be what our unassigned balance is, our savings, so to speak, at those various millage points. Does that make sense? Historic. So here are some of our historic millage rates and the revenue we received those years. And what I've highlighted here are the actual increase years and those years that we did not increase even a small bit, because that plays a role in lost revenue. So we lost revenue over those years. So just that one year for these is over $2 million that we have lost in revenue over that deficit from there. That compounds, obviously, from year to year. So now a little bit about our property
104tax relief. That is, the state came out with our allotment, so we are receiving a little over $1.4 million. We had 2,990 approved applications for the 2026 tax year. 2,805 of them, we'll qualify for the tax relief benefits. The difference is because the state only allows one homeowner to have the benefit for one property. So if somebody owns multiple homes, they only get it one time. Another reason, they also set an assessed property value. So the assessed property value for our district had to be a little less than $31,000. So anybody who applied and qualified, but their assessed property value is less than $31,000, they will not see a credit. For our taxpayers, they'll see $488.15 in a tax credit if they qualify. Just also wanted to quickly show you some of the total parcel
105counts in our district. Now that doesn't mean like 399 commercial. That doesn't mean there's actual 399 commercial buildings sitting on these properties, but that's zoned commercial, obviously. What is good to know on this slide, anything that's under the exempt and the deleted, we don't get any tax revenue from those. A tax example, our median property value in McGuffey is $156,600. So we have median half fall below that, half fall above that. This tax example shows you at 156.6, if we stay the same, what the tax liability is without the Homestead-Formstead relief, which is the top number, and then subtracting out the Homestead-Formstead relief gives you what that taxpayer will pay. One thing to note, going from what we currently are at 14.62 and going up to 15.29, which is the max, it's $105 for the
106taxpayer. So it's less than $9 a month that we're asking them to contribute. So again, we need to look at where we're going, and our future financial situation. So we still, and we will do this through the Budget Committee, talk about what our future expenses look like and how, again, we can save money. And, you know, everything is on the table. Everything will be discussed. But obviously our biggest expense, staff salaries and benefits. So, again, we're recommending on the agenda tonight you'll see the motion to pass the preliminary budget. And with that will be three options. Option A will keep everything the same at 14.26. Option B will be to go up to 15. And Option C, what we're recommending, is to go up to 15.29. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. Just for clarity for everybody,
107the preliminary budget is not locked in? Correct. The preliminary budget is as close as it's going to be at this point. So it's going to be $10,000. The closest it's going to be at this point, it's not the final budget. So what happens tonight, you pass the preliminary budget, you'll pass the tax millage rate. I do have to submit our millage rate information to the tax county office so they have it for our tax collectors to create their bills, obviously. The final proposed budget that you'll pass tonight gets put on our website. The public can come view it. We have until the June board meeting to make any small changes. And we will have the final budget on the June board meeting for you to accept the final budget. So this is not set in
108stone yet, but I think it's as close as it's going to be. And then we are having the budget work session. And we're going to align that with the budget committee meeting, correct? Correct. We are going to hold a public budget working session of the board at our June 2nd public budget committee meeting that we're going to hold. The budget sessions can be done either as the board working session not open to the public or we can hold them open to the public. I prefer opening it up to the public. The board will talk about public budget. We will discuss that. We will discuss public comment times because it is a public meeting. We do have to allow for that. We'll discuss that and determine. I don't know that it will be the same type
109of time limits and structure that we hold at our public meetings, but it will be open to the public for public comment as well. But we are going to hold that June 2nd. I think it's at 4 o'clock. It is at 4 o'clock, correct. So June 2nd at 4 o'clock. We'll be able to deliberate publicly more open conversation about the budget. Where is that? We would hold it here I would prefer. Right. If we have it public we would have it here. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Good Tuesday. Can you elaborate on a couple of the line items please? Sure. So I did not know what pieces was until I actually got onto the board. Instead of just being a line item and a total dollar value on the screen. Would you please explain what
110is the purpose of pieces? And then what is the average dollar amount for district employee that the community pays for the budget this year? So pieces is the retirement through Pennsylvania State for educators. It is a law that we pay a certain percentage of every district employees salary into pieces. We are given the percent every year. It changes every year. It fluctuates. So for 26-27 it's 33.59%. So for every $100,000 that we pay in salaries we're paying $33,590 into pieces. The second one is same with the healthcare line item. I think many people think of the healthcare plan they participate in at their work when they hear that line item. Would you please let us know what is the average percentage of pieces? The average percentage of premium per employee that the taxpayers will pay
111as a part of this proposed budget? It varies obviously. I've been moving to a percent of premium for employees. When I first started here it was a percent of salary with a cap of around $1,100 or $1,200. So the family plan for our health insurance cost the district around $32,000 a year. So now that I'm trying to move them all to a percent of premium, the max that we're going up to even over the next five-year period because this is a change. This is a change for our employees. So we're doing it slowly. So we started last year with our MESPA II contract starting at 2% of premium. We started there's a contract on the agenda tonight that you will approve. And that one will start at 4%. And our MESPA II then moves up
112to 4% for this year. It's a 4% of premium. So whatever plan they pick, the individual plan is a little over $10,000 for the employee only. And then our family plan is up to about $32,000. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Last board meeting, Mr. Lazor had asked if we would like to have a meeting with the district. Yes. And he had asked if we would look into having a certified EMT in each of the buildings. Well, we have two actually at the middle school, high school already. And so I did some research and started looking at some training facilities around the Washington County Health Safety Health Committee of the Washington County. There's a couple places that have some training. WCTC actually has a program. What it would cost for an employee, the cheapest
113I've found has been around $600 for the entire program. And it's a three-month program that our employees, he would like to have somebody in each building certified, which means we would have to have somebody from Joe Walker and then somebody from Clayville volunteer to do the program at the district cost. So about $600 per employee for the training. And then we would have to have somebody from the district. And then we, they would have to do it basically over the summer because there's no really other time that they would be able to do it during school unless they did night programs. Just in our discussions with individuals that have that type of training and also looking at the fact that we just completed CPR training for all of our staff. We have nurses in each
114of our buildings. We have two individuals, one of them here tonight, that actually have that type of EMT training. My recommendation would not be to move forward with this. If anything, as we look forward to professional development in the very near future, the next thing we'd want to do for our staff is provide them first aid. Because those are the two big things. I see Amanda back there shaking her head. Thank you, Amanda, because that was a discussion we've had. But those are the two areas that we really want to make sure that all of our staff have the ability to have, not just one individual. Because if they're not there, you know, those can step in. So, as we look at the cost, the amount of training, look at where we have existing, and
115then moving forward, we think we can cover the same idea, but in this way actually have it for the entire staff. And that would be district-wide first aid training? Yes. District-wide training. Dan? Okay. Just to add to that, looking ahead to the in-service, we will be offering a CPR plus first aid training as part of that August in-service. Okay. So, we're still working out the details of exactly what all employees would participate in that. But it would ensure, at the minimum, that there will be CPR first aid trained staff in each building. All of our paraprofessionals need to have it, and so that group would definitely be participating in that training in August. But what we've done in the past, we've included other employee groups, health and fitness ed teachers. And really, depending on the
116number of trainers we can get, we can expand it to a larger group. But for sure, that training will take place for the August in-service. Thank you. With the difference in first aid training versus the EMT training, cost-wise, what are we looking at for a school-wide training for first aid? I mean, how does that get paid for? How is that? That's part of the budget. It's part of the budget. But so that... Yeah. We would go out to a couple different vendors to see the best price that we could get, obviously. But we do hold CPR training typically every fall for our employees. So we have some companies that we're familiar with and we're working with. Is it also for you? And we lose that money next year. We lose the brain space without it.
117That's one way we potentially pay for it, is through professional development. Development. And is the first aid training cheaper? Yeah. Is it cheaper than EMT training? Yeah. And significantly... And we get... Is it like a few dollars? Okay. Again, what you're looking at is having only an individual in each building versus everyone. Yeah. And so we have to do this. I think it's also a benefit. We've taken our entire staff through CPR. So there's the added benefit of having everyone have that knowledge that's one individual. So training... And again, the training for EMT is much more expensive. In terms of... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very intense. And I'm not sure that that's necessarily... When I called ambulance and chair, and
118floated the idea, they were shocked. Because she said, this is a training that really pushes somebody into that career, not just to be certified. Right. Right. ... Yeah. That sounds about right. Thank you. And I have a question. The one that we are currently doing where everyone is certified and has the training, it's in a consultancy. the budget if we would propose this this would be in addition to yes right okay thank you thank you thank you so much all right the board had an open discussion back on at our March 19th meeting when yeah because I think you have to have your face right on this yeah I think so thank you I need a headpiece thank you at our March 19th meeting we had a hefty discussion we had lost mrs. heaton hall
119our previous solicitor and we gained mrs. Sattler here and at that time we had directed after ever to reach out to mrs. Hall and to see where she if she was employed somewhere else where she was employed if she'd be willing to meet with some of the board members or all of us and just present where she is considering everything was so abrupt and we had some board members who were interested in that we did go ahead and do that we did meet with mrs. heaton hall on I'm so sorry I had my date in my head and then it completely lost me it was last Thursday the 14th at 6 p.m. and she simply proposed where she was she is currently with Tucker oh my goodness yes thank you Tucker Arnsberg and as a
120result of us meeting with that and as a result of that meeting and in an effort to be as completely transparent to the public as we possibly can be I would like for us to take a general consensus around the table and just decide if we want to stick with Weisberg Hart Kramer or entertain mrs. heaton hall mrs. heaton hall's employment I will start with my right and just move around the table I will pose the question so that we're not getting confused as if you want to keep Weisberg Hart Kramer so it'll either be yes you want to keep Weisberg Hart Kramer or no you would not like to keep Weisberg Hart Kramer with no discussion no discussion this is just a we're just going to get a general consensus here yes thank you
121wait a second I'm sorry the question is oh do you want to keep your life right with Weisberg or Kramer correct all right uh Mr Grove okay Mrs Jackson to keep them yes yes okay Mr Thomas yes okay Mrs shingle yes okay Mr Hoover yes okay Mrs robarnik yes okay and I'm also yes so we will we will retain we'll keep Weisberg Hart Kramer Mrs Sattler with Weisberg Hart Kramer and um I would like to just thank everybody for their time and their efforts and I think we can just consider this done and we're going to move on with our business as usual thank you thank you Madam President that is all we have for committee sorry we will go ahead and break until 8 p.m thank you thank you good evening thank you so
122much I appreciate this the extra minutes it was so fun talking with everybody about all the festivities and all the things that are going on here so I apologize for a little later start time we will begin our regular meeting here at 804 p.m Mrs Cybert roll call please here here here here here here here here here here here thank you all who invite Pastor Linda from East Buffalo Presbyterian Church for the prayer thank you we pray with me oh God our help in ages past our hope for years to come oh God we come this evening already having a day of labor a day of choices a day of many decisions but we pray now that as we come here now that you give us a renewed energy as we are called upon to
123make many policy and measures that affect our greatest gift of children so grace us now with your wisdom reminding each of us that we all have different opinions and different voices and that we might uh truly be respectful of each other offer this prayer in the name of our risen Lord amen amen thank you thank you all right that's right for the Pledge of Allegiance uh Mr Lazars and I here with us to ask have a moment of silence for those that are serving in our military I'd like to continue with that if we could just have a moment of silence please thank you all all right we held and nope nope you're good we held an executive session on May 14 20 26 at 6 p.m. to discuss personnel at this time we'll have
124public participation on agenda items I do want to remind the public that we do want to remain respectful follow our chain of command we want to be able to address the concerns appropriately thank you our president Vicki Jordan Buffalo Township thank you Vicki Jordan Buffalo Township I stand before you yet again to express deep concerns and I hope they don't fall on deaf ears as I've previously stated we are a small community and a large number of people are in need of assistance we are a small community and a large number of people are in need of assistance we are a small community and a large number of our staff live here so when things start of our staff live here so when things start of our staff live here so when things start happening
125word gets out quickly happening word gets out quickly happening word gets out quickly because of this let's talk about the because of this let's talk about the because of this let's talk about the latest news I want to say I know the latest news I want to say I know the latest news I want to say I know the rumor mill is not always completely rumor mill is not always completely rumor mill is not always completely accurate but there is always a grain of accurate but there is always a grain of accurate but there is always a grain of truth to what's being said with that truth to what's being said with that truth to what's being said with that said I'd also like to acknowledge that said I'd also like to acknowledge that But
126there will always be things that the board is privy to that we will never know and that we need to trust you, but the perspective from the outside looking in is as follows. A few months ago, Dr. Oberg presented the personnel committee report where he publicly stated Mr. Stoy would become the principal at the high school and Mr. Wise would become the principal at the middle school. That very night the chatter began. Rumor has it that this was a decision he made on his own without counsel of this board. You immediately had parents and students step forward with their concerns, but here we are a month later and that is exactly what's being presented as a solution to the current staffing issues within our district. I'd like to point out that Mr. Stoy has one
127year experience as an assistant principal under his belt. Mr. Wise is the principal. Mr. Stoy is the principal. Mr. Wise is the principal. Mr. Wise has two. Ms. Burdine has been the principal for two years at Clayville Elementary with Mr. Wise serving as her assistant for one and Mrs. Day serving as her assistant for the other. The principal with the most experience is being placed into a position that will require her to answer to one of her previous subordinates. Talk about a morale crusher. I'm sure it won't be long before Ms. Burdine becomes the next casualty. Dr. S持kin still has a long list of ex-living administrators. Please remember that none of these men don't have prior experience as principals prior to their employment and they are being led by a superintendent that is questionable in
128his leadership role, to say the least. I want to be clear that I am not saying that they are incapable of filling these positions, but they are key positions to be in their leadership position. Now, I will be very clear that when we talk about a chief executive at the district, being filled. So my question to all of you is, have any of them really had the proper amount of time to hone in their leadership skills, or are they being pushed through the system by an inexperienced superintendent who has felled us to the tune of 17 plus lost administrators? In case you missed that, during Dr. Ober's short tenure here, this district has had a mass exodus of over 17 administrators. So I'm going to ask you to think about a few things before you
129make these very important decisions tonight. First, you all know he's made statements to staff as fact before board approval. He makes promises he can't guarantee, and it's detrimental to our employees' morale, and it undermines the board. I'm curious if any of the board thinks it's possible that he held back resumes and he's not going to be able to make those promises. Second, I want to ask you to think about a few things before you make these very important decisions tonight. First, you all know he's made statements to staff as fact before board approval. He makes promises he can't guarantee, and it undermines the board. I'm curious if any of the board thinks it's possible that he held back resumes and he's not going to make those promises tonight. Second, you all know he's made statements
130to staff as fact before board approval. He makes promises he can't guarantee, and it undermines the board. I'm curious if any of the board thinks it's possible that he held back resumes and he's not going to make those promises tonight. Second, you all know he's made statements to staff as fact before board approval. He makes promises he can't guarantee, and it undermines the board. I'm curious if any of the board thinks it's possible that he held back resumes and he's not going to make those promises tonight. Second, you all know he's made statements to staff as fact before board approval. He makes promises he can't guarantee, and it undermines the board. I'm curious if any of the board thinks it's possible that he held back resumes and talents are limitless but he needs measured and
131given time to grow and into his leadership role I'm wondering if that based on his lack of leadership skills do you really think following his recommendation recommendation is in the best interest of the district please ask yourselves are you setting them up to struggle by promoting them all too soon second miss days wrecking resignation was accepted but now she's being promoted after only one year of leadership experience to the principal position at the largest school in our district I'm told it was an ultimatum promoter I'm gone I say these words knowing that I'm at risk of her resenting me and possibly not willing to work with me in the future but this is the information that has been shared and if it's true you should all take a good hard-looking you should all take a
132good hard-looking at this decision ultimatum should never be the reason to promote or retain employees we have witnessed how quickly that goes bad by our experience with Mr. Welk and Mrs. Waldo I want to be very clear my biggest concern is that all of these capable individuals are being set up for failure by the very leader who has spelled this district over and over again I'm curious when this board is going to stop rewarding him by granting his wishes and hold him accountable for all the amazing people this district has lost during his tenure here at McGuffey I hope you all think long and hard about all of this before voting tonight but sadly due to the time constraints placed on you I believe you'll follow through on his recommendations out of sheer desperation I
133want to end by saying I think Mr. Stohr Mrs. Waldo's decision is our responsibility and the board's duty to address it. Mr. Wise and Mrs. Day are great assets to this district. I think they could flourish in these positions if they had better leadership guiding them. I want to see them all be successful in their goals to advance, not pushed into it before they are ready. I know they all have the desire to advance but has the proper amount of time in their current positions, giving them the skills to advance so quickly, especially considering who has and will be mentoring them. I again ask you reconsider following the recommendations of a failed leader who undermines each and every one of you with assurances he can't follow through on. I had more but I'm out of
134breath so and time. Think about it please. Thank you. Thank you. Madam President, that's all public comment. Yes ma'am, thank you. Well, all right moving on to our approval of April 16, 2026 regular school board meeting minutes. Approve the minutes of the April 16, 2026 regular school board meeting as submitted. Submit. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of the general fund schedule of bills. Submit. Second. Are we not reading the recommended action? Oh I'm sorry I thought you did. No. What were you reading? The subject. Oh I'm sorry I thought you were reading the recommended action. Approve the general fund schedule of bills from March 20th, 2026 to April 10, 2026 check number 82001 to check number 82080 in the amount of 421,557 dollars and
13549 cents as submitted. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of the food service schedule of bills dated May 15, 2026, check number 7848 to check number 7852 in the amount of $66,144.91 as submitted. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of the treasurer's report for the month of April 2026 as submitted. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Motion carries. Memorandum of Understanding with Local Law Enforcement Agencies. Approve the Memorandums of Understanding by and between the Pennsylvania State Police and Montgomery. The State Police Department and the Montgomery School District and the Green Washington Regional Police Department and the Montgomery School District as presented. So moved. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
136Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Candidates for graduation, Class of 2026. Approve the list of candidates for the Montgomery High School, Class of 2026 for the purpose of awarding a high school diploma provided, the requirements of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Montgomery School District have been fully satisfied. All those in favor? Aye. I'm sorry I forgot to ask for discussion. But I would like to give them a round of applause. Congratulations to our 2026 seniors. Motion passes. resolution 2025-2026 number 12. Approve the resolution of the 2025-2026 number 12 as presented. This is yarrowed. resolution of the board of school directors for mcguffey school district intending to join the partnership with the clazel area business association otherwise known as caba and the mcguffey alumni foundation otherwise known as maf this is with the intention
137to establish the mcguffey alumni achievement awards as an annual tradition so miss all those in favor i'm sorry any discussion i think this is a great idea i do too i think it's exciting i am excited too yeah yeah more time castles to come i'm just kidding all right all those in favor hi any opposed any extensions motion carries girls varsity basketball trip to florida approved the overnight trip for the girls varsity basketball team to travel to orlando florida to participate in a ksa tournament for sunday december 27 2016 2026 through thursday december 31st 2026 there is no cost to the district we're going to do some time travel thank you any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries travel for spanish club approve mrs lisa bowman's mcguffey high school
138spanish teacher to present a group travel opportunity to costa rica to mcguffey high school students and families in the summer of 2026-2027 2028 to provide a reasonable a reasonable monthly payment plan option for families she would hold an informational meeting in september of 2026. so moved second all right any discussion i think this sounds wonderful wait are we going around or how are we doing that no do you want to do the um roll call okay oh for the discussion thank you i'm sorry all right um mr brunzel i'm sorry thank you for the reminder everybody yeah i just want to say i think it's a great opportunity we had these uh these opportunities in college i never took in one but my wife did and she really enjoyed it so i think it'd be
139great for kids thank you mr growth mrs jackson i don't know if anybody remembers but definitely in the 80s and 90s um all of our language clubs and at that time we had german spanish french they all took annual trips and they are really great ef has been around for a long time they are very into student safety i think you couldn't ask for a better organization to take students abroad um knowing that their your student safety is their top priority i think it's a great idea thank you mr thomas yeah he is so single yeah i do think it's a wonderful idea i do want to really commend um mrs bowman for giving us a period of time to really because she made it clear that they need to fundraise and they have a
140plan i thought that was very well presented yeah she did it with a lot of money job and the guy on there that was really great having him ready for us that was awesome yeah very prepared mr huber yes i just talked to the um abella educator that just they just came back from a trip and it was very successful and it's an excellent opportunity for our kids yeah thank you thank you everybody's been a great opportunity yeah i agree i think it's a great opportunity um one of the questions that i asked of mrs sattler was about you know the the risk involved and and how they talked about um you know they'll they'll take on all of the liability um for very obvious reasons parental consent would have to be had and you
141know all of the things and i think it's an offer awesome opportunity and i think parents have a pretty big decision to make coming up because i'd be struggling it would be awesome but it's my nerves would be a wrap but it is an awesome opportunity thank you all right all those in favor of the heidige灴uopose Quick Кто Now Moving on to donation except the anonymous donation of four hundred dollars to be used toward teacher appreciation week per the terms of mcguffy school district policy number seven zero two gift вариантs and donations i move second any discussion well thank you yes thank you thank you um that doesn't have to have anything like a retro like when it's used or anything like that so teacher appreciation week was a little while ago so it doesn't
142have to have like okay I just wanted to be sure I didn't think so just missing have some kind of detail like that thank you all those in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries MOU for McSiber approve as presented the memorandum of understanding for McSiber for the 2026-2027 school year so move all right any discussion you said you do okay do we want to you're good mr. groves okay thank you which is all I was going just to point out for clarity for fall this is something we do every year since we instituted McSiber and secondly it didn't look to me but I wanted to verify with mrs. Haberkopf no increase right thank you mr. Thomas the single yeah I'm good with it okay mr uber i'm good mr barnick i'm good
143okay all right thank you all all those in favor any opposed any abstentions motion carries all right student teacher approved a request for washington and jefferson college to have a student teacher with mcguffey school district during the 2026 2027 school year sending receipt of all required clearances any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries applications for homebound instruction approve the application for homebound instruction for student c grade 9 for medical reasons second thank you um any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries personnel committee report i will defer to mrs rabarnick thank you madam president we met on on thursday may 14th at 4 30 of the closed personnel meeting you will see on the agenda below all topics discussed i did want
144to make a statement on behalf of the board regarding our administrative positions in regards to the administrative positions listed below on the agenda the board in cooperation with dr oberg have reviewed the talent pool and explored both internal and external avenues we've decided to fill positions with our internal candidates who skill set in deliberately with our current processes and district match our immediate needs and opportunities for growth at mcguffey our next meeting is a closed meeting of course it will be on thursday june 11th at 4 30. thank you madam president thank you thank you all right 2026 2027 department grade level chairperson approve the department grade level chair persons for the term july 1st 2026 to june 30th 2027. i'll do what i can on the lab on deminer's as presented for the MEA
145collective bargaining agreement. Second. All right. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. MESPA 1 agreement, approved a tentative agreement between the Magape School District and Magape Education Support Professionals, PSEA, NEA, for the term of July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2031. All right. Any discussion? I guess I have a question for our solicitor. Being that this is not due to be in effect until July 1, if we were to table it until June to give everybody more time to review it here on the board, would that be, I mean, how would that look? Would that be? I believe. I believe that, correct me if I'm wrong, it already went to the MEA. Or. They already passed it. Yeah. They already passed it as is. Yeah. So.
146Okay. I think that you would run out of time before July 2 if you wanted to make any revision. Okay. Unfortunately. Okay. That's unfortunate for you. Sure. Sure. So I would not, unless there is some major concern, that's probably not the best course of action. But I have a question. I have one more thing. One moment. I would say that perhaps in the future too, you could ask for copies of it earlier because you guys had a lot of documents this month with the bonds and you have a lot of . This is a busy June. Yeah. June felt like heavy hitting time for reports for a meeting. So perhaps just knowledge of that or even a summary of it, if you have any changes. I believe we discussed the timeline for future. Yeah. It's
147like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. I just had one question. We did. It just is the. We had the committee that brought us a recommendation. Correct. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Yes. Mr. Thomas. So I'm not calling anyone out here. I'm just asking the question of our entire group. taxes to the maximum amount every year going forward. I feel like we need to explain to the taxpayers our plan not to raise taxes to the max every year moving forward. So you mean for general discussion? Well, Ms. Jackson? I
148appreciate what Mr. Thomas is saying. However, this one contract is only one section of our employees for whom we pay retirement and benefits, which is the district's largest cost. That's really no different than most districts of our size in our kind of thing rural setting. So I don't think it behooves us to not vote for this contract as a result of the fact that we have a contract that we have to pay for. So I don't think it behooves us to not vote for this contract as a result of the fact that we have a contract that we have to pay for. So I don't think it behooves us to not vote for this contract as a result of the fact that we have a contract that we have to pay for. The way to
149try to consistently not raise taxes, this is only one section of the group. Mrs. Habershock has talked about her goal of increasing or changing how the employees help portion with each contract negotiation as we go. And we started that. And so this is part of that process. And we're moving on to the others from there. I think for the community, that's part of the goal that's part of what they can understand as with one of the areas in which the board and is making in the administration is making a move to toward in order to try to lessen lessen the amount that the district is responsible for paying specifically for health care because it is a rising cost in other areas I think you know the establishment of the Budget Committee is a good move
150in that direction definitely mrs. Harbert chalk since she's come to the district has done an amazing job at monthly updates and keeping us and I don't know about anybody else but I know prior to that when I was on the board we talked about budget one time a year so it's nice to be talking about it every month in the board is always looking at in the administration quite frankly I'm always looking at ways to reduce costs cost. So I think if you look at all of that, you kind of have to look at a big picture view instead of maybe this year. Yes, I realize that we're talking about raising taxes to the index this year. I'd also keep in mind the history. Years where we don't raise them at all, and believe me,
151I've been part of that group that voted not to raise taxes, and it came back to bite us, quite literally, for the next two to three years after that. And we need to keep that in mind as a board. So some of it is trying to recoup what we've lost along the way, and hoping and really moving towards, not just hoping, but moving towards decisions that will lead us to be able to maybe only increase taxes a small amount instead of to the index each year. But keep in mind, it is an ongoing process. And on top of that, it's not just, I mean, obviously, our three, our two biggest areas are employee areas, but what was the third one? Right? Right? And fuel costs. And fuel costs is one of those things that's going
152to filter into everything. So you're going to see that come up. It's going to increase your food prices. It's going to increase your transportation costs. It's going to increase everything that you do, because everybody's, you know, a big deal is going to be added to the fuel. You get this, right? How many of your household bills have gone up because there's a fuel surcharge that they're accounting for? So I think the bigger, the bigger picture is what we're looking at. Not necessarily this particular contract. That's my opinion. Thank you. I tried to be more concise, but it went away. Thank you. I appreciate your question, Chugg, I know that's always something we always have to explain to the taxpayers. You know, we're talking about bonds. We're talking about. right? And that's always something we always
153have to explain to the taxpayers. You know, we're talking about bonds. We're talking about recouping taxes, and that sort of thing. That sort of thing. That's what we need to do to get back into an equal situation. talking about bonds we're talking about raising taxes we're talking about approving contracts with increased costs and just like the district's budget increase or the district's costs increase just like our bills at home you know I know my grocery bill is the one that I complain about the most at home but um they're tough decisions for sure I think for me I'm gonna hold the rest of my comment to board comments later in our agenda because it's not specific to what we're doing this evening but what I would like to see moving forward in respect to your
154question there are school districts in Pennsylvania who have balanced the budget and I would love for us to be able to join that bandwagon somehow but I think it's going to take a group effort to coordinate and and facilitate relationships and get ideas and collaborate um with all of our all of our district to see what we what we can do in McGuffey because I think we can do it I really do um maybe I'm too hopeful I don't know but um but yes Mrs shingle um I just would like to ask Mrs Haber chalk could you explain that thing about how you went to the percent the benefit of that because that was a big goal that was to reduce right so the way that we have been getting premiums from our employees has
155been a percent of salary and there's been tasks on those almost all other districts in the IU do a percent of premium and we have been lagging at that so when our first contract came up for renegotiation for which actually started this year 25 26 that was a focus of me in the contract negotiations because we need to recoup a little more of those premiums than what we're paying out health care is one of the highest costs increasing every year um you you hear me say every month how much our health care has increased from year to year it went up 8.3 percent this year it went up over the seven percent last year it went up nine percent a year before that it is increasing that has caused because we have caps on what
156our employees were paying that is causing the district to pay more per employee just because those are rising but the amount that the employee was contributing through the premiums was not so now moving to a percent of premium the employee will have they still have the choice of what plan they want to be on but they'll they'll pay a percent of the premium of the plan that they choose instead of it just be an increase in that straight percent of salary or a cap thank you thank you any other discussion or questions but then just to respond to this rejection but you know you're saying not to start with this contract so if we don't start somewhere I think I might we don't start somewhere you know how are we ever not going to have
157to raise taxes to the Max I'm not saying I I not with this contract, I mean not approving this particular contract. We've made steps such as the percentage of the premium. That's a step that we've made in the contract, including this one, that we have renegotiated thus far. We have a couple more to go. But that's a step that we've made. I think at this point, that is one area in which we were looking to make improvements for this particular group in this particular contract, and we've done that. Is it maybe what all of us would want? Maybe not. But we have to come to a general consensus on what's best for the district as a whole. So when I say, I'm not saying that your point isn't valid. I'm just saying that I think
158we're on the way to doing that. This contract is better for the district than the last contract for this group. Is it everything we want with a bow? No. That's a point of negotiations. But I do think that we're getting more and more, we're consistently getting farther and farther towards our goal, as far as real savings for the district that are meaningful. But you're not going to see that, you know, this year necessarily. You are. I mean, we've had more revenue this year, and we've had more revenue this year. But it's not going to be that much. It's going to be a lot more in the future. So we're going to have to see that. But I do think that we're getting more and more, we're consistently getting farther and farther towards our goal, as
159far as real savings for the district that are meaningful. But you're not going to see that. But I do think that we're getting farther and farther towards our goal, as far as real savings for the district that are meaningful. But it's going to take that happening consistently for a period of time before we really see big, big changes that are going to mean maybe less taxes, if that makes sense. Mr. Papachok, do you have anything to add? No, I would say too that we have 300 employees in this district, and we're going to have to make sure that we're going to have a contract. And this contract itself, there's 42 employees in it. So it's small. One small group. Yeah. All right. Good. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. So we had our
160first and our second, and we had our discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. All right. Thank you. Food service employee position. Hire Jenna Wheeler as a food service employee, proactive to May 4th, 2026, subject to assignment. Current assignment is middle school, high school cafeteria, and per the terms and conditions of the collective bargaining agreement. So moved. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Resignation? Accept the resignation of employee number 2689, effective March 18, 2026. So moved. Second. Thank you. It's okay. Second. Thank you. We really can't discuss it. So all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Retirement. Accept the retirement of employee number 841, effective April 3, 2026. Second. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any
161opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. High school principal. Approved Braden Soy. Sorry. Tripped up on his name. I'm sorry. Braden Soy as high school principal at a salary of $85,000, current assignment, McGuffey High School, and per the terms and conditions of McGuffey School District, compensation plan for school administrators, supervisors, effective for the 26-27 school year. Submit. All right. Any discussion? I would just like to say that I thought our personnel person presented that very well, and I think that was very well presented. You guys have given us a recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I just want to say, you know, last week we spent three hours discussing this issue, and we didn't take it lightly, and there was a lot of thought that went into it, and I think we're making the best
162choice we can right now. Thank you. Thank you. I agree with the sentiment. We did put a lot of thought and effort into this. And I really think it is what's best for our district, and I look forward to the future here at McGuffey. Thank you. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. I'm not impressed if I may. I'm not impressed if I may. It does bring me great joy. Great joy. To introduce Brady Stoy. He brings 14 years of educational experience. He brings 14 years of educational experience to his new role as principal of R.M. McGuffey High School, including eight years serving as our middle school special education teacher and two years in the educational leadership role as both an assistant principal under the old structure and associate
163principal this past year. Throughout his career, Mr. Stoy has demonstrated a strong commitment, strong commitment to student growth, relationships, and instructional leadership. His experience as a teacher and a steady yet flexible leadership style will serve well our students, staff, and the entire McGuffey School community. It brings me great joy again. So please join me in welcoming our next principal of the McGuffey High School, Mr. Brady Stoy. I think I got it. Yeah. It is a great honor, and I do not take lightly the great undertaking and the necessary things that I have done. Thank you. I will be doing and engaging starting with tomorrow to finish these seniors to get them out the door because although I guess I will be in a different capacity, I'm still here in the high school now. So let's
164finish it strong. And once again, thank you. It's a great honor. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Middle school principal, approved Justin Wise as middle school principal at a salary of $85,000, current assignment, McGuffey Middle School, and for the terms and conditions of the McGuffey School District Compensation Point of Acquisition. Thank you. Thank you. compensation plan for school administrators and supervisors effective for the 26-27 school year all right any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries madam president mr justin wise is a proud graduate of the mcguffey school district and has already made a meaningful impact within our school and this community he taught for four years at the mcguffey middle school before serving as assistant principal at both claysville as i think some creatures previously mentioned and also now
165at the middle school as the associate principal mr wise has also dedicated time to coaching our youth in football basketball and was also baseball too okay thank you mr 21 season further strengthening his connection with our students and the community his familiarity with mcguffey and understanding of the middle school philosophy make him an excellent fit to lead the mcguffey middle school please join me and welcome me again mr justin wise principal of the mcguffey middle school thank you to you dr oberg and everybody on the board uh it's an honor to have been a student here at mcguffey and now the principal at the middle school i'm excited to continue continue continue all the success we've had at the middle school thank you thank you congratulations school and high school associate principal approved jennifer berdine
166as middle school and high school associate principal current assignment claysville elementary that should be middle school oh i'm so sorry thank you it caught me off guard i apologize um current assignment claysville elementary moving up to middle school high school and for the terms and conditions of the mcguffey school district compensation plan for school administrators supervisors effective for the 26-27 school year so let's all right any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries madam president miss jen berdine brings valuable administrative experience to her new role as associate principal at mcguffey high school and middle school prior to joining mcguffey she served as a principal in the west virginia school district before spending the past two years leading claysville elementary during her time at claysville mr dine helped lead the school
167actually through a little wave there was a mini wave of staff maternity leave we had uh eight staff out and along with miss day they helped provide that stability along with the staff there through all jen supported staff kipsters as her number one focus and has demonstrated to me and all that know her true professionalism her leadership experience and collaborative approach would be a tremendous asset to both mr story at the high school and mr the wise at the middle school. Ms. Verdine could not join us this evening as she's preparing for an upcoming wedding so join me in also wishing her a happy wedding this Saturday. However, it does bring me great joy in welcoming Ms. Verdine as our associate principal of Macau High School and Middle School. Thank you. Congratulations, Ms. Verdine. Elementary
168school principal. Approved Adrienne Day as elementary school principal at a salary of $85,000. Current assignment plays for elementary school and per the terms and conditions of the McGuffey School District compensation plan for school administrators and supervisors effective for the 2026-2027 school year. Any discussions? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Madam President, may I introduce Mrs. Adrienne Day. She will assume the role of principal at Clay's World Elementary School following her first year as the assistant within the building. Prior to joining McGuffey, Mrs. Day served as an elementary art teacher at both Trinity and West Green school districts, as well as, I'm not sure why she ever came back, but in Bonita Springs, Florida. In these roles, she sought out leadership opportunities as department chair, curriculum committee member, PBS
169and SAP team members. Her passion for students, positive energy, and commitment to building strong relationships have already made a significant impact at Clayesville. I am confident, I am confident she will continue to build upon the strong culture and traditions of the school community there in a new role. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Adrienne Day, principal of Clayesville Elementary School. Thank you. I am so excited. Thank you for your confidence in me. I can't wait to start this role. Today was amazing, as you heard from our teachers, the joy and the unity and the commitment to building strong relationships and the energy was just so special today. And that is something I just mentioned to you that I really want to foster and carry into our school year next year. And I'm just really looking
170forward to it. So thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Congratulations. School counselor, hire Haley Lusk as a school counselor at Master's Step 1, Pro-Rated, Subject to Assignment, Clayesville Elementary School. And per the terms and conditions of the current agreement between McGuffey School Board, I'm sorry, McGuffey Board of Directors and McGuffey, Education Association and pending receipt of all required clearances, medical exams, and Act 168 verification. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. That was it. Good. I'm speaking on behalf of Clayesville here. I just wanted to say we are excited to introduce you to Ms. Haley Lusk. She earned her undergraduate degree from Washington and Jefferson College, graduated and also from Penn, Western University with a degree in counseling with a concentration in school counseling. She comes
171to us from Washington School District. When we contacted her references, they all gave her a glowing review and we look forward to what she does here and what she will do at McGuffey and Clayesville specifically. Being offered this opportunity to serve as a school counselor at the McGuffey School District truly means so much to me and I'm incredibly grateful to the school board and administration for everybody being involved in the process. As someone who grew up in the state, I'm very proud to be a part of this. As someone who grew up in a rural community, I understand how important it is for students to feel connected, supported and valued to their school. So thank you very much. I'm very excited. Thank you. Unpaid leave. Approve the unpaid leave for employee number 2178, effective May
17215, 2026 through June 6, 2026. All right. Can't discuss. So all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? motion carries long-term substitute elementary teacher approve Emily Engle as a long-term substitute teacher for the 2025-2026 school year per the terms and conditions of the current agreement between the McGuffey Board of Directors and the McGuffey Education Association so moved any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries additional drivers GG&C approve the following list of additional drivers for GG&C for the remainder 2025-2026 school year pending receipt of all required clearances all right any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries application to attend approve Mrs. Renee Cambrisi and Mr. John Lazor to chaperone members of the McGuffey FFA and to attend the Pennsylvania State FFA Convention in
173State College Pennsylvania on June 9th through 11th of 2026 second all right any discussion I just for clarity I'm sorry are we going okay no that's okay if we I'll try to keep looking up okay I just want to thank you because it comes up every time and so because people ask just to be sure that it's covered when we say we'll be paid by the district this is already in the budget that's what I knew but I just wanted to make sure everybody knew thank you thank you all right any other discussion I think it's a great opportunity when my daughter was in FFA and I'm the mom that looks into everything top to bottom cross all the T's dot all the I's and they're phenomenal experiences for our kids and I just I
174just I commend our FFA honestly so all right all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries budget committee report I will defer to mr. Hoover the budget committee met May 5th and looking back through them not a lot has changed and the May 5th meeting to what we were presented with tonight I guess one thing I wanted to say just you know it we're fighting an uphill battle with the cost increasing and increasing or the gender gap we know that we're gonna have a hard time with the best we're gonna have to try and submit all the bids and musters in the next several days and then move on to the next Marty and we'll see what companies do as well increasing inflation, health insurance increasing, and losing revenue to our depleting
175coal. So it's very hard. I would love to sit in front of you and say that we wanted to increase taxes because we were adding programming and adding teachers. That would be wonderful. That would be you for me. But we're just not in that situation. So that's all I have. Thank you. And the next meeting is June 2nd. June 2nd, yes. Which is the public budget work session that the board will hold. Oh, yeah. We decided that meeting will be here in this room. Yes, in this room. At 4 p.m. At 4 p.m. Yeah, 4 p.m. All right. Thank you. Okay. 2026-2027 proposed budget. Adopt the preliminary budget of the McGuffey School District in the amount of $37,764,782 . For the 2026-2027 school year with the following tax levy options. I'll read through the options.
176I will be honest with you. I don't recall exactly how we've done it in the past because it has been confusing from one year to another. So I may be leaning on some of you for some help to keep us all in line. Option A is tax levy of 14.62 plus the following. The $5 per capita. I don't think that's the right number. I don't think that's the right number. I don't think that's the right number. I don't think I need to read through all of that. But option A would be keeping our taxes at the same rate that we currently have them. Option B would be raising them to 15.0 plus the following items there. And then option C is raising them to the index which is the 15.26 plus the following. If I
177remember correctly, we would go around the room and have. Everybody give A, B, or C. And we narrow it down from there. Correct. And then the motion is for that particular thing and we would vote. That's what we've done. Okay. Do you have any suggestions? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you all going to sit in the chair? Yeah. I'm going to sit in the chair. I have to sit. Okay. Switch it up. I'm sorry. Here's the people who were more involved with it rather than saying somebody needs to come and talk to you. Sure. No. That's fine. That's fine with me. Okay. You're always first. So I'll take the job that needs to be done. We could always rearrange seats. It's not going to matter. All right. Mr. Hoover. My recommendation would be option C
178which raises the taxes to index. Okay. And so does Mr. Bergdahl. Mine as well for option C. After discussions and looking at all the numbers, I would like to say that I don't like to raise taxes. I would never ever would ever like to raise taxes. But based on our future projections and our previous history of not raising taxes, we almost have to in this situation. So option C for me. Thank you. I don't recall who the third committee person is. I'm so sorry. Is it? It was Mr. Lazor. Mr. Lazor. Okay. That's why it wasn't coming to me. Okay. Now I'll just go Mr. Grove. Option C. I don't think we really have a choice. I think we have to go with option C. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I
179don't think we have too much choice. I mean, when you hear the increases in our benefits, salaries, healthcare, $800,000 increase, I mean, so option C for me. Thank you. Mrs. Jackson. I would just like to encourage everybody to really look at some of the information that Mrs. Havertock has been presenting every month, including tonight, over the last 10 to 12 years. we've made a lot of cuts, some of them very hard cuts. We're really down to like cutting programs and cutting people. And that's not any place where any of us want to be. There's a lot of, and I don't think it gets enough attention, there's a lot of really great things going on in the Guffey School District, and that is due in large part to the people and the programs that we have.
180And I don't ever want to lose sight of that. We do, as a district, have some big choices to make. She's mentioned them. Mrs. Harbert-Tock has mentioned them, consolidation being one. There are areas where, as a district, we might have to make some tough choices in order to make some financial improvements. But I just want to clearly again say, other than that, cutting programs and people is not somewhere, where I personally think we need to go at this point. They are largely the reason why so many good things are going on. And I appreciate their time. I appreciate, I've worked the hour. They're long, they're hard, and for the largest part, they're thankless. So I just wanted to make sure that I tell them that. It's a hard place to be. And as I said,
181I think we've done this earlier, and I'll say it again. Some of what we're doing is recouping from losses that we have compounded over several years. I believe we're headed in the right direction with all the steps we've taken. But for right now, I believe our best option is option C. Thank you. Mr. Thomas? Should we have been doing the discussion this way, since we don't have a motion? It doesn't matter to me, but should we have done it that way? I thought we were just... We have a motion to approve the preliminary vote. Okay. But that's not what we're doing. We're doing, like, an awful on ABC. You have to narrow it down. I don't care which way that we do it. So your suggestion would have been for us first to narrow it
182down, then have our discussion? Either way, fine. That's what I was just saying. Should we have done it that way? I don't know. I guess I'm just kind of thinking this eliminates the later discussion. Can you discuss why we're choosing the option we are? Yeah. That was my thought process, too, as I heard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because if your option is not that same way, you don't get a chance to explain why. Right. So just when the process is over. If that's the case, I'll do that. Yeah. This is going to be largely a repeat of before then, but just for your reconsideration, please. I'm not against education. I'm not against teachers. I'm not against administrators. I'm not purposely trying to offend anyone.
183This is solely about the numbers. If we approve this budget as is, we're not going to get a chance to explain why. or with everything that's in it, how will we not have to raise taxes to the max moving forward, every year moving forward? So with that being stated, I am for option A to keep it at 14.62. And just one more point. Just, you know, off of what you said there, and off of Mrs. Harbershock, look, we've cut 19, there's been 19 positions cut, yet we're still 1.6 million, at a $1.6 million deficit. And our last round of discussions, we were taking thousands of dollars for the Tony and Guy program. You know, that's what we're doing. Like, we're trying to, like, chip away using thousands. And one of our other discussions, like, somebody
184had an idea for, like, moving some things around, where, yeah, that got us up to 200,000, but that's, like, the biggest number that we've talked about, and that's nowhere near $1.6 million. So I agree. Like, right now, nobody wants to cut the programs that we have. I'm in agreement with that. We're bare bones on staffing from everything the administrators tell us. So just, I go back to my other question. Please, then, as a group, explain to me and the community how we're not going to just keep going through this every year as the administration brings to us. We recommend that you raise it to the max. We recommend that you raise it to the max. Can I add to that before we? Move on? Or do I have to wait until the end? Why don't
185we? I was going to say, why don't we wait until it gets narrowed down? And we will have an option to further deliberate. Right. We will. We will. Okay. Mrs. Shingle? I've been part of the group where we did not raise taxes, and, yes, it did come back to bite us in a big way. And believe me, at the time, it really looked like I was doing exactly what the taxpayers wanted. But it was very costly. And it did take more than two years to even try to get back. We have to go with C. I mean, that's all we can do. That's recommended for a reason. And really, to answer your question there, Chad, I think we are going to have to raise taxes every year, unfortunately. But because inflation and costs keep going
186up, nothing's getting changed. And it's sad to say, but I just think that's where we are. I recommend C. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Robertnik? Option C. Thank you. I know I mentioned earlier that, you know, there are districts in Pennsylvania who have been able to balance the budget. I think it's possible at McGuffey. I don't know how. I think it's going to take all of us as a group to figure out what we can do, strategically, reach out to those other districts. I think we're going to have to do a lot of that. districts and see what did you do? How did you do this? Because obviously it can be done, but how can we do that? What can we take from that and apply? I'm not against learning from other districts to see
187what creative ideas they've come up with. Can we look at their stats with their testing? Did that cause issues with their kids' testings? That's what I'm looking at, me personally. I think we can do better. This one's a tough one for me, to be honest with you, but I'm with Mr. Thomas. I do think that there are ways that we could go about this moving forward, that we could potentially in the years to come balance a budget. Again, I don't know how, but I think it's up to us to figure it out. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm option A. Thank you. So we would move forward with the C, option C. We need to amend the motion. Okay. Do you need one of us to make a motion to amend the motion? Does
188it have to be someone else, or can it be me, or does it matter? I mean, probably. I make a motion to amend the motion to adopt the preliminary budget of the McGuffey School District in the amount of $37,364,782. Okay. Okay. Okay. Any other discussion, please? Oh, thank you. There is a motion to amend the 10-year contract for the 2026-2027 school year with the following tax levy option. Tax levy at 15.26 plus the following that are listed there. Is that good enough? Mm-hmm. Thank you. No? We need a second? I second. Thank you. All right. All those in favor? I would like discussion. I apologize. Thank you. Discussion. The only thing that I wanted to add, maybe just shed some light on it. Since 2018, based on the graph here that Charlene provided us with,
189the assessed value was over a billion. It is now just north of 940 million, which would yield a 8.8% decrease since, whereas home values have actually went roughly between 30 and 50%, depending on where you're at. So that is a net loss of 42%, give or take, depending on what metric you look at. So anywhere between 20-something and 40-something. Our taxes have increased 18.5% since that time period. And actually, we have collected $163,000 less in revenue. So I am on page where there's no... Historic millage. Local school district data... Oh, that's historic. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay, I'm there. So, yeah. So, out of... Just by looking at this from a perspective that we're actually getting less revenue, but we're taxing everyone more, there has to be an outside source other than us. So, we're actually
190spending less on average, if that's the case. Because if we're collecting less, I'm just saying on average. So even though that costs are going up, I'm saying on average, we're spending less because we've cut administrators, we've cut people in these positions. Even though that we look at this and say, well, we've increased taxes 18.5%, but then we have a decrease of 8.8%. Over the same period of time in our assessed values, that's yielding us a loss since then. So, if we still had the same assessed value that we were at, we wouldn't have to raise taxes. There would be no reason to raise taxes. But since our assessed values went down, that's why we have to raise taxes. What if they go down again? You'd have to raise taxes. I mean, that's the only way.
191The taxers have to keep... It's the only way that you can keep up with costs. That's the only way? That's the only way. It has to be. If we keep cutting, if we keep cutting and cutting and cutting, we won't have a school district. If we... I don't know how we're going to be able to attack the assessed value problem other than businesses moving in, building homes, coal company not tearing down homes. I mean, there's more to it than just us raising taxes. But looking at it from this perspective, we've lost almost, I'd say just roughly 10% of our overall assessed value. And that's 2018. So it's like, even though the world... I know that you didn't want to raise taxes, but we're almost forced to raise taxes because of that. And it's going to
192continue happening until that assessed value changes. And if we start going back up and assess value, then there will be a change. I would just add to that. For this bond, we had to provide some data. One of the pieces of data that I had to collect were our top 10 taxpayers. Six of the top 10 are coal companies. Once those properties are depleted, we are going to lose more tax revenue. We do have some housing development coming in. We're in a very rural area where we do not have the infrastructure. Even public... We have a utility infrastructure to have big housing developments that's going to attract new builders and developers and businesses. If you look at that slide where I showed you our Washington County millage rates, Tina McMillan has over $5 billion in
193assessed property values. If we had over $5 billion, we could fund our budget two years. Well, they've got a lot of business. Yes. Yes. The only way to keep up with our current staff, our current program, is to raise taxes because there's no money coming in from the state. We are losing assessed property values. The state is not doing anything different with their formulation of subsidies. The only thing that's going to control not raising taxes is making hard decisions on closing Joe Walker and consolidating or cutting programs, which means we cut staff. We can't keep what we have with what we have on... We can't keep our staff and our program with what we have on our revenue side because inflation and contractual keeps increasing. I understand it, Seth. I live in this district. I'm
194raising my own taxes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's a conundrum because if our community wants us to have the best programs and opportunities for our students, unfortunately, the community is who puts the majority of that bill. Our state funding is not that much. Our state funding doesn't even cover our salaries. Our state subsidies do not even cover our salaries. I would like to... What I would like to do is let's... We're going to have our budget session on the next week. We're going to have our budget session on this where we can really dive into this. I would like... I would ask you
195to hold the rest of your comments and questions for them just for sake of time, and it gives us more time to really dive in on this specifically. All of that time is going to be budget. So we get that whole time for this. Is that... Is everybody in agreement with that? Is that okay? Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes. Thank you. So we have a first and a second to approve the budget with option C, raising taxes. That's right. taxes to the maximum 115.26 village yes yes right right mm-hmm we will do a roll call with no your justice or man does my motion was to amend it so we're voting on the amendment does the amendment need a role voting no okay that's what I was asking okay all those in favor
196of the amendment hi any opposed opposed any abstentions yes yes thank you thank you now we'll vote on the now we will vote on the actual motion that has been amended because the amendment path okay I appreciate you all helping me keep it together because it gets confusing these options yeah it is the best thing we've known to do it all right now we are voting on the amendment with option C I'm gonna just read the motion again to be sure you go right right right adopt the preliminary budget of the McGuffey School District in the amount of 37 million seven hundred and sixty four thousand seven hundred eighty two dollars for the 2026 2027 school year with the following tax levy options of option C tax levy of one five point two six plus
197the following criteria we need a first and a second second all right now should I do a roll call or should this just be what we've been doing you guys just want to be sure yeah okay all right all those in favor aye any opposed opposed any abstentions motion carries all right thank you all appreciate that I look forward to the the discussion moving forward all right resolution 2025 2026 number 13 this resolution is for the magapi school district to enter into the intermediate unit one elect electric i'm sorry there's an extra l in there electric consortium to provide consortia pricing for the purchase of electricity supply at a potential cost savings as compared to purchasing as an individual district thank you um discussion i i just have a question um i i don't remember
198seeing this before like in the past is it new am i did i miss something in the past no we entered prior to your arrival on the board um it expires november 30th of 2026. so we we're in a consortium right now with the iu one for the magapi school district and then we're in the consortium right now with the iu one for the magapi school district and then we're in the consortium right for electric and for gas for that matter they pull their resources so we get better prices and it's every three years the last one was done in 2023 so three years three years so what do you mean i think that from clarity what do you mean by they they pool their resources so if they have more school districts in the
199consortium they can work with the suppliers of the electricity to provide better rates to the district which is a better rate than you or I would get oh yeah I think personally residents should get to join the consortium any other discussion on that myself you're on my computer okay all right all those in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries resolution 2025 2026 number 14 adopt the bond resolution 2025 2026 number 14 to authorize the incurring of non-electoral debt by the issuance of general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed six million dollars okay any discussion any discussion any discussion um sure Mr. McKee was great in presenting a capital project list to us and we were able to take some tours of the buildings with the exception of Clayville which was
200really helpful to be able to visualize some of our needs in the district but my question is that's not what like we're going to still have the opportunity to discuss that oh yes absolutely say nay or nay on some things correct because this is just a secure I don't even want to say this secure the funding this is to let but our bond Council and John move forward with getting all of the paperwork documented that's why the language in the resolution is kind of general as to the project yeah yeah because we still can solidify projects at any time and it says up to six million so say we pull a one million dollar project off the list mm-hmm does that mean then we go to a five million dollar bond it could it could
201change the terms okay um what are our our The investors are looking, once you get under $5 million, there aren't a lot that want to do a purchase of bond for under $5 million. So we would have to talk to Dawn about that and bond counsel to see how that would affect interest rates and payments and things like that. Okay. I had them play out a couple different scenarios because we were worried about there are going to be fees attached, right? So that fee is going to come off of the $6 million. So we played with doing $6.5, but we had already been talking about $6, so I said let's keep it down to $6. And Mr. McKee knows that he has to work within what we get as proceeds once all of the fees
202are paid. So we'll make it work. And one more question. So there were two items on there that were kind of priority that you mentioned, like the fire alarm system down at Clayville and the security system district-wide, which amounts to around $800,000. So why not just use the fund balance? Like say we just decide those are the only two things we want to use. What are the other things we want to do on that list this year? Why not use the fund balance? Well, one, we know that costs are rising every year for salaries and benefits, obviously. We keep chipping away at that fund balance. We're not going to have anything in case there is an emergency that we have to have money set aside for to pay for. The paving itself is going to
203be a $4 million project more than likely by the time we get to it. So just doing it all at once makes us know we're going to have the money to get it done, obviously. Because then we have, what, three years? Yeah, three years. Three years. Once it fades out the project. Okay. Thank you. So he's looking at the summer of 2027 for the paving. Thank you. Yeah, but that's the biggest reason. We don't want to use all of our fund balance and spend it down and then not have anything there in case something does come up. We need money. Just for clarification, the higher, like the difference between borrowing, having a $3 million and a $6 million, you get a better interest rate, the higher the bond. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's no way
204that this can exist by itself. Like we're paying for it out of this budget, the proposed budget that we approved. Yeah. I mean, that's how we currently pay our bonds, right? It's built into our general budget. Yeah. And unfortunately, just like your house, you have maintenance that you have to do for your house. And sometimes you have to take out a home equity loan to get those projects completed. You can look at it like this. We have to have the bond issued so that we get the cash resources so that we can make all of those updates and repairs. I have a question. If the list of projects in the bond can be changed and we can amend it moving forward if needed, then we talk about the fund balance being used for an emergency.
205Why can the bond not be used? Like let's say something happens where a tree comes through the roof and we don't have enough in the fund balance, but now we have this bond here. Could we not use the bond to cover that emergency? Not necessarily. Because the bond is issued with a certain set of criteria, which is the language that's in there now has the certain project. It says up to the fund. Yeah. Up to and I don't have it in front of me. Right. Up to not to exceed the 6 million. We would not necessarily use it for something outside of that scope. So it's going to depend on what the emergency would be. But that's why I asked when they were here earlier if we were to, if the project list were to
206change and they said we would just have to amend the agreement. Well, with a caveat, what he actually said was there are certain items, individual items, that you could change. But if you were going to say we're going to scrap that completely and we're going to use these projects or this one project, then that would need to have to, that would have to come back for a re-vote. Right. That can't be done under what limit. Correct. It would amend the agreement and we would re-vote on it. Yeah. Well, it wouldn't amend the agreement. It would be changing it. We'd have to vote on a new agreement under those terms. Correct. Yep. Right. It would be amending the agreement. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the one thing we do. Basically, that's why I'm saying. We would change
207the agreement that we have under this bond agreement and we would vote on a new agreement under new terms. Is my understanding correct? Correct. So, I think the way I'm looking at it is, and I mean, I'm not trying to be argumentative. He used the word amend. That's why I keep using that word. But if, you know, let's say the tree falls through the roof and now we take off the track and we replace it with that. That's the logic. That's the logic that I'm using. When he says amend, this is what we're going to do. That's not scrapping the whole thing. That is simply amending and that's what I'm talking about. So, that is a possibility. Like, this doesn't, I know he said it doesn't tie us into that specific list of things. Right.
208But I'm thinking in those emergency situations where if a tree falls through the roof and we have to replace the roof or that section of the building, this could ultimately be used for that. We are not strapped to use our funds. We are not undervalued for that. Is that correct? Can I jump in now? Yes. And I am not a bond attorney. I am not bond counsel. That is a highly specialized field that I have no interest in. But, that is not my specialty. But bonds are typically used for capital improvements. They are extremely regulated by the state. I'm not sure. I know you can't use them for daily expenses. Right. So, I'm not sure. Your example, too, has a bit of, like, there would be insurance coverage for that. Right. But it's so, I'm
209trying to think of an example of something that would happen that you would need, I don't know, let's say your insurance went up by 32% next year, your health insurance. And that just blew the budget out of the water. And you know you didn't have enough in your fund balance. You cannot use a bond to cover that because that's an operating expense of the district. So, I don't think you, it's not like just a different type of savings account. So, I just want to make sure that you're clear, everybody's clear about that. It's, you know, it's highly regulated on what you could apply it for. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And I'm sorry, I'm so on the same page. No, no. I appreciate it. And I do understand that. I know it's specific to
210the capital project and it has to do with specific things. I just don't want the community to think that. The term is not a good term. I don't want anybody to think that, you know, the term fear mongering comes up when it comes time for raising taxes. You know, they fear us into it. They fear us into it. And I just wanted to clarify that that was not the, you know, the, if we have an emergency, that, I don't want anybody to think that like the board was feared into, we have to do this. We have to approve this bond because we won't have enough in the fund balance for an emergency. Or we have to approve taxes because we might have an emergency. I just want clarification on that. Because that's how they look
211at it. I guess that's just where I'm getting at. So I guess for me it was just to get clarification on the emergency just really stuck in my mind when it was mentioned. So I wanted to get clarification on how that could be used. Is there any further discussion on it? I know we've kind of talked about it a good bit. I'm going to ask to table it for our budget session. Because we have a lot of time. And I think it would give us more time to really look into it better, look into that agreement more, and also discuss it further at the budget session. Are you making a motion to table it? I am making a motion to table it. All right. The motion fails. So we will. Because nobody seconded. Right. It
212dies. Yep. I don't know what the time limit is. But what are we going to wait to see? I don't know. I think we're going to wait until the end of the session. Okay. So we're going to wait until the end of the session. Okay. So we're going to wait until the end of the session. Okay. We're going to wait until the end of the session. Okay. So we're going to wait. We're not going to wait too long. That's okay. All right. So we will be voting on the motion as is. Adopt the bond resolution 2526, number 14, to authorize the incurring of nones emancipatory debt by the issuance of general bond in an amount not to exceed $6 million. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Motion carried. Blueprint, head start, meal, and lease
213agreement for 2021. All those in favor? agreement for 2627 approve the mail and lease agreement between blueprints head start and the Duffy school district at Clayton elementary school for one year period as presented so it's second any discussion all right I always ask Charlene every year was there any increase or decrease in the agreement the lease amount saying there is an increase to them and the lunch prices because they purchase their lunches off of us okay so they're really not like increase in the cost for the purchase okay thank you because they're pre-k they don't qualify under the national student lunch program right three meals by blueprints and head start pay for that and is that a is that a price that we determine here within the district yeah the states that's a minimum that
214we can we can charge them but we're free okay thank you all right all those in favor oh I have a question oh sorry I'm sorry um for this one and the next one um just to be sure I get it's only a one year period but is there language and I can't remember off the top of my head I apologize after reading them is there language that gives the district the option to withdraw the lease should we need those rooms yes thank you all right any further discussion okay thank you all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries blueprints lease agreement for 26-27 approve the meal and lease agreement between blueprints and McGuffey School District at Joe Walker Elementary School for one year period as presented second thank you any discussion
215all right all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries Weisberg Hart Kramer LLC invoice um turn my paper over here approved payment to Weisberg Hart Kramer LLC for invoices dated May 15 2026 in the total amount of five thousand three hundred and eighty seven dollars and fifty cents as submitted second all right any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries agreement with intermediate unit one for educational services approve the agreement between intermediate unit one and McGuffey School District for the 2027 school year which provides educational services to the district all right thank you any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries access reimbursement service agreement with IU1 admin only approve the access reimbursement service agreement between the intermediate unit one and the
216guppy school district for the 26-27 school year second all right any discussion I have I just have a question about it um I think just to get some clarification thank you okay all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries access reimbursement service agreement with IU1 admin only oh my goodness I'm so sorry guys number 10 access reimbursement service agreement with IU1 based staff sorry thank you so the difference there is the first one is the individuals from the IU that provide the administrative side of access billing and for number 10 the big staff that is the staff actually is providing the services we may need thank you all right approve the access reimbursement service agreement between intermediate unit one and the guppy school district for 26-27 school year so move a second
217okay all those any further discussion I'm sorry all right all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries ESL agreement approve the ESL agreement with intermediate unit 1 FY 2026 2027 as presented thank you any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries IU1 partial hospitalization program agreement approve the agreement between the guppy school district and intermediate unit one partial program for partial hospitalization program services for the 26-27 school year as presented second all right any discussion um I think I might have asked this last year Dr over I'll ask it again just for the community explain how this would work so currently we would not have a stint there but if need would arise we have an agreement with the IU to provide partial partial hospitalization program through
218the IU at the taxpayers band so an agreement would be adopted you'll see the appointment advice months beginning here this evening all contrary to theHHEL3090 health care rules from 2-1 central with 976 resident education services EatonThank you I was going to say it falls under that yes it's not just general hospitalization for general students you're talking specifically about educational services for specific students who fall in those neat areasorespecific to fall in that those neat areas so yeah because this is talking aboutglist is talking bottle for maybe something here you know around all this time knowing that there may be something here thank you so Okay, no worries. So this partial hospitalization program is for half is education, half is hospitalization mental health services. We currently do have students that are participating in the program currently
219by the recommendation of the IEP teams and the services that they need. So this is just in case we need it. Right now we have students that are benefiting from the program, so this is making sure that they continue their services next year. Okay. And I think where I'm getting confused is the education versus mental health. I think that's where I'm getting confused. They're in need of some therapeutic mental health services that they're able to provide and education at the same time. I see. I see. Okay. Where a public school is educational based with, you know, some social work kind of skills to be able to support students when the needs are more severe than they are placed in a placement where they're able to offer them that restrictive environment that we can't provide in
220a public school. Okay. Okay. And this is still like a daytime program? Yes. They follow, yeah, we provide the outpatient. Yes. And they have their own IU school run schedule, you know, just run just as a school as well because it is a school setting. Yeah. It's just a full time. Right. The word hospital is the key. I understand. It's what throws people off. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. I didn't have any other questions. Thank you. Any? Any others? Okay, you're welcome. Thank you. All right. Any other discussions? Thank you all. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Policy Committee Report. I'll defer to Mrs. Jackson. We met on May 12, 2026. We are still covering the wellness policy. You will notice on the agenda, Policy 808 is on there as
221a first reading. The reason the committee looked at that was part of the request from the wellness committee. It was a little easier. There was a lot less change. Most of the changes were things like grammar and mechanics. But it is there for a first read. You have the next month to look over it. If you have any questions, get a hold of me or any other board member. We can try to get those answered and we will try to get those answered. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. As per our policies, it will go to vote at the June meeting. As I
222said, we are still working on the wellness policy. That's a little bit more in-depth. We are hoping to be done with that maybe next month. And then we have other policies that are on our rolling agenda. But that's where we are. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Policy 808, food services, first reading. It is really interesting to set everyone free. reading so that is there for your review facilities used report Dr. Oberg Madam President just one use in the month of April was girls soccer boosters thank you all right budget expenditure report through the month of April 2026 is presented for your review cafeteria report the cafeteria reports for the month of April 2026 are presented for your review key card spending report for the month of 2026 is presented for your review voice Burkhart
223Kramer madam solicitor is there a report yeah I just wanted to say that I really enjoy getting to know the board members and the administrators over the past couple of months and I enjoy working with you all I also want to congratulate you doing this this month in one meeting is long I was in another one like this a couple nights ago for one of your neighboring schools but only having one meeting a month when it comes to months like this where you have a lot of required report financials to discuss and you also are at the time where you're hiring it's it's a big it's a big heavy lift so I'm happy to help any questions you have thank you thank you all right Western Area Career and Technology Center reports that is myself
224and mr. Grove is the alternate we had our last meeting on I always have everything written down and then I don't bring my paper with me and I apologize I plan and then it doesn't work out it was on the 22nd of April is when the last met there are many attachments there for your review they didn't have as much written for the student of the month But it was still great to see them. We had several seniors that also graduated from Western Area as well as upcoming here in McGuffey. I would like to give them a round of applause. They didn't just graduate from McGuffey. They also graduated from their programs at Western Area. And that takes time and dedication that they put a lot of effort into. So if we could just give
225them a round of applause for that. Thank you so much. And that is all. And Pennsylvania School Board Association, I will defer to Mrs. Shingle. There's really not a lot on there this time. They are offering an asynchronous web review certificate program for AI in education. And I know this is a hot topic, but it actually runs from February the 8th to March the 12th, if anybody's interested in getting into that. I mean, you go through the program. You go through the process. And then you get a certificate proving that you have accomplished that. And I think that sounds like if you're wanting to know more about where AI is going in the educational world, that would be your opportunity. There's really not much on there right now. They're right where we are trying to
226finish up the year. Right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. At this time, we will hold public participation on non-agenda and agenda items. Chief? Madam President, Chrissy Florin, East Finley Township. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Chrissy Florin, East Finley Township. I wanted to start off with thanking those that voted on not raising our taxes. One thing as a mother of six, I teach my children is if there's a will, there's a way. You figure it out. You figure it out a way to stop raising taxes, period. I know in the past that I have told. I've been told. I've been told to go to the teacher whenever I have an issue. And may I remind you, like I said, I'm a mother of six, and I like to live life like
227all of you do. And the best that I can, I'm busy. But I do not get paid to do so. Dr. Oberg does. And so with that being said, I will ask one question. In the work field, aren't you supposed to go to the boss when you have an issue? With an employee? That's how I've learned when I used to work in the workforce. So you go to the boss, and you tell them what's going on, and hopefully the boss handles it. I wanted to address my concerns about the nurse, a text that I got from the nurse. I'm just going to stop real quick and read it. And let me find it real quick. I'm going to read this text real quick, and then I'll continue on what else I had to say. Hello,
228this is Ms. Butterfield, McGuffey School nurse. Sixth graders are required to have a physical. Yes? This is about my child. It's my child. It's caused my time. Like, this is my child that we're speaking on. Try to kind of be more, I guess, blunt about it. It's about how seventh graders are required to have the Tdap and meningitis vaccine prior to starting seventh grade. And it says that please send the updated immunization records as well. The state withholds funding from us if the requirements are not met. I'm kind of very disgusted about that, that it was actually admitted in a text that the funding is held from the state if children are not vaccinated. That is what we are looking at. This is a disgusting disaster that these vaccines are pushed on these children. And
229so that's what I'm getting at. The vaccines are pushed on the children. It's disgusting that I have to. I have to get a freaking text message just stating that. Like, we all know that the funding from the schools, you all get funding from state to push vaccines on children. I'm just disgusted. So to continue on, there are profound and irreversible repercussions of vaccines, death being one of them. This is a way of pushing parents to comply and absolutely disgusting in a text. The pushiness. I'm just, I can't even. The fear mongering, the absence of another option speaks volumes. I also want to share that I am almost positive that I have written forms stating strong religious and moral beliefs when it comes to why I do not vaccinate my children any longer. My children, I
230just, I don't like that the nurse can't just go into my child's file and see that there is a form. So, like, why am I getting a text about this? I have already given the school forms for all of my children stating my religious and moral beliefs on why I do not vaccinate my children anymore. And why am I getting a text about it? I understand about the physical, which I've, that's in the back of my mind. I do need to get that taken care of. But this, this is why people are pushed to get vaccines for their children. We do understand that. The CDC now is being sued for the 72 vaccines that are pushed on children that they're getting sued because of that. Like, they were never tested properly, but we're all pushed
231to get vaccines. And I see, and not to call out anybody, but I see people that, like, they have a tick now. They have health issues. You all have to realize that this, that from 2020 until now, this is from the vaccine. That it has killed millions of people. You will not be told that on the news, but it has killed millions of people. Also wanted to ask about the results on the AI survey, when that will be presented to the community and the public. And I had a community member ask me the other day about if McGuffey gets a gas and oil royalties. I guess that would be a question for Charlene. You don't have to answer it now, Charlene, but that is a question that a community member that actually lives within the
232next, within the few houses down here at the end. And she gets royalties. And she's actually just asked me to ask you if you could, you know, confirm that or deny that. But if you are, that would be a good chunk of money coming in, go towards stuff. Yeah, I realize that. Madam President, Miranda Mullen's East Finley Township. Thank you. Hi, guys. Miranda Mullen's East Finley Township. I'm signing up. Thank you. I'm actually going to speak on the vaccine. issue you spoke on it it's not required that they get vaccinated for funding it is required that the school have their physicals on file so if your child has a religious exemption all they need is your physical they don't actually require your child to be vaccinated it does stated in there because the federal government
233that's their recommendation but you still get your extensions it's just required that they're to have those physicals on file on a quality so they're not saying that that's I wouldn't speak on that and clarify just so that when the public hears this they don't think oh we're trying to vaccinate our children like that's not the case it's just that the school really needs those physicals on file as you would if you apply for any of the or if you're a driver's license or anything all of that's required thank you thank you President Solve it public comment thank you thank you all right moving on to items for discussion does anybody have an item for discussion this is Jackson I first of all wanted to say thank you to Mrs. Seibert for getting the information out
234to the board on the alternatives for the policy in the minutes my next question is and I'm not sure to whom it actually should be directed but by what date does the board need to make a decision on what we're doing and for those who aren't aware board docs is going away yes and so there are alternatives and separate ones one for minutes one for policies what I see is the biggest thing to be concerned about is not even so much going forward but all of the historical documents that are already there and if we go by make a decision by such a date they will move them all for us instead of us having to recreate all of that so I just was curious about when the board needs to make a decision on
235that if that should be on next month's agenda or what some of the cheaper costs but again it's not something that we're used to so there's payoffs we're seeing we had a superintendent's meeting superintendent's meeting I'm actually just on Tuesday about this and it looks to be about half and half right now some are staying because of the convenience of it others are going because what you just said to the Keystone again PSBA will continue to push out their quarterly updates but it's all dependent on if you're gonna be with Keystone but not just make decisions so then from the board's perspective we'll have a recommendation from the administration next month and we will vote on just to make sure we're not missing out on that and we will vote on just to make sure
236we're not missing out on that just to make sure we're not missing out on that just to make sure we're not missing out on that so this is the only way we can make sure we're not missing anything thank you I appreciate it any other okay I just wanted to address something I felt a lot of eyes looking at me earlier during public comment from both teachers at McGuffey as well as administration and I felt the eyes of my daughter and my wife who watched this board meeting faithfully and so I'm not going to address vitriol and hate and bias against that or anything like that just because I'm not a product of any other party I am a political I'm not a respondent of any other party I'm not a participant in any other
237party and I'm not And this number, what I'm going to actually share with you, the Apostle Paul was writing his first letter to the church in Colossians. And it was a young church, and he was trying to help them to understand how do you combat those that are against your views. And basically it said, and this is in Chapter 4, was always, always be full of compassion and grace. Be seasoned with salt so that when that time comes, you'll be able to address everyone. And that's how I choose to move forward. I'm not going to defend myself to those things, but I am going to say it to my wife and to my daughter. I love you, and thank you for the folks looking back at me because I appreciate that. Sometimes it's a very
238lonely job, and I know I take the shots, and I guess that's my job. But I do it proudly because I say it. I serve you folks. I serve my administrative team. I serve this district. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Berg. Thank you. Mrs. Jackson, you brought up the board docs and Keystone. I have a question to pose to, I guess, maybe our administration. As I talked earlier about how I think there's ways to cut the budget somewhere, somehow, is there any way that this district, or if there's even any other districts, I'm not aware of. that maybe have their own in-house policy, yes, something that they're doing with policy that wouldn't cost us money or wouldn't cost us as much money? Sure. I think we have, oh, gosh, we have well over, I think
239we have 16 districts that we're the solicitor for, and we service well over 30 or 35 in many different counties, and everybody uses board docs, and everybody's facing this. So, I think that's a very, this big question. There's really no easy answer. I think if you were to do it in-house, what you would lose on the policy side would be the PSDA does do a lot of updates where they take the laws that are passed, and then they tell you what laws, what, excuse me, policies should be, or like a mandated change or a recommended change for legal liability. Both for existing. And or new. Right. So, and that's a service that they provide. It's very beneficial. It's lawyers doing it who work for PSDA, and it means that none of the school districts use
240board docs and have to pay their solicitor. I mean, that would be like a full-time job for me, you know, to do that. So, I think that that is a key loss if you take it in-house. You're going to have to then make sure that you're compliant. And that's probably going to cost you just as much as if you stayed with, I don't actually know how much board docs cost, but yeah. So, that would be my take on it. Now, can you do that? Yes. No, you can do anything you want. I don't really know about the agendas. I think that's a historical issue because you don't, most people don't have them in paper anymore. So, right. Right. Because you just have them on there. So, I think that's a bigger issue. It's like, where
241does the historical data go? I had a question today. Yeah. But I mean, to bring that in-house. You don't have to, like, you could probably, like, your agenda is something you could, you know, in my view, that's a little easier than a policy. But I had a day, I had a question, this was from a borough, but it was about who owns a piece of property. And the answer was in a 1963 resolution. So, the engineer found it in his file. So, I think that that's something. And I think that's something that we need to keep in mind, too. It's just about the historical data. I would think the other parts of that are not just, and I actually have a concern on the historical data on the policy end as well. Because it does
242keep record of when things are revised and, you know, and the amount of money that we would spend, because we probably have to hire somebody to come in and set them up, right, either for the agenda side or the policy side, the amount of money that we would spend. Right. Yeah. To pay somebody to come in and set all that up is going to be way far beyond what we will spend in fees. Right. And the other part of that is easy access. You know, I like being able to go and look it up at the click of a finger. I like being able to say to community members who have a question on a policy, you can find the policy here. You can find the agenda here. I like being able to, I just
243last week was looking at it. I was looking at the agenda and the agenda and minutes from a meeting in 2021. You're going to lose some of that while you're setting up. Like, and the one thing that they're offering is they're going to do that for us. But I think there's a lot of things to keep in mind. I would venture to say you'd spend way more overhead. You'd have to have some kind of a system or program. You're going to have to have somebody come in and set it up. You're going to have to then have training. And then you're going to have to have a lot of training for whoever's going to try to maintain that. That's all going to cost. Yeah. Yeah. And for those of you in the audience, this is
244important only because policies are like the laws of the district. It's how the district runs itself. And districts are required to have updated policies on many different things. So for example, if a district does not have a nondiscrimination policy, they can be sued very easily. They would be spending lots of money in damages. So I think that this is not just something that they could get rid of. This is a functioning part of the operation of Ivory School District. Thank you. Sure. What is the cost of that subscription? But for board jobs working, when I saw one of the . Within that, yeah, I think that. What, two? Is that a month or a year? No. For the whole program. And it's not part of. Yeah. Well, I think anything's going to be a change.
245Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be a little bit of a learning curve for all of us. And I will also say too, if it doesn't work, PSBA will hear about it from every district in the state. Oh, yeah. And then it'll come back. You know what I mean? Like if it says it's not working, it won't just be not working for McGuffey. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm always looking outside the box for ideas on what we could possibly do. It might be pennies in a bucket. But to me, just like my grocery bill, if I cut things here and there, eventually I save some money. So that's all I try to do. But anyways, that kind of leads me into my next thing I wanted to mention. I kind of
246already sort of mentioned it a little bit earlier is I believe it was four districts in Pennsylvania that have balanced the budget. I would love for us, and I don't have the specific districts currently at my fingertips, but I would like for us as a group with our administration to try to figure out what they did. Can we apply it here? I think it's in the best interest of our district, of our kids, of our constituents, teachers, staff, administrators. If we really want to try not to head down this path of raising taxes every year, how can we get there? Right now we're just not there. And, you know, I don't know. I just think there's more we could do. That's really what it comes down to. So what I would like to say is
247I'm going to share the information that I have found so far with everybody. I don't know where we start. I think it might be you that leads it. But I do think it would be beneficial for us to start looking at that now as we go on to this next year into next school year for next year's budget conversations. And I think that's really important. I think it would be helpful. I'm not saying it's not a good idea. But before we get too far down into this, I think it would be helpful to know are they districts that are comparable to ours, both in revenue, expenses, faculty? Yeah, all of it. Lots of revenue over a period of time. Are we really comparing apples to apples or not? Okay. because those four districts could be
248drastically different. You could be looking at something like Hanna-Mack. Yeah, it doesn't relate to the particular situation that we find ourselves in. So I think before we get too far, I would ask we look for specific information as to if they are actually comparable to where we are. Right. That's exactly what I mean. That's why I said I'll share the information and we'll start somewhere. All right. Thank you. Any – yes? There are districts that face the same issues that we face, but they handled it differently. So I think we need to research what they did and why they were – why they're better off than we are now, I guess. Yeah. They handled the situation better. Yeah. You know, they were – yes, it was a much more proactive approach, and, you know, we
249need to learn from your mistakes. Yeah, exactly. It's life. It's life. It's nobody's fault. It happened, whatever. You know, but you just – to solve this whole problem, it's stuff that has compounded over the years, you know. Right. I agree. And I just want to clarify, it's not – I'm not saying anybody did a bad job or anything to that effect. I just know I think it's possible. Like, I do have that hope. I really do. And maybe it's a false hope. I don't believe it's a false hope. But I think if nobody has hope, we're just going to keep doing the same thing. Right. And I think we need to just – I think we need to just work on moving forward and do what we can and research. And I'm not saying everybody
250hasn't done enough. It's just – that's my hope. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. That's all for me. Anybody else? Thank you all. I make a motion to adjourn. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you all in the community and our staff for coming. Thank you. What time? Thank you. Thank you. Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.