001Okay, we should be good. Just bear with me a second. And we may begin. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the September 29th regular meeting of Mithakton School District Board of Directors. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, the public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting. Given the need to conduct this school board meeting in a virtual environment, the board of directors required members of the public wanting to make comments on agenda items or courtesy of the floor to pre-register by 5 p.m. this evening. For attendance, let's take our roll call
002vote. Ms. Cancro? Here. Ms. Drummond? Here. Thank you. Ms. Hull? Here. Mr. McGinnis? Mr. McGinnis? Looks like his unmute was not working there. I see him. I can see that he's, we'll give him a minute and circle back. Mr. Navarette? Yes, I'm here. Ms. Perdue? Here. Ms. Reese? Here. Mr. Winters? Here. Mr. McGinnis, have you gotten your mic situation squared away yet? Here. There we go. Thank you. Okay, now for recognition of guests and scheduled speakers, I turn it over to Dr. Zerbe. Thank you, Madam President. This evening, we have a number of guest speakers. We have the M Award presentation, Award of Excellence, an update on the return to on-premise instruction, and spectator conversation and potential action by the board this evening. With that, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr. Sergini, high
003school principal at Methacton High School. Dr. Sergini. Good evening, Dr. Zerbe, members of the Board of School Directors, and members of the Methactin community. Methactin is known for our commitment to excellence. It is shared by our students, family, staff, and community. Each year, we present M Awards to our Methactin High School students and our COLA students who have achieved 93% or greater overall cumulative grade point average for the previous school year. Tonight, I am proud to announce that for the 2019-2020 school year, 419 Methactin High School students in grades 9 through 11 earned M Awards for their academic excellence. To put that figure into perspective, these students make up about 37% of the total 9th, 10th, and 11th grade classes in the 2019-2020 school year. This shining achievement is a testament to the dedication and
004hard work of our students and the unwavering support provided by our families, teachers, and staff. While these unprecedented times have impacted our ability to deliver our traditional in-person presentation, it does not minimize the outstanding work of our 419 awardees. In an effort to honor these outstanding students for their academic excellence in a special way, I've not only provided the board with the names of the 2019, 2020, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade M Award honorees, but I've also produced a video dedicated exclusively to the M Award presentation. It includes an overview of the M Awards before revealing the names of each student who earned an M Award. The video and an accompanying article has been posted on the Methacton High School website under featured news and announcements. I hope this will allow our students and their
005families to celebrate these incredible achievements at their convenience. And I'm grateful this evening to have had the time and the opportunity to come before you and to provide the congratulations to all of our students for this excellent award. Thank you very much. Well done. And thank you, students and families, for these great accomplishments. And thank you, Dr. Sergini and Ms. Kelly, for all your work in preparing the video that we'll be sharing with the community and the families. Any questions from members of the board on the M Award? At this point in time, seeing no questions, I'd like to move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the Award of Excellence. The Methactin Award of Excellence for September 2020 recognizes six outstanding employees who represent the Farina Education Center and the Facilities
006Department. First, we'd like to recognize and honor George Bernsteel. maintenance mechanic. George was hired in March of 1989 and became a full-time mechanic in January of 1990. He is very talented, possesses a strong knowledge of district facilities, and is always willing to help out. Those who meet and work with George always comment on his outstanding personality and willingness to fix and resolve issues. Congratulations, George. Our next awardee is Eileen Brown. Eileen Brown is secretary to the director of technology. Eileen is an essential member of the technology office. From her willingness to jump in and help with small and large tasks to her diligence with her normal tasks, Eileen has continued to be an anchor for this department. Congratulations, Eileen. The next awardee we have is Noreen DiPrenzio. Noreen is the secretary to the director of
007facilities. Noreen joined the district in 2008 as a recess aide at Worcester and then became an office assistant at Woodland Elementary School. In April 2015, she moved to the position of construction secretary for the high school fields project. In 2016, she became the secretary to the facilities director. Noreen has exemplary organizational skills, a positive personality, and is an integral part of the facilities team. Congratulations, Noreen. Next, we have Cheryl Dungy. Cheryl is the payroll specialist. Cheryl is the commensurate professional and a very valuable member of the business office. As a payroll specialist, she handles payroll changes, processing, and questions while ensuring that the information is provided in an accurate manner to all individuals. Cheryl has taken on various other functions and has rose through the COVID-19 pandemic, and she has been able to handle them
008all with grace. and positivity. Congratulations, Cheryl. Next we have Liz Yantosh. She's an HR specialist. As our human resource specialist, Liz focuses on employee resources from the start of their employment until retirement. Her knowledge of the state law and programs along with contractual matters have been a tremendous asset to the HR department. She continually excels through her research and communications related to the programs and options we can offer our employees. Congratulations, Liz. And our last awardee for the month of September is John Zeder. John is a high school custodian. John was hired as a casual on call in August of 1995 and joined the team as a full-time custodian at the high school in October of 1998. With over 20 years of experience in the school district, John is very outgoing and he has always
009been praised for a job well done. John needs little direction when given a task and has always been committed to putting his best foot forward. Congratulations, John. And lastly, I want to congratulate all of the award winners for the month of October. They are a very special group of individuals that contribute a tremendous deal to the organization and the operation of the school district. And we can't thank them enough. So when you see any of these awardees, please thank them personally or send them an email. It means a lot to each one of these individuals for the recognition by the board and by the administration for the work. that these fine individuals have done. So next on the agenda, if there aren't any questions about the awardees, we have the return to on-premise instruction update.
010Spare with me till I get to that presentation. So good evening. And before I begin, I want to address two updates on the agenda before I get into this presentation. And this is important for members of the public who choose to comment on board action items. The first item, I just want to make sure that everyone's aware that we will be issuing the oath of office to the student board reps under the report section, item 6G, and then allowing them to provide their reports. And secondly, we will then have the board vote on the student board reps under item 10, as they normally would following public comment. The second item that I want to bring to the attention of the public is under item 12K15, and that is supplemental contracts item under personnel. And the
011motion should read as follows. retroactively approved the supplemental contracts in the amount of $205,871.58 for the attached list of sponsors effective 2020 to 2021 school year. The attachment on the agenda reflects that number, but the number there in the motion does not reflect the attachment. So with that said, I just want to make the public aware of that and the board as well. Dr. Zerbe, could you repeat that dollar amount, please? I want to make sure I have it accurate in my version. Yes, it's 205-871.58. Thank you. You're welcome. So the goal of our discussion this evening on the return to on-premise instruction is to seek approval from the board for the administration to prepare a plan for a return to on-premise instruction. So before I begin the details, I want to start with my
012recommendation. And based on the information that I will be sharing with you shortly this evening, I am recommending that the board approve the administration to proceed with developing a plan for a return to on-premise instruction that provides for students in K through 12 a return in a hybrid model beginning on or about November 12, 2020. It is also important that I update everyone on the process by which this recommendation is before the board this evening. So on September 10th, I presented to the Education Committee of the Board a framework, or we'll call it a process, of what is required to develop a plan to return to on-premise instruction. That evening, I shared that a return to on-premise requires the following actions. The first... the establishment of metrics that we use to make a decision to
013return to on-premise, and a set of metrics to use to determine a need to return to all online given the community spread of COVID. So I explained on the 10th, as I explained a number of times thereafter, that having a set of metrics by which the board and the administration can use to determine how we need to best provide not only the instructional model, but provide for a safe and healthy environment while providing instruction is critical to our decision-making process. That same evening, I mentioned the second manner was preparedness. And in my presentation, I outlined a need to conduct a staff survey that addresses the matter of having enough staff to adequately provide for the program. That means that the district concern now is the same concern that we had back in July. was how
014many staff have legitimate medical or childcare matters where they are afforded the option to take leave of absence in lieu of their then assignment. So the second part of preparedness was to acquire all the PPE. and to acquire enough stock for six months. And we've heard from Mr. Jones on a number of occasions, and he confirmed just this week that the last part of the initial order, these were the backpacks for the electrostatic sprayers. have been received and we are more than prepared to be able to address the sanitization and disinfecting processes associated with any such return to on-premise. And in addition to that, having enough PPE for six months, we also said that we needed to update our health and safety plan with more specifics. The third part of preparedness was to prepare protocol
015for training for staff and students, and that is in the works. But again, that is based on the update and specifics associated with the health and safety plan. We also said under preparedness, we need to complete any final matters associated with transportation. Given the fact that we were already prepared back in August or in late July with nearly being complete with transportation so that it would begin in late August, we were well on our way and we are well on our way to providing whatever transportation services are needed with whatever plan we move forward with. So we're well prepared there. And the last part of preparedness was updating the instructional protocol associated with whatever model of delivery we were going to determine to use to go forward. And those are the particulars to what teachers
016need and how they need to be able to do things and have them prepared in order to be able to best accomplish the tasks that we're asking them to accomplish. The third matter under the framework was the approach. And basically what I shared there is that we need to take the concept of bringing back students in phases. And we already started this process by bringing students back in first phase here in September. And Dr. Angstad, our director of pupil services, has mentioned not only in the education committee meeting, but in other meetings, that we've already begun bringing back students, both autistic and life skills students. And we will continue to make additional plans to bring back more students that may have IEPs or other. 504 plans, etc., as time proceeds. And the fourth matter that
017we needed to address under the framework was the matter of the instructional model. And basically that boils down to either all online, some form of hybrid, or a full in-person model. So this evening, we are at this point in the decision-making process. We need to determine the instructional model so that we can prepare a plan. that will articulate what each option will look like and help parents make a decision that best fits their families' and child's needs. So the goal, again, of our discussion this evening is centered on the instructional model. Sure, we have a number of other items to address, including updating the health and safety plan and finishing up a number of the matters I just mentioned just a few seconds ago. But our goal here this evening is to look at the
018instructional model. So with that said, we have an updated information from last Tuesday. Given the metrics with which we are that are recommended by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, a hybrid return to on-premise instruction K through 12 provides the greatest likelihood of a consistent and long-term approach based on the metrics. If you look at the chart and you look at the two far right-hand columns and you look at the percent positivity rate from example zero all the way up to the second row where it says from five to 10%, we have the greatest spread of positivity that we can endure before we have to change from a hybrid or blended, sometimes called blended learning model. In terms of preparedness, It's important that we talk about the staff's survey. While we received preliminary direction for a
019return to on-premise instruction from the board at last week's work session meeting, again, there was not a vote on the matter, but individual feedback from board members was provided on a number of different questions that I posed. But following that meeting, we received much feedback from parents and staff on that direction to the affirmative and some to the contrary. That discussion by the board needs to be recognized that it was absent at the time of these results of the professional teacher staff survey. While we were in discussions, we were still working through the survey results. and the subsequent follow-up required by HR based on the responses that staff provided. So on Monday, having gotten the final results and having reviewed them, it was clear to me that the district has a significant challenge to staff
020the programs and services appropriately given the following results. And I don't mean to read the slides, but I think it's important that we talk about what some of these things mean. When we talk about the professional staff survey, we're talking about 398 professional staff responded to the survey, either directly to the survey, and if they didn't complete it by the time, HR followed up with those individuals directly and spoke with them and registered their responses. There is still one member that remains outstanding as of this presentation that we need to get in contact with to complete the survey. Of the 398 respondents, 109 responded in a manner that required follow-up or that requires follow-up from human resources. Of that 109, 35 responded stating that they live with or care for someone who has a medical
021condition. I want to be clear to the board at this moment in time that we have not followed up with those 35 individuals. While HR has talked to some of those, as of this presentation, not all 35 have been contacted, but we will be doing that. But in terms of the other respondents, there were nine that originally stated that they have a documented medical condition and a plan that... do not return to on-premise if that is their only choice to do so. We have 16... staff that have documented child care matter and will use the and the FFCRA stands for a family first coronavirus response act while their child is in a fully or partially closed school. So a lot of times this depends upon what other schools are doing around us in general driving
022distance because if their children are at home they may because of the school closure elsewhere. we may be required to give them up to 10 weeks of this child care leave. Again, that's 10 weeks. I believe, Mr. Regina, that's 10 weeks at a reduced pay. Could you confirm that? I don't know if it's half pay or three quarters pay. I can't remember. Yeah, it's two thirds pay, no more than $200 a day. Thank you, Mr. Regina. The next item is we have 16 staff that have a documented metal condition that have stated that they plan to return on premise so long as a hybrid or reduction in class size occurs. So there may be some more questions from the members of the board on this, and we will take those questions after I get through
023the rest of the presentation. But a specific note here, the potential for our district to proceed forward with a direction other than a hybrid, given these results, could mean that we need potentially between 9 to 50 professional staff. While we stated last week that we could likely get 9 to 15 elementary staff, upwards of this number would be very challenging. So that leads us to what I see as our only path forward at this time. I do not mean that this should be the path in perpetuity, but given the information that I have and our desire to return students to on-premise instruction, I share that being able to plan for a reduced population of students, keeping schedules and student... students and teacher relationships intact, leveraging the spacing to the greatest extent possible in classrooms, and
024being able to deliver on a path forward with the least amount of challenges, we would need to implement a hybrid model K-12 on or about November 12, 2020. This evening, I'm not asking the board to approve a specific hybrid model. But the premise that the administration gather feedback from the principals and teachers regarding the best hybrid approach and include that in the recommendation to the board at a future meeting for their approval prior to asking parents to select on-premise or remain all online. Listed here are some of the options that we have already discussed and we will continue to discuss, and there may be others as well. So in terms of the recommendation given the professional staff survey and the metrics and PDE instructional delivery model chart, the motion that I have asked to be
025placed on the agenda for your consideration this evening is to approve the administration to proceed with developing a plan for a return to on-premise instruction that provides for students in K-12 a return in a hybrid model beginning on or about November 12th. Assuming that there are five members that vote to move this recommendation forward, this is generally the timeline by which we would operate under. And I don't want to read all of these items, but I think the key points are... We would want to schedule a special meeting that occurs on the same evening as our work session. So we would advertise that and we would hold that meeting prior to the work session. And we would bring forward to the board basically two plans. One, the plan for delivering the hybrid instructional model and
026B, the updated health and safety plan for the board to consider. So if you see also prior to that, you would see that I'm suggesting that we would release the update of the health and safety plan based on feedback we get from the pandemic team and the feedback that we've been getting from others across the district. We would also then want to get additional feedback from our public prior to the board seeing that on the 20th. We would also hold discussions prior to that with teacher focus groups at every building. We would hold discussions with the labor leaders and administrators. And it all starts, if you approve this evening, it all starts with a meeting scheduled for October 5th with the Education Committee and that process. with the hope that by somewhere around November 12th
027or possibly as late as November 16th that we would be bringing our first set of students back into a hybrid on-premise environment. So that ends my presentation on the recommendation. I'll take questions from members of the board on this recommendation or any of the slides. I have some very basic timeline questions. So we vote tonight for the administration to move forward. I did see your timeline and we're not asking for any commitment from parents yet. When would some of the specifics be shared? What I mean by that is every district is sharing their information a little differently. So for example, last evening where I work, They made the decision for K-6. They're still a little bit up in the air for 7-12. But they did share with everyone a very detailed plan as to what
028happens when a child exhibits symptoms or a teacher, etc. So when could we expect that? Would that be October 16th? Is that what that means there? Yes, so the matter of which you gave an example would be something that is included in the health and safety plan, and that would be updated. And what I would ask is that we have sometimes all the paperwork and all the, you know, all the links and documents, if we could have. one of our medical people, whether I don't want to, I don't want to voluntold Ms. Pfeiffer, but whoever is, is, would be the most appropriate to share some of those things with us. It was very helpful. A district had a nurse share in a very layman's terms, exactly what happens for different things like a cough or
029this or that. And it was helpful. And I would think it would help parents make a, just help, help teachers feel comfortable. or more comfortable, maybe not totally comfortable, and help parents feel more comfortable? That's one question. That's a good suggestion. We have two nurses on our pandemic team, and I think maybe together they could team up and provide some of that direct reporting when we go to present. And then I know a lot of people will have other questions, a couple that stuck out to me. So when we discuss staff and I want it to be, you know, no one begrudges them the ability to take leave. And, you know, I hope those with medical conditions can get through this pandemic. And I hope those with child care issues are able to juggle it
030because I know it's hard financially. I know it's hard because people are committed to their careers. Everybody has a different situation. But I guess this is more of a question for Mr. Regina. Of the nine staff or the 16 staff that we know and has been wonderful in being up front with us that they may or may not be able to continue, and I'm not asking for specifics, are any of them of concern not to be able to either do their job virtually or... be or find a replacement temporarily? Yes. To answer that question, we are concerned with that. Okay. And do, I know sometimes you can't pre-prepare, you know, there's only so much you can do, but are there steps that we're taking now to kind of solve some of that prior to November?
031Yeah, there's a, number of different ideas that we are, Dr. Zerbe and I and the pandemic team are sharing, but also some of these, the nine staff members have asked about some of those specific things that they heard about other districts doing. Would we be able to do that here? And I think that will be all part of the planning and preparation part of what we're going to be doing over the next month. Okay. Thank you. I'll let some other people go. Thank you, Ms. Reese. Bear with me. Are there other questions from members of the board? Mr. Winters? Okay, thank you. Dr. Zerbe, you pointed out the staffing issue with the feedback we got from all but one MEA member. How does the hybrid solve that delivery mechanism, that particular issue, if there's an
032expectation that they're in? It doesn't seem to resolve that with the hybrid. Well, with the hybrid model, a lot of the feedback that we've received is associated with the reduced class. Let me just get the depreciation. I'll explain that to you in just a second. So when we look at the hybrid model, we're talking about being able to target almost a 50% reduction. And that's a 50% reduction in what is potentially be less than the regular. size of a class. So as an example, let's just take a high school class which has a maximum class size of 30 and there are some classes that are 30. That means that at somewhere along this continuum, the greatest likelihood is that there will be anywhere from, you know, if no one goes online for that particular section
033of a class that has 30 in it, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of having 15 students in hybrid every other day rotation cycle. Now, again, I used to parentheses number will not be a perfect 50% because it's going to be based on. not just one singular class as example in the high school, but the best fit for the majority of the classes, which typically is, you know, could find ourselves with having 10 students in one class and 15 in another class and possibly another five completely all online. So the 50% reduction. is likely also not only be 50% of the 30, but 50% of what is also less the number of students that stay all online altogether. I understand this, Dave, for sure. I think that reducing the number of students in the
034classroom for social distancing and the safety of all, understood. But from the 93, I don't remember the exact number. of the staff that had concerns about coming back, that doesn't resolve that issue. 109 required for VDOT. So you got 16, whatever that is, that's 70, 80, 70 or 80. So I'm just trying to understand how this problem gets solved with the hybrid. Yes, so Mr. Winters, depending on the group that you're referring to, so there's the group of nine, there's the group of 16, and then there's a second group of 16. The fact that going to a less number of students makes the one group of 16 more likely to be in on the on-premise process. The nine that we have shared with you are in an on-premise situation. They are definitely out. And then
035the 16 for the FFCRA are individuals that depending on our schedule and depending on the schedule of their child, they may be in or they may be out. Yeah. So there will be a need for additional staff likely. But the other benefit here is, is if we find ourselves being able to. we'll call it use some of the same mechanisms that other school districts have done, we can find ourselves being able to keep those teachers that have indicated that they're only going to be comfortable working all online, we may be able to leverage them in that manner specifically, which would also help reduce the number of challenges here. Okay, so let me ask you a different question. If we implemented a K, I'm not arguing these, I'm just trying to understand. So just the K
036through 12, how many staff do we believe that we will need based on the feedback that they've given Che and so forth? I believe the numbers we're seeing here of the requirements are, I think, understating the impact that would have on our staff. Because I believe some, no matter if it's a hybrid or not, are not going to choose not to go back. That's true. So do you have an estimation based on this survey where we have almost 100% participation of what staff? I know that it depends on the grade level and the circumstances of what we deliver and the amount of students. I understand there's a lot of ifs that have people hesitating on that answer. But the purpose of the survey was to understand, are we talking 50 or 60, 80, 90, 15?
037In my presentation this evening, I said we're going to be somewhere between nine and 50. Okay. Paul, I think I might have a way of looking at this. So we have 25 staff members who have identified a reason that they would be unable to return to a full in-person model and would be compensated in some way to do so. So that's the nine plus the 16 with FFCRA. The 16 with the medical condition, that's going to depend on the model that we go with. But the 35 that we talk about there that responded that they live with or care for someone are not necessarily entitled to any type of leave. So, I mean, there's a lot of variables in there. And I actually was going to ask Che about this, and it may help with
038what you're asking, Paul. But for those 35 with family medical conditions, my understanding is that depending upon the medical condition that the family members have and the degree of care that's required, some of those individuals may be eligible for traditional family and medical leave. That is correct, Kim. Okay. So we've got some number of that 35 that we would be out. We have the nine who are unable to come back no matter what. We have 16 who... likely can't come back full time unless their school comes back full time. So it's going to be working with them on an individual level. And then 16 who will come back with reduced class size. So hopefully I may have helped with some of that, Paul, and didn't just add to the confusion. But if I added to
039the confusion, just pretend I said nothing and carry on. So let me ask you a different way. Is there a way to, is there been any discussion or is there an alternative on sort of shared teaching that required that allows sort of we co-teaching I know is not the terminology in this case usually meant with the special education but is there any discussion about co-teaching sort of a larger class of 50 maybe in second grade? Well, certainly, I think we need to find, first of all, we need to understand that we need to set a direction. And I think there's going to be staffing issues no matter what on-premise direction that we take. But when I said earlier that the hybrid model likely provides us the least number of challenges because it's the most, I'll
040call it attractive in terms of any of the solutions to return to on-premise based on the feedback that we're receiving. It makes the most sense that we stand a greatest chance of keeping. as many of these staff that are in these numbers working either in conjunction with other teachers or providing online instruction or, you know, as you mentioned, co-teaching or a number of different ways. And those are some of the strategies that we've learned that other districts are using. And I know Mr. Regine is well up on that, on those conversations and we'll try to employ those to the greatest extent possible so that. A, we might not need any staff if we can get everybody to cooperate and do the things in terms of a structure that works best for kids. But we may
041find ourselves meeting a couple, but I can't honestly say that I'm going to have success looking for 50 staff members. And one thing we didn't discuss yet, Mr. Winters, is this isn't about just bodies in terms of professional staff. The specifics is hidden in these numbers. And what I mean by that is, and because of personnel matters that we can't discuss here in a public meeting, there are certifications inside those numbers that traditionally are hard to find. And if they are subject to not working for us in any capacity, whether online or on premise. that is even a much larger challenge for us than just, as an example, just needing a regular elementary certified teacher. Yeah, so that's certainly my direction. If it's 950, certainly want to employ as many as the 398 and find
042a way that's a solution for everybody. So I guess just to be quicker on this, I'm looking at this from safety first, education, our ability to transition back and forth, because I think that's a... One way or another, if we don't have that transition and we don't have that continuity with the current teachers that you've already experienced for the first three weeks, we're really probably blowing up the educational aspect as well. So why don't you just ask a couple of quick questions. The 7 to 12, did that include streaming or that was purely just a hybrid two days in, two days out, one day online? Yeah, the discussions that we had with 7 through 12, even prior to gathering the information on the staffing, the completion of the staffing data, was to provide a hybrid
043model whereby it was, you know, alternating every other day and that it would allow for the staff to provide services not only directly to the students on premise, but to students online both. for the full online and those that are off cycle of the hybrid. Okay. So it is not, it's not streaming. It can be. So the discussion was that it would be important, at least at that time, it was important to allow for the teacher to have the discretion in order to best plan for either an asynchronous lesson or for streaming. Not every matter requires that. And again, this is all, I just want to be sure. I know there's a lot of questions, but I want to make sure that everyone knows that the things I'm saying about the plan. Don't aren't crystallized
044yet because we didn't bring the plan forward to you and we haven't shared and gotten the feedback from you know our staff to the degree that we need so so I'm kind of jumping the gun these responses. But, but all I'm telling you is what we've discussed so far. Yeah, that's fine. I'm sorry. I'll try to keep it more on the on the directional but then so that when he asked you this. I'll skip some other questions that were more specific and obviously maybe somebody else will ask her, it will be come clear later on. but I believe many of us want the social emotional learning aspect to be not just the traditional educational aspect is what we're trying to why we're looking at this. So but also there's been the it's obvious that the
045all full 37 hours of working for our staff online is probably not sustainable. And I know we're already making changes about that this week with some additional planning time. But what risk, is there a risk? And is it a risk where we're willing to maybe give up on or even accept with the number of hours of delivery that we are required to give in the 180 days of education? And I know that there's state subsidies associated with that, but if it's a state subsidy that is the amount of hours and if we miss it by a little bit, maybe we're willing to accept that because we believe it's a better education and delivery model. Well, I think what you're asking, Mr. Winters, is that because of the requirements of the 900, 990 hours by state
046law in the 180-day, with the 180-day requirement, it's not so much a concern that we're not going to meet those hours or those days. The most important part of the consideration is a are the activities that we're providing for the students meaningful and in line with being able to deliver the curriculum. So that's that's been our primary goal from the from the from the beginning on this. But we've had a lot of discussion, at least from the K-6 level recently, whereby we think that looking at other ways of providing that instruction and providing for practice is also commensurate with what's eligible underneath the hours and not necessarily the days, but eligible under the hours. So it's a matter of whether or not the actual activities. are consistent with what should be done in an educational
047environment. So it's not like we were giving, I'll just say something terrible here, but it's not we're giving Wednesdays off so that students, you know. you know, can take a break. That's never going to be part of our conversation because if we gave Wednesdays off, that would mean that every Wednesday for, say, six and a half hours, we would have to reduce that amount of hours from the total calculation. So with that said, the type of discussion that we have been having, and Ms. Reese had brought this up in education committee meeting and also probably in the last work session as well, but working on a plan that allows us to continue progressing with our instruction, providing practical approaches to that instruction in a different manner that doesn't require the student and or the teacher.
048to be on the screen and on, you know, 100% of the time on every given day throughout the five days of the week. So our elementary principals have begun speaking with our teachers about that model. Our goal is to continue to make sure that we are meeting the educational requirements and we will not waiver on the hour requirements. If in fact there is a concern about from my perspective on the wavering of our requirements, it's my obligation to inform the board that we might be taking an action that would subject to a reduction of hours. And therefore, I'd have to get your approval on that because you were right, as you mentioned before, that has an impact on our subsidy. And that's not an action that I can take independently. But in terms of modifying
049the instructional program to meet the needs of the students in working with the teachers and working with our principals, we are working on a plan that will keep the educational program moving forward. At the same time, meeting the requirements of our curriculum and those established by the state under the hourly requirement. Okay, thank you. Sorry for taking so much time. No, these questions are appropriate. That's what we're here for. And it's my job to make sure we answer them thoroughly. And maybe I speak too many words, but I want to make sure that we get everyone what they need. So other questions on the presentation, on the recommendation? Ms. Perdue? So I have, I guess, a clarified question. Based on the responses from the survey from the staff, And I'm going to ask this question
050knowing you may not have the full answer. Are we concerned about implementing a hybrid model just based on the survey results we have so far? Yes, there is a concern with implementing any on-premise model. But as I said earlier, we stand the greatest ability to deliver on a hybrid model compared to any of the other models that may be before us. with obviously with the exception of an all online model, meaning we already are in that mode. And I hate to say this, but the truth of the matter is this board could make a determination that, you know, we just stay put and stay in an all online mode. I professionally don't recommend that only because we should try to do our best to provide and prepare an option for on-premise. But, you know, there
051are risks in making any change in the middle of a school year that most of them we've kind of anticipate. But until we get through the process, until I provide you with a health and safety plan and an instructional plan, until I have the conversations with the principals, you know, there could be some things that, you know, are new to us in terms of how to best approach that. So the answer is. Yes, there will be challenges no matter what type of on-premise program we provide. And some of that will be associated with staff because it will be complicated. If we're going to say take this number of staff that we've provided to you and say that we need to find a way to fit them in. And keeping many working either online or providing
052them the opportunity to work on premise in a way that keeps them working. You know, it's going to take some work. And listen, I also must say this because I'm just laying it all out there. Just because we start with an honor, maybe November 12th, everybody, we have all the staff in place. On November 13th or 16th, I could get a number or Jay could get a number of letters saying I'm done or I'm taking leave. So the risk is never ending, to be honest with you. And that's just the point I wanted to make just to highlight that. Although we're talking about this now and looking to implement this plan, there's no guarantee. My next question, and it's not really a question, but I wanted to ask if you can review the hybrid model
053as you show for K-6. I know you're showing a few different options. Are you able to speak to that a little bit? I know that's... We don't have all the meat here. We're just really looking at it. But I was just wondering, I understand the traditional alternating model. But I was wondering, a little bit more curious about the alternating day with, I guess, transition and midday or what the afternoon, modified afternoon schedule, what those plans look like. So one of the, well, the discussions in some of our elementary meetings was about maybe having the hybrid occur at midday. That way, every student gets to school five days a week. They then switch it in the middle of the day. We don't necessarily need to feed them lunch. We would send the students home with a
054bagged lunch, and the students coming to us would have already eaten lunch generally. and it would allow for teachers to best manage the instruction from that perspective. Again, there's a number of positives with each of these models. There are a number of drawbacks with each of these models. And to be quite frank with you, I don't have one preference at this level right now that I can say that I feel good about or that our administrative team is committed to working with our teachers on implementing. And that's why you see a number of options here and potential other options that haven't even been listed. In terms of the last one, it's just an alternating schedule with the modified afternoon schedule. And all that means is there would be shortened days where part of the shortened
055days would include in, you know, the shortened part would be the on-premise part, but there would be an additional asynchronous type of work provided in the afternoon for students, as an example. Considering we're making, or we're voting today on... providing, I guess, allowing the administration to proceed to plan or maybe have a little bit more substance as far as what these plans will look like. I'm a little bit curious as far as what we're thinking will happen to the virtual model. Are we all in for hybrid? Is that the plan or is the virtual? Just because I know families that have medical concerns and medical issues that have already made the decision that they will not return back to school year. And I'm just curious as far as that. I don't think we have all
056the answers yet as far as what the virtual will look like, but there's a lot of concerns. So I wanted to know if you can speak about that a little bit. I think it's clear from the Pennsylvania Department of Education guidance that we as a school district provide an online option, no matter what, for students throughout the course of this pandemic process. So the thing that I'm talking about here this evening is not to replace the online program, but to supplement or to provide families an option to the online program. with an on-premise program. And I said on Tuesday's, last Tuesday's meeting, as well as I probably said at the Education Committee meeting, that, you know, I can't give you specifics on what modifications or challenges and changes that may occur to the all-online program.
057You know, generally speaking, you know, the feedback that I've received is that our teachers are doing an outstanding job with the delivery of the online instructional program. It's far beyond the expectations and far beyond what we were doing back in the spring. And so, you know, hats off to our teachers and our principals for making that all work in our curriculum department. But the truth of the matter is, you know, when we start asking people to do more and more tasks, you know, those tasks sometimes... get challenged and we need to make sure that we find the right balance of providing instruction on premise, online, for not only the full online students, but the online off cycle. hybrid students. So our goal as part of this process, and if you sit on the timeline, was
058to produce a comprehensive manual that outlines not only what the hybrid delivery will look like, but also what the online delivery will look like so that when a parent looks at the entire manual, they'll be able to read front to cover and get a better understanding and picture of exactly what they'll be signing up for. once they decide they want their child to go into the hybrid environment or to stay all online. So the expectations will be set for the staff, the expectations will be set for the student and the teacher and the, I'm sorry, the student and the parent, and then the parent will then be able to make a selection based on that, on those expectations. And just one more, as you referenced the timeline, November 12 and the 13th are those the
059only two days now that we're thinking for, I guess, when we think about the hybrid model. in preparing our teachers and staff, is that, are those the two days that we're looking at, or do we have more days that maybe is not captured here as far as professional development or giving teachers some time to get, at least to get to practice through the hybrid model just to prepare for November 16th. Yeah, I think we're going to ask for feedback as we develop the conversation about what this actually looks like. And then when teachers realize what it looks like, they will likely give me feedback if we need more days or if our principals believe we need more days to prepare, we'll look at doing that. But as of right now, if you look at the
060way the schedule is set up in terms of how the first marking period ends, it'll end on the 11th. The next day, we'll start the next marking period. It just seems like a natural break to have the in-service or the Act 80 days on the 12th and 13th and then to start a phased-in approach starting the 16th. But again, that could change based on the development of this plan and then the approval that we bring before you on the 20th of October. But I believe it's important for everyone, not only the board, but the public to understand that, you know, this is our timeline. As of right now, it may, it may need to adjust. It could be, it could come sooner. It could come later. It shouldn't be more much later than what we're
061stating here, but it certainly keeps everybody on our toes and keeps the myself and the administration, you know, apprised of the deadlines and timelines that we need to hit in order to make sure that we're providing this opportunity if the board so desires it. Other questions on the presentation, the recommendation? Ms. Drummond? Yeah, I thank you for the presentation. There's just two points that I'd like to make to ask administration to really consider when moving forward with these plans. One that came up a lot at the last meeting and in emails and it was felt very strongly is the idea of keeping students with their current teacher and their current class as much as possible in whatever however we're doing this. You know, it's just that continuity, I think, is really important. And so I
062would just ask that whatever you plan, you know, just takes that into really strong consideration. The other point is about the virtual model. If students choose to stay entirely virtual or for the students that are you know, on the off days, not on premise. I just, I think it's important for them to continue the same level or at least close to the same level of interactivity as they're getting with their teachers right now. Right now, there's a tremendous amount of interactivity going on and back and forth and, you know, in foreign language, pronunciation and drills and um questions and answers and so if that requires additional staff in a room or on a you know in a pod or something um i think we need to make that happen because i wouldn't want Dr. What
063we're students receive going forward to be less than what they're getting now, which is, you know, has been really amazing delivery and thank you to them in fact and teachers for Dr. Really delivering some great programming for the students. So I just those two points to keep the students and the staff together and to highlight the interactivity going forward in a virtual model. Thank you. Understood. Thank you, Mr. Other questions of Dr. I said, okay, there was Something on your screen. Ms. Aubrey-Larsenese. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Zerbe. One thing that I did hear a lot of from the community after our last meeting was a little bit of frustration about how this process is unfolding. So I did want to speak to that for a quick second because I know that we have a lot
064of people who are paying close attention to the work of the board right now that may not have... been, I guess, as involved in this process as they had been previously. So I want to point out a couple of things that these meetings that we have here are the only time that the nine of us are able to get together to discuss these issues. Legally, we're not allowed to get together at any other time other than a publicly held and advertised meeting. So while it seems like a slow process, it is a necessary process that we need to be able to have these public meetings. It's the first time, a lot of time, that we're seeing the information that's presented to us. And so it's natural that we're going to have questions and there's going
065to be things that need to be clarified. So you guys are watching us work, basically. And I know that can be about as exciting as watching paint dry sometimes, but it is what it is. So I appreciate that there is some frustration. I feel for you. It sometimes feel like we're trying to steer an aircraft carrier here because it's it's tedious, but we'll get there For the 16 staff members that we have that are eligible for the FFCRA, I'm hoping that we can find ways that we can work with them individually to explore the options for giving them some flexibility. So that, for example, if we are returning in a hybrid format, I know from my meeting with the other board presidents this week that other schools are planning on returning in a hybrid format.
066It's not always going to be possible, but when possible, I'm hoping that we can work together with our staff and their schools for their children so that we can find schedules and ways of working with them to accommodate both. I'd like to encourage us to stay flexible with our timeline and not take the full nine to 10 days that a step entails or that a step is allotted right now if it can be done in five. If there's ways that we can move certain parts of this forward quicker than others, let's do it. There may be some hangups along the way that we don't anticipate. So I wanna make sure that we are finding efficiencies with the timeline whenever possible. I know we talked about some of the certification challenges and I want to make
067sure that we kind of come back to that for a split second here. We've seen over the last five years that I've been on the board some challenges with hiring in certain areas. I know that I've seen challenges in sciences and in world languages. So I just want people to be aware that Even under normal circumstances, there are certain positions that are very difficult to fill because of a lack of available teachers. There is a nationwide teacher shortage and finding someone with a specialization such as a world language or a science can be really challenging on a good day. So I hope that we are. fortunate enough that we don't come up against those challenges in COVID, but I also, seeing the way 2020 has gone so far, God only knows what could happen. So
068I just want people to be aware that there are certifications that are exceedingly difficult to find. But I also know that with this hybrid option, there are ways that we can handle some classes at different levels. For example, the more specialized teachers are generally at the high school level where it may be possible, for example, to have that teacher working remotely while the class is there in person. And we have someone in the classroom to facilitate that interaction, but it basically takes the... the Zoom experience that our kids are having right now and just puts it in the school building. So while it's not the same as full face-to-face instruction, it's still a way that we can work towards getting kids back into the building and getting more of that in-person interaction. I do appreciate,
069as Ms. Drummond said, that we are looking at a greater likelihood of keeping our teachers-student relationships together with this hybrid model. One thing that I'm hearing, we earlier today received a survey from MEA that indicated some of the concerns that some of our staff members have with a return to on-premises instruction. I think that there's a lot of unknowns with this, and I recognize that. And I'm hopeful that we can work through those concerns. I think some of those are concerns that we can address. Some of them we may not be able to. I just want people to know that we have them and we're listening and we're doing everything that we can. I know we've talked a lot about the importance of addressing our students' mental health and bringing them back into our buildings.
070I think it's equally important for us to consider the mental health of our staff and what we're asking of them. So whatever we can do to accommodate and to help people through this process, we're committed to finding ways to work with people. And then one final thing is that, actually two. One is that the board has asked, and I'm hoping that it'll be scheduled in the next week or two, for an opportunity to come into the buildings to see exactly what we're working with. in implementing our health and safety plan. I know that there's going to be differences building by building, room by room, but I know I'm a visual person. So when we start talking about 12 desks in a classroom versus 15 or 16. I want to be able to picture that. I
071want to be able to have been in the buildings to see what that is going to look like in terms of spacing and what difference that makes and how the classrooms are going to function. So I want people to be aware of that. And then finally, I'm very, very excited about the timing of our new curriculum guy starting this week. I hope that he's aware of what exactly he's stepping into, but I'm sure that he is. He's coming from Wissahickon where they are currently in person and virtual. So I'm hoping that he will have learnings from there that he can share with us. And that I think will help us to make even quicker headway because Dr. Zerbe has been doing the jobs of many over the last six months and especially the last three
072months without having anybody in the curriculum office to head that up. So I'm hopeful that having that extra help there will. help us to get things done and I think that's all I have for now so thank you. Thank you Madam President. Other comments or questions members of the board? Ms. Hull? I just want to say thank you for the detail in the timeline. I know this is something that we are constantly working on but looking at the timeline we're looking at having feedback from the teachers next week. And I know from the MAA survey that there's a lot of concerns, especially at the younger grades with the hybrid model. So if we could get and value the opinion from the teachers at those younger grades on what the best model is for this, it
073would be appreciated. I know we're expecting them to be able to pivot very quickly, but just that is my concern moving forward. Thank you, Ms. Hall. Any other questions? Seeing no other questions, I'll move on to the... I'll be very brief. I just have to say, I know everyone is just like, I know there's teachers, stakeholders, everyone's here and their brains are probably blown out. What are we doing as we do our next steps? I just want you to realize that... We are in this together and we have an obligation to really provide in-person instruction, not just for the social emotional learning, because in-person instruction provides equity to all the learners. It's about providing in-person instruction for those students that need it. So I know the teachers are going to be challenged. I want us
074to be able to trust that we are going to be prepared for the health and safety plan, implementing all the steps that are needed. helping work with the hybrid model, being able to provide rethinking teaching. I know it's going to be a lot of work. I've seen it firsthand across the state. I've been working with many districts. It's COVID hardworking. It is a work level that we all are dealing with that. But I hope everyone understands that it. virtual learning is not working for all people. And it's important that we provide equity to all the learners. So it will be difficult, but a hybrid model is key. But I think it's also important to open the communication that when the staff are saying shortage, it's across all K through 12. And if we see that
075we may be able to blend in a model of maybe kindergarten all in. five days a week, I really want us to be able to have that open communication with the staff that they want to move to that next level and implement it. I don't want us, I agree with what Ms. Larceny said, I don't want to stick to the timelines as if it is the be-end-all. I want us to work together. If there is a school, a grade that wants to go in and they're able to manage that, we have to trust that judgment once they're in person. Again, I just want you to realize that our goal is really to provide equity to all learners. And I know it's going to be a challenge as we move forward. And I appreciate all of
076you for this. And I actually want to piggyback on one thing that Ms. Cancro brought up. So one of the things that we talked about in our ad hoc committee for the return to in-person instruction is that this hybrid is a first step. So I wanted to be clear that this is not we are going to be hybrid until X date or through the duration of the school year. It's let's get our foot in the door. Let's let's get a foot into literally into the schools and go from there. So we can as we have success with this hybrid model, we can increase the number of students and the number of grades and work. as hopefully our numbers stay where they're supposed to be with the countywide infection rates, and we can start to bring
077more and more students in. So this is just step one. So I don't want anyone to think this is the end all be all. We are going to just stick with this hybrid model and just coast through the rest of the year. We will be continuing to work on ways that we can bring more students in more days until we can safely bring everybody back all the time. Thank you, Ms. Gabriela-Sanis. Any final questions on the matter of return to on-premise recommendation? Seeing no other comment, I'll move on to the next presentation, and that is spectators at athletic events. This presentation in its exact form was shared at last Tuesday's meeting. So I'm not going to go through all the details on this. But in addition to this presentation, there is a second document that
078I'll spend a little bit more time on here this evening. So essentially what we're talking about is the matters of spectators at home events based on this slide and the issues associated with it. Prior to saying that we were going to manage the spectators, we also talked about having a closed or open campus. And again, I just want to make sure that the board knows that we're going to start in an open campus format. And if we get the cooperation from our student body and cooperation from our parents and our community as we proceed in this vein, we'll continue to keep an open campus. But if we find that we're being challenged and the cooperation for, you know. maintaining distance and masking and all the things that we're asking people to do can't be maintained,
079then we may have to go to a closed campus and be more restrictive in who we let on the campus for specific events. So that was outlined and discussed a little bit last week's meeting. But to greater detail, they were talking about the use of two specific areas. We're talking about spectators in the stadium. at the high school and spectators in the gymnasium at the high school. While we have a number of sports that use other fields, in terms of the rules that were originally enforced under the governor's order, it was specifically to enclosed areas, not only indoor areas like our gymnasium, but also the stadium, which is the only enclosed area which has both athletes and participants and spectators. In all other field areas in the outdoors on our campus, they are areas that
080are lined off specifically and gated specifically for players and that spectators generally congregate in other open areas not defined or constrained to a specific set of markings or distance. So with that said, we wanted to provide the board with the examples of the two greatest challenges, the first one being a football game, a home football game in the Mithakton Stadium. We basically are asking that the essential personnel be the students and the athletes and the players and the cheerleaders and the managers, those that are required to run the event for the benefit of the students, to continue to be the 250 max as it was once under the regular rule. In addition to that, we are asking that because in the stadium, specifically, there are I'd like the board to consider that there are actually
081two areas inside the stadium. The first area inside the stadium is the field area, which is lined by a fence itself. That fence then is approximately 15 to 20 yards away from any spectators, which are contained in a separate, I'll call it exterior oval around the area where the players, athletes and cheerleaders participate. I'm asking that we allow for... tickets to be provided to each of the participants. That would be the 52 athletes, the 43 marching band participants, and the 23 cheerleading athletes, where they can use that for adult home spectators, which would be, which would come to a maximum of 223 spectators for a football game at the or in the football stadium. Again, this number, we would not come close to this number at all for other sporting events because the number of
082participants and athletes don't come near to the level that a football contest. would have. So for example, if there are, if there's 30 athletes on the field hockey team, they would each be given two tickets. If there's, you know, 30 athletes on the, on the soccer, on a soccer team, they would be treated the same way. They would be provided two tickets for, for every event that would have to occur inside the stadium. But in terms of a home football event where there's three groups of student participants, athletes, cheerleaders, and marching band, we are asking for... no more than two tickets per each of those participants or a total of 236 athletes. And again, these individuals would be, there would be markings on all the home and visitor side for proper social distancing. In fact,
083it was finalized that it would be eight feet apart rather than six feet apart because of some of the conversation that we had at the last board meeting where There are some people that would sit together as a family unit and some that might not do that. And we are able to accommodate all 236 in that particular fashion. In terms of indoor conversation, we talked about volleyball, where the original rule was 25 total bodies, as an example. That means athletes, coaches, referees. So that was very limiting. And in fact, with that 25 limit, there would be no spectator at all. Given the recent ruling and the ability for us to... provide spectators at this point in time. We are recommending as an administration that we allow the player area, the court area to have up
084to not greater than 30 and that each of the at-home athletes would be given two tickets with a maximum of 22 adults in the stands at one given time. So what would happen is generally the The varsity volleyball match would occur at 4 and the JV match would be at 5.30. The varsity parents would be admitted in. at four o'clock, then be asked to leave at the end of that match. And then the adult JV parents would be permitted in as well, where we have not greater than 22 spectators at one time inside a gymnasium that has a capacity generally to hold 988 folks. So we had a lot of discussion on that. But what we also heard was a need for, and I'm going to bring up the next part of the presentation, the
085need for a way for us to manage the spectators. So I want to share that. and get any feedback. So what we have here is an effort to allow for the opportunity for parents of athletic band and other student activities to view or watch in person. We've created this procedure. The procedure applies to all district-sponsored indoor and outdoor high school stadium events. The term spectator, it defines that for everyone, just to kind of be clear. We are not allowing students into the events. And so our recommendation that and these recommendations are consistent with other schools in the PAC, the Pioneer Athletic Conference, of which we belong to. And that spectators will be home teams supporting attendees only. It goes through a number of these things. It requires that for all indoor spectators that a self
086screening document be provided that will either be done on paper or through a Google form, or they could be done on a It could be done on a phone or something to that effect. And then there's a ticketing procedure that allows us to document the individuals that have the tickets and that are attending the events. So our recommendation is we would be gathering the names for all indoor activities because we can handle the volume of that process. For the outdoor events, we would have at least a reasonable likelihood to be able to do social tracing if needed because we know who... the tickets belong to and we know that we could contact those athletes or participants and find who those tickets were issued to for that particular event if in fact there was a need
087for doing any social tracing. So with that said, I wanted to make sure that the board knows that our recommendation is as it stood last week. I hope that you will consider those opportunities. But before I turn it over for questions, I think it's important to also recognize that there are two issues that you need to be aware of. And those two issues are, one, that there is an appeal of the federal ruling by the Commonwealth on that ruling. So if that appeal is... you know, is granted or not granted, there could be an impact or a result that regardless of what you act on tonight, if you act on anything, it could be, it could have to be changed based on the law. The second thing is, it's my understanding that there has been
088discussion in Montgomery County in terms of the County Department of Health, as well as the County Commissioners, that they too are able to set a limit to outdoor activities or outdoor gatherings. They do not have jurisdiction over indoor gatherings, but they do have jurisdiction over outdoor gatherings. And if they pass a matter. that restricts it to less than what you might consider here this evening, that too could have an impact on this outcome. So this evening, you could vote on something and we could be going down a path that, you know, seems to be appropriate. That path could automatically change in another night. So I just want to be... fair and be transparent with the board that while I think these recommendations are appropriate and reasonable, they could be subject to a change regardless of
089what your decision is. So I'll open it up to questions on this matter. Ms. Reese? A couple things. One is just to reiterate what Dr. Zerbe said. We had a long discussion in our IU meeting. just about what Dr. Serbi said because of legislation at the state and I warned all of you kind of about this that we'd be hearing about it that all of this is an appeal and it can change so just be aware and I just we received several emails and I apologize to the people for not getting back to them we received a bunch in a zip drive so it's hard to get back especially if we receive them late because then we have to type in your email address we just can't hit reply. But a couple of them mentioned
090that we voted no to spectators. And I just wanted to make it clear that we did not vote no to spectators. This came to our attention last week, last Tuesday. directly before our work session. And directly before our work session, we had an exec session where we did not discuss that. We're not allowed. We discussed something. We are allowed. So anyway, just wanted to make it clear. We just voted that we wanted to wait until our voting meeting so that we could absorb the information and let Dr. Zerbe put together. what he just put together and showed us that extra step for the indoor. So I don't have, I appreciate that extra step with the indoor. I'm hopefully this gets passed and we can let some spectators in. My one question, because I'm receiving it
091from people is this is a pack rule about two spectators per home athlete, and we're voting on the stadium events. and the indoor gym events. And sometimes more than just football happens on the stadium events. And then you did mention our auxiliary field and some of our other side fields. Even though that doesn't fall under the stadium, I just want it clear to people. those rules still apply? Is that correct that if you go see something on the auxiliary field, it's still two people? Or is it just kind of like honor code? Or how does that work? Because I'm fine with what you presented tonight. In misery stood to thank you for the question. So I'll clarify that because I'm going to what I'm going to say is going to bypass the logic that most
092of us on this committee or on this board would would would typically think, but I can tell you that it's in line with what the rule is or I'm sorry, what the rule was once it was enforced by the limits attributed by the rule from the governor. So what I mean by that is because the auxiliary field only is fenced to an area where it allows coaches and players, there is no area designated specifically that's enclosed unless you consider the entire campus as the enclosed area, which we don't. And because it's not enclosed by a fence, it's just enclosed by a geographical border. And therefore, that's not one of the issues. If I'm getting too technical, I apologize. But what I'm trying to get to is all of our other areas, including the areas on
093the Arcola campus, in terms of outdoors, there are no other enclosed areas that would require us to have. a set of rules for spectators in a facility. And so what we are doing as part of the open campus process is we have security on board that is specifically going around in the instances that we have an auxiliary field event or we have a tennis match or we have some other on-campus activity going around and politely and appropriately providing reinforcement in terms of mask use and distancing if it's not a family unit. So we are not arresting people for not being exactly six feet apart. We are not doing those types of things, but we are politely and strongly at the same time reminding people to please cooperate with us so that we can continue. allowing
094for an open campus atmosphere. And if we all work together, we can have a good long-term result. So that's, I hope that answers your question. It does. Let me just clarify one more thing. And I think I understand what you're saying. Most, not all people, but a lot of people that play school sports play some type of out. intramural club type sports. Not all, I realize, but most of them are familiar with rules that those clubs have been given. You know, sometimes one spectator, it's always a mask, et cetera. So, you know, we're asking again for people to be considerate so that our athletes can keep playing and our band members can keep playing and et cetera. So one last question. which is specific. So for example, we have some Arcola, we have an Arcola
095team that plays by the library, whatever that is called, the Lower Providence Park, like the town park. So again, people go using common courtesy, but it's an open campus. It's a public space, even though it's an Arcola event. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Dr spewak I know that you're on the call i'm not familiar with this specific space is it is it on the lower Providence township property. PB, Lupita D Montoya, Yes, I think. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, or is it i'm not sure which one you're referring to by the library. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Oh, the football. PB, Lupita D Montoya, The library is no i'm just no no no no. PB, Lupita D Montoya, i'm teasing. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, yeah. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, That is correct. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, referring to. I do, and that is correct.
096And we, similar to past years, we schedule those with the township. And if we do have opportunities and free turf space or high school space, we do try often to move those back to the high school stadium, which will happen for several of these township games. But if it is at the township building, it would be the same. set up as it would be for, let's say, the grass field below the tennis courts at the high school or any of our Arcola fields where we will look to have security, just as Dr. Zerbe just mentioned, to be able to move around and reinforce masks and social distancing for that game that would be played at the Township Building. But the hope is that many of those games, if not all of them, within the next
097couple of days will be... sent back over to the high school stadium. And if moved to the high school stadium, the upside would be being able to manage it and also being able to play in a top-notch facility. The downside to that would be that they would then be limited to the two tickets per player. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, Ms. Reese. Mr. Winters, you have your hand up or finger up? Real quick. I may be Dr. Spiewak. I apologize that this was spoken earlier, but there was a concerned citizen, a parent that expressed some concern about visiting. I didn't know if the conference is considering the one parent being able to participate in visiting games related to potential injury. if that's up for discussion among the conference because it seems very reasonable
098request and seems like something we could implement on our side with the adding those elements into the also with the space. Yes, so the conference principals and athletic directors continue. The athletic directors are meeting every single week with spectators. At least the last three weeks has been the main topic of conversation. But also the principals have been in contact with each other and continue to discuss this. So I would say to answer your question, it is always on the table for discussion. But at this time, the plan is to move forward with the current. agreed upon equitable plan for two tickets per home spectator. Whether or not, as Dr. Zerbe mentioned, and also as the conversations continue with the principals, certainly that could change. But at this time, that is the plan. But yes, it
099is being considered. Yeah, Dr. Spiro, you make a good point. I think it's important, and I think Ms. Reese had made the statement that she said a rule by the PAC. Well, just so you know, this board isn't obligated to follow any Pioneer Athletic Conference perceived rule. There's not a requirement for you to follow this. What Dr. Spiewak has alluded to in his last response was that in order to keep some consistency among the league teams, the athletic directors and the principals thought this was the most appropriate approach without overreaching and overstepping. And in terms of the spectator rule and making an opportunity available for parents who wouldn't otherwise, in certain instances, be able to see their children play as senior athletes or senior cheerleaders. So I just want to be clear that this is
100not a rule. It's not something you're required to implement. It's not something you're required to stay within these limits. But it is our recommendation that we stay as close to what these recommendations are so that we can remain consistent with the other schools in the PAC. Other questions? Mr. McGinnis. Yeah, actually, I'm going to jump in here because, Paul, that was my question. So I have a couple almost like procedural questions, right? The parent made a great point that. It's not so much of as I really want to go see my child play. It was all sports except football, where football has an ambulance in the end zone, right? If a kid gets hurt at a soccer game at Springfield, we know who's in charge of taking that kid to medical, and that's their parents.
101So my question is, A, and Dr. Spiewak, feel free to chime in. I know the principals are bandying it about. But if they make that call, does that have to come back to a school board? And if so, why? Because by the time it does, we're a month into this and the season's over. So this is much more of a health and safety thing than a, I really would, it'd be nice to have my child play. And so it's, I think it's, is it too late for us to vote on that? Is there a reciprocity? So it sounds as if, and Dr. Spiewak, I get it. It sounds as if the ADs are kind of. the principals will decide. And then the principals are going to say, well, the school board's going to decide and,
102and then the season's over. So this is a player safety concern. So it's, it's high on my radar. What do we do about that? Just to, just to chime in initially, one of the challenges to, and I fully understand what it is that, that you're saying. And I can totally understand that parents want to be able to be there for a number of reasons to see their child safety being one of them at an away event. In terms of the voting of it, and Dr. Zerbe, certainly feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but while I believe we would have the ability to discuss how we operate at Methactin, I don't believe we would have any ability to state that, okay, if there's a football game at Springford or a soccer game at Springford,
103that... I would need to be able to get in and see my child play. If they were to stay within the current guidelines from the conference, they would have every right to not allow the methactin parents into the game. One of the other challenges is that several of our participating schools are still operating under the 250 and under the 25. So for example, the football game at Upper Perk this past Friday, they did not exceed the 250 limit based on school, how their school board voted. So therefore they wouldn't have had the ability to even allow. our away spectators in. That conversation did come up with the principals and athletic directors, and we did discuss the plan of action for what would take place if an injury were to happen. With that said, I understand
104that that doesn't necessarily ease the mind of a parent who would like to be there to see their child. We also discussed the ability to to stream as many games as possible moving forward within the participating schools in order for parents to be able to see their kids play. But again, I understand the safety concern and I don't have a real good answer for you. So hold on, hold on. Let's take a step back. Things get complicated in this world. I don't think this is complicated for all sports except football because the next time there's 250 people at a boys soccer game after school, I'd like to see that. So we're just talking about a PAC rule. If it gets approved, do all the PAC teams say, okay, we're all cool with this. How does
105that happen? Because the more time we spin our wheels with, well, this has to happen and that has to happen. And what about football? I'm not talking about football. Football has an ambulance in the end zone. I'm talking about soccer. I'm talking about all the other sports. If somebody goes down and blows an ACL, they're going to writhe in pain until an ambulance is called and the parents are going to have to have a phone call. That's all I'm talking about. I don't want to confuse the issue here. Football's off the table. I'm only talking about one parent per student. Who's in charge of making that decision? Yeah, so I think, Drew, what I hear you asking and what I'd like to propose is that there may be a way for us to amend the
106motion when we get to that item on the agenda in a way that says that if the PAC allows visiting teams to permit spectators, that we will follow suit. Fair enough. That's great. That's the solve that can get it initiated. without a month's lag of all these school boards meeting again, that's all I'm talking about. So thank you, Kim. And just so we're clear, Dr. Zerbe, even sitting and watching someone on the auxiliary field, whether it be a girls or boys soccer, field hockey, whatever, masks are still mandatory, even outside and social distancing is still mandatory. That's what we're asking, yes. And we will enforce that as a school. We are. We were putting security guards on premise and we were asking them to kindly and but assertively ask people to adhere to that. Again,
107you know, I can tell you and you probably have seen it yourself. We've seen a lot of YouTube videos that show, you know, security guards. That's an ugly video and I don't want to be attacking his name on that video. We're not going there. But that's why I shared with you an open campus and a closed campus process. And we want to make sure that we're going to be as appropriate as possible. But if we don't get the cooperation on a regular basis, we may have to resort to a more restrictive methodology. And we want to avoid that if we can, but we want to be appropriate. And we want to make sure that we're having these events and everybody's in compliance with the safety and health recommendations that we have put forward. We need
108to, Ms. Arbulasenis, let's think about what that motion might look like. It might be, for example, at the end of this original motion, it would say something like, and any other PAC-10 less restrictive. Or if you want to say specifically to visitor that we would say any Pac-10 visitor accommodations that are approved by the Pioneer Athletic Conference principals and athletic directors. I actually think there's someone more qualified to write a motion that's on this call right now. So Mr. Summers, welcome back. If you could just put your head on that until we get to that part of the meeting. Sure. And I think it was mentioned as an amendment. But when we get to that item, the motion that is made could just have that additional language as part of it, you know, and be
109seconded without the need to have further amendments. Sounds like a good plan. And Dr. Spivak, one last question. Bussing to four-way games, are we getting extra buses or? As an alternative, are we allowing either kids who have licenses or even parents to drive kids to away games to help alleviate the spacing on the buses? So at this time, we are not to exceed two students per seat masked. and they are not to change seats. Students can, with parent permission, are able to get a ride from a parent to a game, but we are not allowing students to drive themselves to the events. Thank you. Any other comments or questions, Ms. Hull? I just wanted to say thank you for addressing my concerns with the indoor spectators. I know from my own experience that I find
110it most helpful to have processes in place. And I think that this is one that we can move forward to also if we do have a winter sports occur that I would like to keep this process in place moving forward until our numbers show that we don't need to do this anymore. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hull, for your feedback. Ms. Drummond, you had your hand up. Yes. Could you go back to the document that talked about the parent, like when they're signing in, whoever's getting the tickets, the spectator procedure? Okay. I just have some comments about that. If you could scroll up, please. So my first comment is to say in the bullet point two, defined as an adult can we just say not typically but just say age 18 or older so that
111there's no um that's clear um my second comment is about um in the fourth bullet point regarding mask wearing um it could we insert language that's related to i know we went to some length to really define what is a mask, how you wear a mask, what qualifies as a mask, what doesn't qualify as a mask. And we have that language in our current health and safety plan. So could we just insert or clarify that language and use what we already have defined just so it's clear on that. Ms. Chapman, would it be okay to say wear a mask as defined by the health and safety plan approved by the Infected Board of School Directors? I would love that. Yes. That's what we'll do. Okay. And then the third point I had was about, and
112maybe it's on here or not. I didn't see it. I think it's important to... state somewhere that by entering the facility, by entering this, that you are agreeing to provide contact tracing information should the need arise. Because I know there's been cases where that's been an issue in other situations. And just, you know, that's your tacit approval that you're agreeing to that, to cooperate with that. So those were my comments on that. And I thank you for putting this together. Mr. Summers, with those suggested modifications, if there's no objection from the rest of the board members, do we have to amend any motion or can it be with these suggestions? In terms of the procedures, my understanding is that based on board member feedback, you are adjusting what you are presenting at this time, as
113indicated with those edits that you're putting into the document. So when the board approves. or assuming that the board approves later on in the meeting those procedures as presented, what that means is as presented in their most recent form, which is with these two particular edits that on behalf of the administration you're indicating are agreeable and you are presenting them in that form for final approval. Thank you. Other questions? Mr. Navarro, I think you had your hand up. Yeah, I'll be brief. I guess the first thing, Dr. Spivak, can we just make sure that parents are aware of what the rules are for away games, right? Because certain times, you know, you'll have games that are inside of a spectator area. Some schools that they're not, right? They'll be on grass fields or stadium fields.
114I don't know if it needs to be on methactinwarriors.com or some other website or communication direct from coaches, but can we just make sure that we let parents know what the away rules are going to be for their respective sports for a given game? Yes, I will look into which of our away facilities are a closed campus and which are an open campus and what that might look like. Thanks. And then on a similar note regarding open and closed campuses, do we need to amend the motion such that we give the administration the authority to close the campus if they deem so fit? I'll give you an example, right? So let's say the boys soccer team makes the playoffs, right? Let's say that happens. We might get a big crowd. We might hit Drew's number
115at 250. Is it worth at that point that we would close the campus? Because the boys, they're not going to want to play in the stadium, right? It's a subpar soccer field. Would we close the campus for an event like that? So just in terms of a purely authority, I think that the administration certainly has the ability to impose a more limited cap in terms of who is accessing our campus. I think if the board, for example, adopted a closed campus to begin with, then I think there'd be some need perhaps on the part of the administration to come back to the board before expanding. the number of individuals present on the campus. But this is not an item that in and of itself typically requires board action for the administration to take that action.
116So I think the presentation describes the two approaches and says we're utilizing this open campus approach currently. But I think they certainly have the authority if, you know. Perfect. That's all I need to know. Great. Thank you. Any other questions from members of the board on the matter? Seeing no other questions, I want to thank you for your attention here this evening on these matters. And I believe that ends our presentations with guests and scheduled speakers this evening. I guess that means it's back to me. All right. Reports, our committee reports are attached to the agenda for anyone's review. And if I can interrupt for just one second, I apologize. I screwed up and did not get my minutes for the property committee to marry ahead of time to be put. I know. This has
117happened twice in the last three years. So I apologize. I'll work with Mary. I will get those up. I apologize. No worries. I know how that can be. Okay, so all of the reports, all the committee reports are there except for property and transportation, which will be there soon. For the intermediate unit, Ms. Reese, do you have anything for us? I will just quickly share since we did meet on 9-21. As we know, they have juniors and seniors on premise in a hybrid model and it's going well so far. The staff and students are just really doing a great job. you know, following the guidelines and communicating with their teachers or administration if there's any questions regarding COVID or anything else. I did also want to make you aware that they do have, just like
118we are working on our diversity, equity, and inclusion office, the Tech Center has also started an equity council, and they have met, and it involves staff and students, and it has been received very well. The JOC was very happy to hear that. We did get the audit report. So if anyone would like me to forward them the audit report, I will do so. But the good news is despite COVID finances, because there was some funding with the state, the tech center is in good shape. They are working and looking towards adding ninth and 10th grade, but. It's all a matter of sending districts. For those unaware, there are five sending districts to the Tech Center. So it kind of depends on all five of us. And the numbers are so high at the Tech Center
119that they're just seeing what they can do. But we'll be on the lookout for that. And if you want me to, I'll just jump right into the IU very quickly. We've kind of been skipping over all of everything in the meetings because our meetings have been so long. But just to let you know, we also met on the 23rd. And the big news is it was John George's last night at the IU. He is retiring, but moving on to a bigger state position in Harrisburg. So it's kind of like semi-retirement. So he'll still be around. And he was an incredible asset to the IU, just incredible to all Montgomery County teachers and staff and students that needed the IU. And Regina's speaker takes over for him, which we look forward to. And everything else. I
120can save to if anything comes up, but just be aware that this legislative, the legislative stuff that's going on in Harrisburg, and I know Dr. Angstead said she'll keep us posted too. It's huge. It really depends what House bills get passed, which House bills get amended. I mean, there's talk of keystones in there. There's talk of letting people opt out of PSSAs, if they even have them. There's a lot going on legislatively that I know we'll be keeping you all apprised of in the Education Committee. And I think I'm in need of readers very, very shortly. I think that's the gist. If there's anything I left out, I will send you all that information. Great. Thank you, Ms. Reese. So next on the agenda, we have our student board representatives report. So Dr. Zerbe, clarify
121for me for a second. Are we doing the administration of the oath of office first and then hearing their reports? Yes, could we please? Absolutely. Just so I could, if the students want to get their parents prepped and ready for this process, so we'll just give them a second so they can get someone else on the screen. Oh, there we go. Okay, Madam President, you want to start with? We'll start with Nolan then. Nolan McCloskey, welcome. Great to have you here. If you wanted to, you could just say hi, introduce yourself, you know, tell us what year you are, any activities you're involved in, anything like that. Hi, I'm Nolan McCloskey. I'm a junior here at Thacton. I participate in baseball and basketball. And that sums it up. All right. Thank you so much. So
122now I'm going to ask you, I'm not sure how we usually do this. I'm very disoriented being online here. I guess if you raise your right hand, say, I do solemnly swear. I do solemnly swear. That I will support, obey, and defend. That I will support, defend, obey, and defend. the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of the office, and that I will discharge the duties of the office, of student representative to the board with fidelity, of the student representative to the board with fidelity. All right. Congratulations, Nolan McCloskey. You are officially one of our board representatives. Thank you. Okay. And next we have Claire Ference. Or is it Ference? Please
123tell me if I'm pronouncing it wrong. It's Ference. Ference. Okay. I'll make sure I get it right. Claire, welcome to the board. If you wanted to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about you. Good evening. I play volleyball for the Mithakton High School and I'm involved in various clubs such as Multicultural and Model UN. Great. Welcome aboard. Okay, so I need you to raise your right hand and repeat after me. I do solemnly swear or affirm. I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of the office of student representative to the board with fidelity. of student of the office of student representative to the board with fidelity. All
124right, congratulations. Real quick, Claire and Nolan, welcome, but somebody usually is sitting next to you when we're in the LGI at the table, and it used to be me, and then I think it was Mr. Regina, and then it might have been Miss Cancro, I forget, but someone would usually nudge you and say, okay, it's getting late. If you have to study, you can go. So I guess since we're on Zoom, you can kind of make that decision when, you know, after you give your reports. Usually you won't be giving your reports quite this late, but just so you know, because I know sometimes we forget, and I'll be wanting to give you facial expressions like go, go, go, and then people will say I'm being, you know, weird. So anyway, just know that you
125can leave at some point after your reports. You can get to your schoolwork. Okay. So we want to have them do the reports? Yeah, let's jump right into it then. If you guys want to go ahead and give us your reports. Okay, so good evening. To start, AP test exams can now be ordered through October 20th. The fee for the test is $97, but for CAPS and research, it is $145. And the link is on the Thacken High School homepage. Dr. Kokenauer has also set up a Google Classroom for all Advanced Placement students to stay updated for the information about applying for the test. Mr. Lenahan is still starting on the road and the students can email him at rlenahan at methactin.org. In sports, the girls golf team is doing well and has beat Phoenixville
126and Perky Omen Valley. Methactin's football, volleyball, field hockey, and boys soccer teams all won their season openers last Friday. Last year, College Board added a virtual platform for AP students to use. This year, there have been some technical difficulties with accessing assignments and information. The high school administration and the advanced placement teachers have been reaching out to College Board to fix the error. Nolan, do you have a report for us? So Claire and I worked on that together, like as a whole, we worked on it with Mrs. Cogan and I, so that was like our rap together. All right. However you guys want to divvy up the work is fine by me. We're happy to have both of you here. Welcome aboard. All right. So next on the agenda, we have the Methactin Education Foundation,
127and I see we have Ms. Kralovich. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Excellent. Thank you, Ms. Larcenese and the entire school board and administration. The foundation's been very busy the last couple of months. In fact, later tonight, you're going to... hopefully see the school board directors approve another donation to the Methactin Backpack Program for about $5,700 bringing our COVID donations to the Methactin Backpack Program to nearly $25,000 to help feed our most vulnerable Methactin students. Along those lines of helping students in need, through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program, we are offering need-based scholarships for pre-K to students who are three to six years old and residents of Methactin. If you or anyone needs any information on this, it's all available on our website. We're also really excited this year to raise
128money for two new initiatives in Methactin. The first is a pioneering entrepreneurship program for high school students that you'll learn more about in the months to come. And the second will expand the very successful REACH mental health program to our elementary schools. These are both very big ticket items, but endeavors that will enrich our students' educational experience. We've also been hard at work developing the first official Methactin alumni network called Methactin Alumni and Friends. Over the last couple weeks, we sent out a survey asking alumni for feedback so we can build a better network. For any alumni on the call today, We encourage you to complete the survey. If you did not receive it, it is available on our website and our Facebook page. This network will create and nurture lifelong reciprocal relationships between Methactin,
129its students, both past and present. Our goal is to connect and provide opportunities to alumni, students, parents, teachers, supporters, and friends of Methactin. From planning reunions to internship or job opportunities, Methactin alumni and friends will enhance the Methactin experience and legacy. Some other exciting news, the foundation hit a very big milestone. Since our founding in 2009, we have raised over $1 million. Thank you. Obviously, it takes a team to get this far, and we're very grateful to our donors and our partners who made it possible for us to provide additional opportunities in methactin in STEM, career development, student wellness, and programs for economically disadvantaged students. And speaking of partners... The Jill Barbera Group has teamed up with the foundation and is donating 10% of their commissions to the foundation for any homes sold or bought
130in the Mithakton School District. So if you know anybody looking to buy or sell, please let them know about it. Let me just wrap up by saying something that I can't say enough. Thank you to all of our donors. Our donors make all of these programs possible. There is so much we can do, and our schools need our help more than ever. So if you want to learn more about the foundation, or if you're interested in making a donation, you can go to our website at methactinfoundation.org. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present tonight. Thank you, Ms. Kralovich. Mr. McGinnis, I trust you're working on your alumni survey? All right. Glad to hear it. Communications, Ms. Kelly. Hi, and thank you, everyone. Good evening. I have some feel-good news to share with everyone.
131The Methactin Backpack Program, as Mrs. Kralovich mentioned a little earlier, she kind of stole a little bit of my shine on this backpack program, but I digress. The backpack program is getting another big boost. Our school district has been selected to participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers to Families Food Box Program. Now, this program provides boxes of food for families in need that are packed with approximately 22 to 25 pounds of fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. So during the month of October, methactin families enrolled in the backpack program will receive one of these fresh food boxes each week. To find out if your family qualifies to participate in the backpack program, please reach out to the counselor's office at your child's school. And on a quick final note, a very special
132thank you goes out to Methactin High School's supervisor of special education, Dr. Jamie Gravenese, for leading this effort. She learned about this federal program and completed the application process to make sure that we did not lose out on the opportunity to participate. So when this program ends, she expects to resume our traditional backpack program distribution in November. More information on that is to come. And that's all I have tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kelly. And now for Superintendent's Report, Dr. Zerbe. I don't have anything additional to share in terms of new topics, but in terms of the backpack program, it shouldn't be missed that Ms. Drummond has been an integral part of this process with Dr. Gravenese, and we appreciate her time in helping us establish what will soon to be our first Facebook
133account to help solicit donations. And Ms. Drummond, if there's anything else you want to say about that. I mean, you know firsthand all the hard work that's gone into this. I don't know if you want to make a comment. Sure. Over the summer, the entire board worked to help distribute food to families in the backpack program with generous funding from the Education Foundation, as well as other funding and food we had on hand. So now those pantries are depleted, and I'm working on a Facebook page to solicit donations. We're going to get this rolling for November, but October sounds great with the fresh food. And so just check on Facebook. I'll be tagging everybody everywhere. So just be aware that that's coming on Facebook and we're going to have a process in place for donations
134from the community. And we know the community is here to help us. And we thank you for your past generosity. And we know we can count on you in the future. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Drummond, for leading the separate and all the board members who participated in that food drives in the backpack program. So thank you. That ends my report. Thank you. Madam President, I just wanted to comment on Mrs. Reese's for Nolan and Claire. I know they both have exams tomorrow. They did send me an email just to make sure that when they could go. So I wanted to let them both know. Thank you very much. Have a great evening, both of you. Thank you. Thank you, Claire and Nolan. We look forward to hearing more from you in the months
135ahead. Study hard. While we're taking a little light break here, I just do want to say that Jen Cancro is the best person you ever want to fill boxes of food. She gets it done. I have never seen a woman more driven. And I will also say that Mr. Winters is the the best, I don't know what that thing is called, but without him, we would- The pallet jack. The pallet driver. He's our pallet driver. And Mr. McGinnis counts a mean potato. So honestly, all of you, it was nice to be together in a non-meeting way. And thank you all for your help. Be sure to add all of those accomplishments to your resumes. All right, thank you, everyone. So moving on, we now are going to take public comment on board action items. So
136this is an opportunity for residents to comment on matters that are to be voted on as outlined on the agenda. We ask that members keep their, I'm sorry, matters of the community, keep your comments to four minutes or less. I'm going to use my list of people that had pre-registered to speak this evening. What we've done in the past is I've just read through this list of names, but we end up with a lot of people who, you know, plans have changed, circumstances have changed, whatever, are not still on the call to speak. So if you pre-registered to speak, if you could just raise your hand in the audience and I will work my way through that list. I think that might be a more efficient way to use our time here. So I'm going
137to our list and I look, it looks like we have John Andrews. So I'm going to allow you in to talk, Mr. Andrews, and you can go ahead whenever you're ready. Thank you, Ms. Larsonese. John Andrews, Lower Providence. On the list of bills are a couple items that I think we could benefit from some explanation. There's a new vendor by the name of Eisner Amper LLP. Apparently, they are an accounting firm, and their charges for the months of February and March totaled around $16,000. I'm wondering, is that a one-time thing or is that going to occur every two months? Then I note that on seven different pages of the list of bills, we have the same vendor, Sweet Stevens, showing up for multiple fees. And hopefully we don't need legal advice every other minute. And
138relative to the return to premises, I'm not an expert on the virus. I'm not an expert on education. But I do feel that the elementary grades, K-4, are in need of more on-premises education. So I think respectfully that if the administration were to look just at that. at maximizing on-premises education, what would be the difficulty? So what would be the constraints? And of course, if there are parents that are happy with their children in K-4 being virtual, that makes it easier on the district. But it just seems like perhaps the district is so... So swamped with virus details, you know, things, for instance, spectator issues that we're not giving adequate attention to on-premises education where it has to be truly needed for those youngest students. So I think that's worthy of more discussion. And I
139would also like to compliment the Education Foundation for achieving a $1 million of benefit to the school district. That's what I have to say at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. Okay, next I have, looks like Marissa Rocco. I'm going to assume it's Rocco. Go ahead whenever you're ready. Yes, hi. I'm going to read as quickly as possible. I'm speaking to advocate for our kids who are the innocent victims of this mess that the Methactin administration has created. We are failing our kids. For months, I and others have spoken and offered suggestions only to be told we need to stop comparing to other districts or we are not the same as private schools. It's not apples to apples. So why not look at what private schools are doing right? I can name three
140that are using hybrid plans similar to what we are now proposing. Stop reinventing the wheel. Look at other schools, both public and private. Stop saying there's more to it than we know or that it's complicated, as we hear from our board members often on social media, which is not the forum for such remarks. We know there's a lot to this. But look at what has been successful. for the schools that have been in person for about a month now. One month into this, many parents see this as not sustainable for many reasons. Neighboring districts are back in school, some at five days a week. In Central PA, multiple districts are back five days a week. What makes them better than Methactin? Is it their leadership, a stronger board, or is it better planning? Or could
141it be all of these things? Planning was and is still key to return to school. And the fact that October 1st is in two days and we are just seeing a return to on-premise plan that is not slotted to begin until almost eight weeks from now is beyond upsetting. This makes you think, does administration really want the best for our kids? If they truly did, then our special needs kids would have been back in a classroom with support day one. Do you know how it looks that we were one of the only local districts to not have special needs children in the classroom on day one? It's embarrassing. And even more than being embarrassing, it's upsetting and life-changing to the families who need this. And that really upsets me. So here Methactin sits as one
142of the last districts to submit a return to on-premise plan. Not to mention, it's now lacking a full-time virtual option for those who need it. And from what I'm hearing, many do. Don't we want to strive to be a leading district? Let others look too for guidance. One has to wonder, perhaps this is why our rankings have dropped dramatically the past few years. So now we have a hybrid proposed plan that we have about eight weeks until we would see. students phasing in. This worries me. Are we just wasting time spinning our wheels like we did all summer for planning and focus groups only to take the choice away from parents like we did back on July 30th? All of the pieces that need to come into place for this plan to be worry me.
143Can we really move forward? Do we have the cameras needed? Do we have support for our teachers, most importantly, to toggle between classrooms and online? I'd be lying to say I didn't think some of this might be a stall tactic to not return to in-person. I question whether our administration can truly pull this off. I also feel for the families that need and want full-time virtual. The original plan that was presented to them is now different. Again, we fall behind. Perky-Human Valley has a full-time virtual option in plan for all elementary schools taught, or students rather, taught by their own teachers. Satterton also is offering this for all students. Another point I want to mention, it is apparent that we have a board that's not working together with administration. Last week's meeting included one board
144member making comments about teachers we would need to hire in the new plan. And I can't quote verbatim, but comments like... Who would we have left to hire? Either people that are not working or 22-year-olds out of school. As an HR professional, I have many reasons why I was upset by these comments. The tone and the message was condescending and inappropriate. The tone used to Dr. Zerbe when he was simply trying to present a plan to the board and talk through was really upsetting to the public to hear. The whole exchange to me was a disappointment. Again, I see two, maybe three board members advocating for our students. One of them. Thank you, Ms. Rocco. I'm sorry. I have to cut you off there. Okay. Well, I'm going to finish. One of them being Jen
145Cancro, and I want to thank her for her hard work on the board. If we could all get together and work together, we could make some progress. Thank you. Okay. Next, Erica Sabinsky. Ms. Sabinsky, whenever you're ready. Sorry, my phone stopped working, so I can't get to my notes. The comments that I had to... Hold on. I'll be ready in half a moment. So the comments that I wanted to make are all just sort of reiterations of things that I've said before, but I feel like it's important as a parent to reiterate things that board members have said. And those things are that a lot has been said about what the virtual environment would look like for students in seven through 12 who stay all virtual. But despite Ms. Perdue trying to ask what it
146would look like for the younger grades, for me specifically, it matters what five and six would look like. I'd like... by the time we get a plan to know what it will look like for students who stay all virtual for five, six, will it be, I don't care if they stay with the same teacher, if they stay all virtual, but will it look like it looks now? I would like to see that spelled out in the plan that we get presented. And also I'd like to see not just hybrid spelled out in that plan, but what virtual will look like, what all options will look like. And my other thing that I would like to know. at some point is in the hybrid model will music lessons be scheduled on the days of the students
147or on premise or will they have to continue to do their music lessons at home? If we're going to have our kids in school then I think it's important that they have their music lessons in person. I've got two kids who play percussion, one of those kids is also going to be in chorus and that same child also plays bass. She's a bit of a musical overachiever. So again I think it's important that we look at things when scheduling who goes to school what day can we manage to have all those lessons on one of their hybrid days so i think those are all my points thank you thank you miss sabinski okay next i have kelly arnon okay miss arnon you're in the meeting whenever you're ready Hi, Kelly Arnone, Lower Providence. I first
148want to thank Dr. Zerbe for not rushing this process and setting up a more reasonable timeline than we saw last week. As several board members alluded to last week, it's more important to take the time to set up a well thought out plan than to rush it through and deal with even more unforeseen issues. Not rushing this plan also allows us to monitor how other districts returning ahead of us are doing and how their openings are affecting local positivity rates. As I pointed out last week, Worcester is very close to 5% right now. And as doctors have reported tonight, those numbers are not falling rapidly from Montgomery County. We've seen that some districts are doing better while others have already shut down temporarily. And we can gain vital information about how to proceed from those
149districts. The level of information provided this week, despite being different than last week's proposal, has been really helpful, and I really appreciate you giving parents extra time to hear much more about their options before committing. The one thing that really stuck out to me tonight is what are the kindergarten to sixth grade students doing during their time out of school in the hybrid option? I've got four students in the district, a kindergartner, second grader, fourth grader, and fifth grader. While I don't love the idea of live streaming or asynchronous learning for K-6 at all, I can see it as a possible option for my older two, even if it's not ideal. For kindergarten through second, though, where live streaming and excessive asynchronous work is not educationally and developmentally appropriate, perhaps a co-teaching option where one
150teacher does all the in-person instruction and one does all the online instruction, similar to what we have now on the off days, collaborating during their planning time. I'm sure you're still working out the details right now, but I'm really looking forward to hearing your plans for our youngest learners. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Arnone. Okay, next I have. Okay, I see Leslie. I'm going to assume this is Leslie Pisano, if you could just confirm for me. You are in the meeting and you can unmute and talk whenever you're ready. Yes, this is Leslie Pisano. My name is Leslie. I'm a mother of two children in Methactin School District. My youngest is a child in Arrowhead and my oldest just entered Skyview. I want to express that I empathize with our teachers that are And they're
151doing a fantastic job. And my words are honestly not against our teachers. My disappointment rests with those who have been elected to make the decisions for our families first. I would like to invite any member of the board who is opposed to hybrid or an on-premises option to spend the week at my home. To experience firsthand the frustration, tears, and setbacks we go through daily. My oldest has an IEP and my youngest was on the brink of a time off task test. But with the shutdown in March, that never happened. Have you heard the struggle is real? Well, that is a reality in my family, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3.42 p.m. The online platform is sheer frustration for my family and other families that I speak with. There is a multitude of issues
152that result from the online environment, from not understanding certain concepts that are best suited, taught in person, to needing technical support, from not wanting to be on camera, to the embarrassment of having your parents on the camera or not wanting to ask questions. Do you personally know what it takes to keep the attention span of a second grader on a Chromebook all day? Even given the two 30-minute breaks for lunch and recess, it's literally impossible. In my opinion, the Methacton School District has dropped the ball from the beginning with a lack of transparent communication. and continually changing messages. First, we received that we could be on premises five days a week. Then it was communicated that we didn't have products to keep the school safe, the cleaning products. Yet somehow it's appropriate for the YMCA
153to open and be on site in our schools. Next, we were promised devices and then we were told we didn't have them or they'd be late. Oh, while other neighboring districts within 10 minutes of us have had their act together from the start, to name a few, Holy Cross, Perk Valley, Colonial, Southerton, Boyertown, Visitation, and PJP. The virtual platform is not the same as being at school. I sit here daily wondering how this happened and how other districts have on-premises class, but we can't get it together. I firmly believe that we're letting our kids down. the same kids you were elected to advocate for to make decisions that allow them to have their best education. Let me reassure you that there is an urgency to get a hybrid option available to our children as soon
154as possible, not only to provide them their best education, but also for their rapidly deteriorating mental health. And that's all I have. Thank you. Okay, next I have Katie Leet. Okay, Ms. Leite, you're in the room whenever you're ready. Just have to unmute. Okay, sorry. I wanted to say that I, first, I agree with quite a few of the responses and the comments that came from the folks that spoke before me. And I also wanted to start by saying that I have been incredibly frustrated the last few months with, you know, reaching out and voicing my concerns over emails to the board and the... the district and feeling like really we have no outlet, like our concerns are just not appreciated. So I first want to say thanks to Mrs. Aubrey Larceny for actually. commenting
155on our public frustration and challenging the whole group here to speed up the process if we can and not just be comfortable with that November 12th date that if we could get something done sooner that we should and we should think outside the box and then also to thank you to Mrs. Cancro for saying we should continue to assess grade by grade and school by school. I really hope this is truly the case. My daughter's first grade teaching team daily tell the kids how they can't wait to be back and how it will be much better when they're in person. So maybe let's see, like once we start the hybrid model, if we can get it done sooner, to start to bring those groups back as soon as possible that are willing to do so.
156I don't see that it necessarily has to be one case for everyone. We're going to have some kids fully virtual, some kids in school. So let's let those that want to come back, come back. and continue to do that. So I've voiced my concerns throughout the past few months, despite 70% of returned family surveys requesting on-premise, here we sit, virtual, as many schools around us already in school are now returning, and many of them, like Perky-Uma Valley, speeding up their process. First it was hand sanitizer, then it was technology, now it's staffing. I find that every issue that's thrown up at this district, we just stop dead in our tracks. When other issues... Districts continue to battle the same issues but find alternate solutions thinking outside the box and make it happen for their students.
157Let's not let issue after issue delay once again. Our kids are suffering. No child should be staring at a screen for seven hours a day. They're suffering emotionally, physically, academically. My first grader cannot focus for that period of time. By one o'clock every day, she's in tears during her specials because it's just too much to ask of her to focus. And she can't. I wonder how much, what percentage she's actually getting on a day-to-day basis. Now you're telling me that she'll be in but then half the time she's gonna be watching a screen now where maybe her teacher has a mask on and then there's the distraction of all the other kids in the class. For the younger kids, I just don't think a hybrid model is gonna work. I really think that once again,
158we're being given something that's not a well thought through plan. I thank you for your consideration. I want to do whatever it takes. I ask you all, I implore you to do whatever it takes to think outside the box and deliver what other school districts, private, Catholic, regular schools, daycare around us outside our area seem to be accomplishing. And then I just had one other comment that I believed and I think there were other of us that believed that on the agenda tonight that the school board would discuss and make a ruling on whether outside organizations like the Audubon Rec Association would be allowed to use the gyms in the winter for sports such as basketball. So I think we believe that that would be decided tonight. And I didn't hear any discussion on that.
159Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Leap. That is actually on the agenda later on use of facilities. It's just not something that we had a presentation on this evening. So we will get to that. Madam President, if I could just a reminder to everyone making public comment at the beginning of your comments, if you could just state what municipality you're a resident of, whether it's Worsest or Lower Providence. I apologize, Mr. Summers. I was not asking for that because I have it on my list, but you're right. We should be getting them. Okay, next I have Jessica Bradbury. Okay, Ms. Bradbury, you're in the meeting whenever you're ready. Yes, good evening. If I'm not mistaken, this is just a time to talk about the items being voted on, right? And there will be courtesy
160of the floor later? Correct. Thank you. So I'll cover some brief points about the voting items. With regards to our return to school proposal, I haven't heard anything said about the mental health status of our students. Have we done any polling or conducted any surveys to gather data? Also, I'd request that we give parents a little more time than the one week in the current outline once a schedule is published from when we actually go back to school, if that happens. Lately, we're given less than a week's notice and a 20-minute window to pick up supplies, and it doesn't really feel considerate of working parents. Also, with regards to outside parties, it seems that we have an extremely low tolerance for risk for returning our teaching staff and students to the classroom. and allowing spectators
161at our sporting events, so I'm surprised that we're even entertaining a request for outside organizations to use our facilities. Outside parties should not be using them if our students can't. I can only imagine revenue is the main driver here. So exactly how much revenue does Methactin generate from these arrangements? And if we do not allow this, what is the impact to the debt and capital project financing presentation that was reviewed last week, where I heard from a number of school board members seemingly working very hard to convince the public to jump on board with that Arrowhead Forward initiative. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have Jackie Mistrali. Okay, whenever you're ready. You can unmute and go ahead. Thanks. Hi, Jackie Mistrali, Lower Providence. I have kids in Arrowhead, Arcola, and the high school. Children are
162resilient. How many times have you heard this phrase in the last six months? There's absolutely no scientific data to back up the statement. Please think back to your friends as a kid and try to think of one or two who suffered a trauma. Were they okay? Our children are in the middle of a trauma right now. Virtual school is not sustainable. Young students are crying and upperclassmen are frustrated. No one is denying that the teachers are working as hard as they possibly can to make the most of this undesired time. However, the crying and frustration is out of the teacher's control. There are technical issues. Students are out of their comfort zone. It is way too much screen time. There are long days in one spot and there is limited socialization. At this point, there's
163also no data on the long-term effects of how our children are being impacted by this unprecedented time. The students in Methactin School District are your most important customers, and you are failing them every single day they are not in school. Fact, a percentage of teachers are going to take leaves. Solution, post their jobs as temporary positions and get a sub list to capacity just as Central Bucks School District did. They posted roughly 30 jobs and were able to return to in-school yesterday. We would rather have our kids in the buildings with less experienced teachers than at home with the experienced familiar teachers. Fact, there's going to be COVID cases in the district this school year. Solution. put a risk mitigation plan in place, which includes criteria for percentage of the cases and how to handle.
164At this point, you can leverage other schools that have already gone back. the teachers are working without a contract and could strike. let them strike for as long as they can. This will allow you more time to plan in school policies and procedures, and the crying and frustrated students will get a break from virtual school. This will also add days to the end of the year when the students can be in school, which leads to no less in academics. by not having in-school, you are providing unbalanced educational experience for the students of Methactin School District versus the other districts in PA. And in my opinion, in the next few years, colleges will start to ask if students' school was virtual or in-school, which will bias the admission process. Again, the students of Methactin are your
165most important customer. At the school board meeting on September 3rd, based on the comments from the school board president, it was obvious to the community there is a lack of desire for the school board president to work together with the administration. I am certain that many of us missed something in our careers due to the unknowns since March. The comments were unprofessional and the community expects professional and effective collaboration between the administration and the school board. Thank you though to the rest of you who offered to move mountains to get laptops to students. We all elected you to do what was best for methactin and roughly 70% of us do not feel the school board made the best decision for the students, who again are the most important customers of the school district. You spent
166tonight's entire meeting discussing everything but the students. Please shift your focus to the students, please. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have Leanne Inkin. Okay, you're in the meeting. You can unmute whenever you're ready. Hi, thanks. This is Dr. Leanne Inkin. I'm a resident of Lower Providence and also a parent to a first grader at Arrowhead Elementary. I'm not usually the type to speak in a forum such as this, but I was moved to do so after listening to public comments at last week's working session. I'm a PhD scientist. I work in the pharmaceutical industry with experience in both vaccine and medicine development. specifically for treatment of viral infections. I was really taken aback last week by the partial scientific arguments that were used to berate the school board members. There was a lot of
167comparing apples to oranges and then using that to justify why moving to on-premise or allowing parents at a volleyball game is acceptable. There was a lot of accusing or shaming the board of being unnecessarily fearful and using that fear to drive decision-making. So tonight, I wanted to briefly address the science and then kind of bring the conversation back to the task at hand, bringing students on premise. The risks presented by SARS-CoV-2 are determined by a variety of factors, including viral load and length of time of exposure. The risks are not fully defined by the mortality rate, especially when parsed by age group. Death is not the only negative outcome of infection, and at this time, we couldn't possibly hazard a guess at the long-term effects. Our students do not live in a bubble. They're part
168of a community. An infectious disease is a community problem. It would be irresponsible to consider only the pediatric statistics and perceived risk to our children when making a risk assessment. With the data we have available now, it's irresponsible to make meaningful comparisons to the flu. Nine months of data acquired during quarantine living is not comparable to decades worth of the flu data acquired from normal living. That also includes widespread community vaccination. It's irresponsible to compare on-premise education to grocery shopping or eating in restaurants. How does close proximity exposure time compare between grocery shopping and on-premise schooling? How does 25 or even 50% restaurant capacity utilization compare to a six by five foot desk spacing? It would be irresponsible to conclude that it's safe or unsafe to reopen schools from the existing data set. You will
169find examples of widespread infection following school reopenings. You will also find examples of no spread associated with school reopenings. Because of the limited data set, all of this is anecdotal. We should not be talking about whether reopening schools is safe or not. There's no science that definitively supports either position. The real discussion for me is about risk mitigation and how can the risks be minimized. Guidelines, both educational and health and safety, exist to advise administrators and boards on how to minimize the risks associated with on-premise learning while also providing adequate educational opportunities for all. Presumably, those guidelines were agreed by professionals with the right qualifications. I wouldn't expect there to be any element of fear or scientific qualifications involved with agreeing whether a reopening plan meets or does not meet guidelines. I don't believe it's
170the administrators or the board's job to ensure anyone's safety, only to ensure adherence to safety and educational guidelines. We all have a difficult job here. The subject matter experts have a tough job of outlining guidance in an ever-changing data environment. School boards and administrators have the tough job of making plans to adhere to changing guidelines. And teachers and parents have the tough job of deciding whether the guidelines and the adhering plans meet their own personal needs for risk mitigation. My request is that everyone gives each other grace, sticks to their own role in the situation, and does their job to the best of their ability. One final comment I want to make is a shout out to all the teachers for their efforts in this ultimate make it work moment. Thank you. Thank you, Dr.
171Inken. Next, I have Joe Bickelman. Mr. Bickelman, whenever you're ready. Okay. Yeah, I'd like to say that the doctor made some good points there because as far as return to school goes, I think that you pass the safety plan and things to mitigate the risk, and you're going to monitor the numbers as far as, you know, the spread goes or if there's an uptick in positives. So I think there's a need to, you know, get back, get the kids back in class with all your safety precautions in place. Because you talk about them when you're talking about football games and other sporting events. So just apply your guidelines, your safety guidelines and, you know, wear the mask, clean the rooms. And it is about getting these kids their education, especially the young ones. And special
172needs kids, too. So I don't I don't see why the kids can't go back and do the best you can to mitigate the risk, like the doc says. Other things I was hoping that you answer questions about, Mr. Andrews, is answer those questions about the bills list and the checks that are on there, especially with that one firm. That's I think there's legal legal fees, but it's an accounting firm. So I'd like to hear about that. I have a question about section, section, I think it's, hang on one second. Yeah, section 12K-4. It's these extra pays. And there's an extra pay to a gentleman, McDonough, Dan McDonough, to take care of the aquariums. $2,400, it says. Aquarium maintenance at Woodland and Arrowhead. And I don't know what the aquariums are. Are they part of the
173curriculum? How many aquariums are there? Where are they? Are they part of a classroom? Are they in a classroom or are they in a like a community area? And if they're part of the curriculum, why don't we have aquariums at Worcester and Eagleville? You know, if they're actually teaching something that's part of the curriculum. So I don't understand why we're paying the $2,400 for him to maintain these aquariums only at Arrowhead and Woodland. And that brings me to other things, you know, like we talked about paying the teachers for bus duty. And this board was surprised when they learned that the teachers were getting paid bus duty, you know, rather than have the principal rotate that responsibility to various teachers because. It's part of their school day, but we're paying extra for the teachers to
174be out on the pavement, aiding with the kids getting on the bus. But it's just something that management at the building should rotate amongst different teachers. So the board was surprised in that. And we also have teacher mentors. They get paid for helping new teachers when it should just be a normal course of event that you would help somebody new, especially a colleague in the teaching profession. And the other thing came up, too, you know, this is all related, you know, this extra pay. The department chairs at the high school, the board was surprised to learn that the department chairs get extra money, maybe like $3,600 to the department chair. But the board found out they're teaching one less period. You know, they're not teaching five periods, they're only teaching four. So, you know, is
175the tail wagging the dog? I mean. You can say no to the teachers as managers, as administrators, as board. You know, you might say yes all the time because you don't want to get them upset, you know, because negotiation might not go smoothly. But to have these people decide how a department chair is going to teach one less period, you know, that was nobody. Nobody knew about that. Aside from administration, the board didn't know about it. Thank you, Mr. Bickelman. Sorry, I had to cut you off there. That's fine. Thank you. Next, I have Jim Malik. Whenever you're ready. You hear me all right? Yep. Thanks. Let me, I guess, address some of the comments made by the good doctor. I was waiting to hear the science because that's, I guess, what her. Dr. Malik,
176I'm going to cut you off right there. Your comments have to be directed to the board. I'm directing it to you right now. Okay. But you never cut anybody else off. I'm not sure why you're cutting me off. Dr. Malik, I just wanted to remind you. Please recognize my freedom of speech right, okay? The morbidity and mortality for school-aged children is essentially zero. Morbidity means, you know, things that can happen, meaning long-term outcome events. And with those numbers, you guys are sitting on your hands, not opening up the school. Most kids who get the virus are asymptomatic or they have mild symptoms. The transmission rate is extremely low. Even if you get a vaccine, it may be only 60% effective. The reason is because the virus mutates, just like the flu virus does. And you
177can make comparisons to the flu, since it's been shown that the flu is six times more harmful to kids than COVID. So I guess my question to you is all of a sudden you're paralyzed, fearful, can't make decisions, but what were you doing during flu season? I don't remember masks, social distancing, all these ridiculous rules, because the flu is six times more harmful to kids. Now, I said before at the last meeting that what you need to do is let the kids go back and do their thing and protect older individuals, especially those who have comorbid conditions. So your teachers or other people who have these conditions. The kids are not the problem here. See, you can't figure out who you want to protect, who you want to keep safe. It seems to me, and
178this is just my opinion, the people that you want to keep safe are yourselves from making a decision that may be not the right decision. So we just sit here and listen to five hours or four hours of circular discussion going round and round and round and not getting anything done. And I understand the parents' frustration because it seems like the two people with the most knowledge about COVID are you, Ms. President, and Dr. Zerbe. Neither of you are medical professionals. Neither of you have a medical background. And neither of you understand what's going on. You know, you've brought up contact tracing. It's my understanding that when we were having meetings, committee meetings, I was being exposed to somebody with COVID in the school and no contact tracing. Dr. Malik, is this about an agenda
179item? Yeah, it's your opening plan, but you didn't question anybody else when they went off topic. I'm saying right now, as part of your plan, and you actually said this at a meeting, you wanted to do contact tracing. Well, you're not, your contact tracing isn't worth anything. because I feel like I've been exposed and nobody's contacted me. So, you know, you can sit there and try to cut me off and interrupt and everything else, but the truth is still the truth. The truth is you guys care more about yourselves than you do about the kids. You care more about your political status than you do about the kids. And all these folks who talk before me have it perfect. I can't say it any better than they have. So until you start to focus on
180the children and what's best for them, you're going to have this problem. Thank you. Okay, next I have Lisa Brady. Okay, you are in the meeting whenever you're ready. Great, thank you. So the current proposal is for in-person learning to start on around November 12th. That's almost seven weeks away. And we're talking about the following week to start bringing kids in and a phased approach. Now we've got Thanksgiving. Now we're into December. And now we're still phasing kids in. And honestly, I'm really disappointed in this timeline. You know, a lot of other people have said that other districts seem to be able to get this moving quickly. And yes, there's a lot to consider. You know, it sounds like right now, the issues with K to six, there's a lot, there's a lot of options,
181there's a lot to consider. And it sounds like there needs to be some changes to the current virtual program because those younger kids are really struggling. But for seven to 12. there's only one option on the table and that's hybrid. There's only really ever been one option on the table and that's hybrid. And that's the same program that Western Pennsylvania is doing, that Central Pennsylvania is doing, that all of the local districts are doing. So I'm hoping that the board can look at each school and each school level, say, and move this process along at appropriate for that school. If the high school can be opened before Skyview, let's do it. Every kid who can get in sooner should be there. staffing is a concern. There's a chain reaction here. We send our students back,
182that frees up a teacher, a parent of our district who's a teacher in another district. And now that district has another teacher and they can start sending their kids back. And the longer we all wait, it was a chain reaction to close down. And we need to start opening up to see if we get all of our teachers back. I work in another school district. I'm in the building. You know, it's really, it's not as scary as it sounds, to be honest. And, you know, I have my concerns and seeing it, now I feel better about sending my own kids back. You know, I think it's reasonable. We can set the cohorts in place, get the transportation up and running, let the teachers know three to four weeks. This should be possible for grades seven
183to 12 while we. Figure out how to get K-6. It's a different animal, K-6. These kids, you know that. But the 7-12, these kids have been working this summer. They've been wearing masks six to eight hours of shifts. The junior high kids are doing their summer sports. They follow the protocols. These kids want to be back, and they're going to be all in. And most of the teachers do too. And I appreciate, you know, what the president said about, you know, looking at there's a teacher that, you know, there's only one specific teacher for let's see an AP class and they have to teach virtually and flip it a little bit. Let's see how we can get these kids back quickly. You know, I hear about these little kids who are crying. These high schoolers
184are spending seven hours online. They're still getting two and three hours of homework. They're spending hours. And like, I mean, it's an insane amount of time that these high schoolers are also online. And, you know, these teachers are working hard. Believe me, they're trying. Most are succeeding. Let's be honest. There are teachers who are struggling. And when the teachers are struggling, the students are struggling. And when you're talking about high school classes, that means something that build on each other. When the teachers struggle, the kids struggle. It's the mental health is an issue. There will be no perfect plan. If we wait for a perfect plan, we're going to be doing this in March. There are going to be bumps in the road, but the administrators that you've hired are on top of things. The
185principals, you know, we're all willing to work together. The community. We all know what we're signing up for. We've all been living in this world together. And, you know, we're not, no one's going to come back and blame the board when there's a bump in the road, because we know. Sorry, Mrs. Brady, I need to cut you off here. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Next I have Tim Carfrae. Mr. Carfrae, you're in the meeting whenever you're ready. Good evening. My name's Tim Carfrae. I live in Lower Providence. In all first disclosures. I am a parent of two football players on the varsity football team. I'm also on the video crew, so I do get to go to the games to help out the coaches, the video, all the games. So Friday, I was at
186the game at Upper Perk, and I witnessed how they handled things for the team. There was only 59 parents there. There was no band. There was cheerleaders. So there wasn't that many people. They did social distance. So I thought that was really, really nice for the parents to be allowed to go there. I think Dr. Zerbe's idea of having players on the field and parents and bands separate, I think that's a great idea. One of the reasons why I think it's even a better idea is that I believe Governor Wolf changed his stance on like restaurants, indoor restaurants went from 25 percent to 50 percent. So if he can do that, why couldn't he change the the rules for sports? Maybe he. For whatever reason, he didn't, but I think he should have. So I
187think, you know, our plan of having an open campus would be great. I also feel that parents should be allowed. to go to away games, at least one parent, to a football game and every other sport for the safety issue. Our kids play a violent sport, and it would be really hard for coaches to actually have to make that phone call to say, hey, can you meet your child at a hospital because they got hurt at a football game versus being in an ambulance with that player. We watched our kids play football since they were five years old. We watched them play soccer since they were five years, four or five years old. I think we should have this open campus so that the parents can actually see the kids play. I also think that
188we shouldn't close the campus to the outside. to outside people if we can by reducing possibly the band to allow more people even of the visiting team because band has their own competitions and I understand band's part of football, so are cheerleaders, but it's not a necessity for the game. As I said, Upper Perk didn't have a band. And that's about it. That's all I have to say. I appreciate your time and your allowing me to speak. Thank you, Mr. Carpry. Okay, next I have Brian Earnshaw. Whenever you're ready, Mr. Earnshaw. Thank you, Brian Earnshaw, Lower Providence. First couple of comments on various agenda topics. Regarding the Treasury report, it contains a lot of the funds that Mr. Bricker referred to last week in his master plan debt overview schedule as far as current sources
189of available funds, but he did leave a few out. So when you look at the district's balance sheet and the Treasury report, there's probably over $40 million of available funds in the district, and that's quite a sizable amount. It's 40% of the annual budget. and enough revenues to cover probably over 20 years of tax increases. And when I come up with that amount, I look at the general fund balance of $8 million, funds committed to the master plan of $4 million capital reserve, the PISA reserve, which will be $3 to $4 million. The Shenandoah Reserve, which is a legal matter that's been out there for 10 plus years. And then two capital borrowing funds of close to $21 million. Add all that up, it's close to $44 million. And the reason I bring that up,
190I'd like to hear from the board of the administration what the overall plans are and what kind of spending we as taxpayers should expect down the road. So hopefully that can be added to the agenda at some future meeting. A second comment relates to... Item 12 K, which is the supplemental contracts. I agree with Mr. Bickelman's comments regarding some of the spending there. I'd also like to understand why 11 of the 16 items are being approved retroactively. A lot of these items are recurring and it just seems that they should be voted on probably in July or August because if you're approving it after the fact, it kind of defeats the purpose of the board's approval. Also regarding some of the sponsor spending that's listed here in the list, I'm wondering if some of those
191rates have been adjusted for the activities that are not currently occurring and will not occur probably until mid-November, the earliest. And I look at things like the bus duty and the auditorium director and some other items. So I'd like to understand if those rates have been adjusted to account for the activities that aren't happening right now. And then finally, regarding item 15E, the use of facilities by outside organizations, my question there is, under this plan, are there any incremental costs for cleaning or disinfecting that are being incurred by the district? And if so, will those costs be recovered from the organizations using the facilities? And if not, why does the board and administration feel that it's appropriate to subsidize these outside organizations? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Earnshaw. And finally, I have Phil Chiazzo. Okay,
192you're in the meeting whenever you're ready. Hi, good evening. Phil Chiazzo, Lower Providence Township. I was also under the impression that we were speaking about the possibility of outside entities gaining access to the methodical school district facilities. But just wanted to say kudos to a lot of the audience comments tonight around. what we've heard from an educational plan around getting our kids back to school. Also, I just wanted to say, I'd like to start by stating that when I use the term the board here, I'm not speaking to everyone on the panel. Rather, I'm speaking to those individuals who consistently do not allow common sense to prevail. Think of every conceivable reason to not do something consistently throughout the roadblocks. And I feel hold me and my family hostage with some of these decisions that
193are being made. I hope that common sense prevails tonight and again specifically as it pertains to allowing outside organizations to utilize the facilities and the schools. I hope the board has had the proper time to digest what should have been the easiest of decisions last Tuesday, allowing 22 parents the opportunity to see their children play volleyball in an indoor setting that holds close to 900 people. Again, a little common sense goes a long way. Doesn't matter when you get the information. Common sense. Over this past summer, I watched as a lot of other townships and municipalities canceled their sports. Our kids got to play, bringing a little bit of normal back into their lives. I remember the first day at the ball field, all the socially distanced, masked-wearing parents and coaches with smiles so big
194that a mask simply couldn't conceal their enjoyment about just being around each other and watching the kids play ball. It wasn't easy to get to that point. It was the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of individuals and an all-in mentality of administrators, parents, coaches, and yet even the kids as we faced an uphill battle against the virus. And guess what? In the end, we prevailed. I hope that trend continues this fall and winter with the allowance of outside organizations to utilize the facilities that our tax dollars already pay for. And please don't misunderstand my passion for allowing the kids to play with not taking this pandemic seriously. Because I couldn't be further from the truth. I again simply defer to having some common sense that we can all employ in
195ensuring a safe environment for our kids and spectators to resume activities. This ruling has so many deep-rooted impacts. The health and social well-being of our kids, the ability for our community to come together in a responsibly social manner, and let's not forget the financial impact on our local businesses, as well as the revenue influx to the school district that our organizations provide. I would hate to be the bearer of bad news tonight for approximately 800 kids in one particular program. So again, I request a little common sense is used when making this decision later on. Thank you. Thank you. And finally, I have Lois Byrne. You're in the room. You can unmute whenever you're ready. Hi, this is Lellis Byrne. I am in Lower Providence. I have two graduates from Mifectin and one high school
196student. So I just wanted to offer up my support for the hybrid, ideally in person, but hybrid would be definitely a good stepping stone. You know, unfortunately, this is a very difficult situation. There's no great answer, but I... you know, notice that in this in-person environment the gap between the have and have-nots are increasing. Those with lower elementary school children who have the ability to hire tutors to help their child stay on task if they are also working full-time gives them a, you know, an advantage. Myself, you know, for my high school student, if he's struggling, I have the ability to get him a tutor. or some additional supplemental, but unfortunately not everyone's in that situation. And so those without those financial means, I think really are at a disadvantage in the online virtual environment.
197So I just wanted to put that out there. I also just wanted to thank the board for considering the spectators and potentially adding an amendment or whatever the correct term is to the current proposal if the PAC does support an away attendance by a parent. I did have a son injured at an away game. And the end result was he had to have surgery and nine months of rehab. If we had not been there. and an ambulance would have had been called, he would go into a hospital. It was not of my choice. They did not specialize in pediatric orthopedics and his outcome may not have been as good. And by Being able to be there in person, I was able to take him to a facility that I knew had a reputation and the
198ability and staff to treat him properly. If I had not been there, he would have been in pain for over an hour because the field was out in the Pottstown area. Also, you would incur ambulance costs, again, for the haves. You know, we have insurance that covers most of that or would have the ability to pay. For the have-nots, that would be a huge financial burden for them. So I really do think it's not a preference. It's not a nice to have. It's an essential. And I have spoken to the PAC president, and I know that he is highly considering that. So I just wanted to make those comments out there. I thank everyone on the board. I know this is a very difficult time. And, you know, being someone that works in a pharmaceutical
199industry and supports vaccination clinical trials, I know that we are not going to get an immediate relief in November, regardless what the media states. So I do appreciate all the considerations being put in place to add safeguards while allowing our children to get the education that they duly need. Because again, on the education front, a lot of the private schools are in person. And so again, when you're going into the college application process, it is not a level playing field. Those who got the in-person education at the private schools will have an advantage over those that are in public schools virtually. So thank you for your time and consideration. And thank you for letting me speak tonight. Thank you. Okay, next I have Lauren Nalzien. Okay, you're in the meeting whenever you're ready. Hi, thank
200you. I just wanted to mention real quickly that I think based on the data provided with the surveys from the teachers, it sounds like full in-person is not an option right now. So hybrid seems to be the most logical way to move forward for us to move forward and fully, excuse me, fully understand that, you know, as Dr. Zerbe mentioned, On day one, he could have many teachers who, you know, give notice or are unable to come to work. And, you know, that will always be the case, right, until there's a solution here where everyone feels safe to return to work and doesn't have health concerns. I don't think that should limit us from proceeding to move forward because that will always be a barrier. And at that point, we will have to pivot. I
201believe that's what happened in Central Bucks. And, you know, they had to take the extra time and it looks like now they're ready to go. So I think that that should not be a reason we don't move forward. And, you know, mentioning the virtual kids, you know, having them to. go into a new environment would be tough. And I think that we should also consider that, you know, there is a possibility that if we open and there are cases and they have to close for two weeks and go back open, the less shifting around for the children, the better and for the teachers. So all efforts made to keep the kids with their current teams and teachers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next I have Amy Smith. Ms. Smith, you're in
202whenever you're ready. Hi, thank you. Amy Smith from Worcester Township. I just wanted to echo a couple of the previous speakers who spoke to the fact that, you know, that we are grateful for, that people are grateful for the efforts of everyone who's working towards creating the best plan possible for the students and also for the teachers. I have four students in the district, one at each level of schooling here in the district. And what I'm seeing is a tremendous amount of effort from the teachers to make it the best experience possible. And I know my students' teachers are probably Well, they're showing a tremendous amount of patience with me as well as I'm emailing them questions and asking for input to try to make this the best experience possible while, you know, like many
203other families, both my husband and I are working full time plus helping the kids through this, through the virtual learning. So I want to take a minute to acknowledge that and speak to the fact that when it comes to the plans as the district is moving forward and forming them, to just really encourage the administration and the building principals and the teachers to come together and just make sure that, you know, the administration at a farina is really listening to the input coming in from the teachers because now that we have three weeks under our belt, the teachers are well equipped to be able to say what's working and what's not working and even speak to specific needs that they're seeing in students that may have a GIEP or an IEP or a 504 or
204just, you know, the students, someone had mentioned earlier about mental health, like the students that seem to not be handling this well. I think it's important to remember that This is traumatic for the students, but it's also traumatic for the teachers and the parents and everyone else because we're in a pandemic. The school board didn't create this situation. The administration didn't create the situation COVID did. So I think the best way to move forward and what I encourage the board to do is to guide the administration and Farina to make sure we're getting all the sources of information. I know from my line of work that the neighboring school districts in Montgomery County, as well as in Chester County, are all dealing with the same questions. They're all wrestling with the same issues. You know,
205there's things that have started and stopped multiple times just because. there's no right answers right now. And unfortunately, the state's not providing them for us. And I commend everyone who's working on finding solutions because they're not easy to come by right now. This is unprecedented for us and we're in a pandemic. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that's working on this. I know that there are many people behind the scenes that are contributing. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak during a meeting. I appreciate having the opportunity to... directly communicate with my children's teachers and also with building principals and with support staff and also to have our input heard during this process. And however we move forward, I just hope that you're just as patient with us as parents, as
206we're navigating this, as we are going to be for you. Thank you. Thank you. Now I have Julie Sterndahl-Feiner. You are in the room. You can unmute whenever you're ready. Thank you, Ms. Larsonese. I wanted to start by just expressing my thanks to the entire school district, from the administration to this board, to the teachers and to the students, as well as the parents. This has been an incredibly challenging time for everybody. And it is as difficult as a lot of conversations have been. I do really appreciate how difficult this has been and appreciate everybody's hard work and hope that we can continue to move forward as a community. I know that there is a lot of consternation by many different people, really all of us, in terms of what is the best way to
207move forward. the true health and safety risks of COVID are real. We know that there are ways to manage that risk and ways to do things more safely. And we have learned a lot since March. A hybrid plan where we have a limited number of students in each school building at a certain time with appropriate distancing and 100% masking is the best way to mitigate that risk. We'll never eliminate it, and that's okay. I think many of us recognize that that's not realistic, but that trying to minimize the risk as much as possible. The issue is not only the risk, obviously, to our children, but also the risk to our staff and the risk to the extended family members that our children live with. That said. You know, I recognize that going forward, there will
208be a lot of challenges as we move towards in-person instruction. And I do really hope that everybody has patience as we move forward with this. I certainly hope that we have the infrastructure and the hardware software in place in our schools. and in our classrooms in order to maximize the educational experience that our students are having. There are, I think, many different ways of approaching this, but making sure that our teachers have ability to, you know, potentially have cameras in the room where the children who are at home can be maybe projected onto the smart board so they can raise their hand and be seen rather than just be on a small computer screen. in front of the teacher, making sure the desks are far enough apart, etc. That said, I think there will be
209different approaches at different age levels, and that I think is completely appropriate. And we can certainly look towards what other districts have done in terms of the plans that they have in place and what is working well and what isn't. We do have a little extra time, and I think that we should use that time wisely to get together the best plan that we possibly can. We all wish that we were back a year ago and that our kids could just go to school carefree and never need to think about this. But that's not realistic. And so we do need to think about how to move things along and to try to limit disruption as much as possible. I also would, again, just ask the community to think carefully about your actions outside of your
210children going back to school. Think about the choices that you're making in terms of what other situations you are in. Are you getting together with large groups of people indoors, eating, you know, etc. And are you limiting? your risk in other ways so that we can maximize our students' ability to attend school and get the education that they so desperately need. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sterndahl-Feiner. Okay. So I think that's all we have then for comment on board action items. I'm just going to make one quick request, seeing that we might be here for another hour or two, if I could just ask for a five-minute recess. to stretch our legs. So it's now 1016. I'm going to ask if we could just reconvene at 1021. Mr. Summers,
211is there any official action that I have to take to do that? No, you can just call a recess for five minutes and reconvene at the time designated. Okay, so we will reconvene at 1022. Be right back. I do appreciate the five minute break. I figured we could all use a chance to stretch our legs for a minute. especially for those of us who are sitting in the same chairs that we sat in all day long for work. I switch rooms, but unfortunately this downstairs room, I apologize to everyone that sometimes my cat, my dog, my children, during the day they're very good about not interrupting, but they're not as behaved as all your children. I apologize. And the one time I wasn't muted, but two of them are upstairs now. So I apologize. And
212the dogs have been banned because they like to fight at my feet. Okay, as soon as we have Dr. Zerbe back on, then I think we can begin. All right. Thank you, everyone, for allowing us that break. Moving on with our agenda. First item is the suspension of board policy. So may I have a motion to approve the suspension of board policy 006.2 with specific regard to the limitation on number of directors participating electronically? Reese will make the motion. Thank you, Mr. Reese. Thank you, Mr. McGinnis. Any comments from the board? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries 9-0. May I have a motion to approve the minutes from the work session meeting held August 18th and the regular board meeting held August 25th and the special meeting held September
2133rd as attached? Mr. McGinnis? Second. I can second. Second. Ms. Hull? Comments from the board? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 9-0. Sorry, there's a duplicate item on my agenda. Bear with me. Okay. So now we finally get to approving the appointment of Mithakton High School juniors Claire Ferencz and Nolan McCloskey as student board representatives for a term of two years effective for the 2020-2021 school year. Drummond, do you have a motion? Thank you, Ms. Drummond. And a second? Winners. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Winners. Any comments from the board? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries 9-0. Fiscal items, Mr. Bricker? Thank you, Madam President. Tonight for your approval is the list of bills, Treasurer's Report, there are no budgetary transfers, there are four
214change orders for the Master Plan and the Internet Essentials Build Program. Okay, does anyone want to take any of the fiscal items separately? Okay, may I have a motion to approve items A through E as presented under fiscal? Navarette. Thank you, Mr. Navarette. And a second? cancro thank you miss cancro uh any comments from the board can we just answer the question about the the list of bills with the eisner group please eisner is a firm that does forensic accounting work it's part of the shanandale legal work thank you thank you mr bricker I think the other question was, it wasn't repetitive. The answer is no. I assume Mr. Brooker. That's correct. Okay. Any other comments from the board? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, nine zero. Personnel items. Mr. Regina. Thank
215you, Madam President. A number of items this evening. There's only one change from the work session agenda, and we'll get to that in supplemental contracts. We have one professional resignation, one classified resignation for retirement, one professional employment, two professional uncompensated leaves, two classified uncompensated leaves, one sabbatical leave, and 16 supplemental contracts. Just to note, one supplemental contract was removed and the supplemental contracts reference earlier and comments to action items was just that the dollar amount that was referred to earlier by Dr. Zerbe to move was upon further investigation of those activities that could be running currently now in the virtual environment. We may need to reintroduce those when we come back in person. So some of those activities and supplemental contracts were removed until we come back. And the last item is the volunteer list.
216Thank you. Does anyone want to take any of the personnel items separately? Mr. Neverett? Yeah, 12K4. Okay. Any others? Okay. So then I will take a motion to approve personnel items as presented with the exception of 12K4. Reese makes the motion. Thank you, Ms. Reese. Is there a second? Drummond. Thank you, Ms. Drummond. Comments from the board? I just have one question. I asked Mr. Regina my questions last week, but last night where I work, I was surprised by, I don't quote me on the number, but I feel like it was like a half dozen, five or six retirements that were in the middle of the year, December, January. And I'm not asking you to give you know, private information, but have you heard of any rumblings of possibly, you know, which is totally different
217than a leave related to COVID. If you want to retire, you can retire. Have you heard any rumblings about that? Only two at the moment, Andrea. So I, and both of those are related to not, they're actually not related to COVID specifically. So not many at this moment in time. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Winters? Yeah, Che, I know that some of these, can you speak towards the principle of retroactively? Certainly some of the sports ones were filled late, I understand, but there's also other items that the question related to that. And then also just a comment that the mentors are a contractual item. That's correct. The mentors are contractual item. Our activities and sponsorships, some of those have started at this point. So we wanted just to be obviously totally transparent. We
218wanted you to know that. So even though not all of these items are happening retroactively, the agenda item is so we wanted in totality. So we wanted to share that, of course. The coaching positions, as you stated, were that way. Some of what we do for the in-service trainings, or it could be for IEP writing, some of those things, since we do conduct business once a month, we do need to get started with those right away for obvious legal or contractual matters. So those will appear retroactively from time to time based on just the timing of those things that need to occur. In reference to the supplemental contracts, Paul, with the principals looking through this and really what they did was analyzed each of those activity and supplemental contracts and were able to determine which
219one of those would be able to work right now in the virtual setting. I think the reference was to bus duty contracts. That was one of those obviously that was pulled until we would return to an in-person setting, whenever that would be. So then I just wanted to ask a quick question then about that process. So for item 15, these supplemental contracts, they were reviewed by the building principals, you said? That is correct. So any of these activities that... that are still planning on happening. It's my understanding that the sponsors have submitted or developed some sort of a plan for how they're going to deliver them in a virtual environment, because obviously some of these lend themselves to a virtual environment. Some of them would require a little more outside the box thinking, but we
220have plans in place that have been reviewed by building principals. That is absolutely correct. Yes. Okay, great. I think it's wonderful that we're going to be able to still offer some of these activities to kids, whether we're in person or not. It's important to be able to support that, especially in this environment. Any other comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that carries 9-0. And now I'll take a motion to approve personnel item 12K4. The supplemental contract for the aquariums at Woodland and Arrowhead. Reese, make the motion. Thank you, Ms. Reese. And a second? Winner, second. Thank you, Mr. Winners. Comments from the board? Mr. Neverett. Last week, I asked Tim if we knew how much we had paid to the creative aquariums that does
221the services, those aquariums now. Do you know what that total is over the last couple of years? We spend between the two different groups. There's one that does woodland and there was one that did hour head and they were averaging about $500 a month. So $500 a month, $6,000 a year was the average. Because when I looked, the only invoices that I saw from them looked to be like once a month, maybe it was like $200 a month. But there's two, there's one at hour head and one at woodland. There's a different company that does. each location. Okay. So when you add up all of it, it's about $500 a month. Okay. Any other comments from the board? Okay. All those in favor of item 12K4? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Okay. Mr. Navarette? Mr. Summers,
222is it necessary to have a roll call vote? In this circumstance, it's pretty clear what the votes were, but I would suggest just as a general rule, whenever there is a non-unanimous vote to do it as a roll call for the record. Okay. Well, then just quickly, Ms. Cancro? Yes. Ms. Drummond? Yes. Ms. Hull? Yes. Mr. McGinnis? Yes. Mr. Navarette? No. Ms. Perdue? Yes. Ms. Reese? Yes. Mr. Winters? Yes. And I vote yes as well. So there we go. Roll call. Vote eight one. Now we have curriculum and programs. We have nothing this month. Policy. We have 12 policies up for first reading, but nothing for a second read. So there's no voting items there. I think we're probably going to take some of these items separately. This is obviously the more challenging part of
223the meeting. So let's start with... Item 12, I'm sorry, 15, 15A, gifts and donations. Do we have a motion to accept the gifts and donations as presented? Mr. McGinnis, thank you. And a second? Drummond. Thank you, Ms. Drummond. Any comments from the board? Seeing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion carries 9-0. Now moving on to item C. May I have a motion to approve the administration to proceed with developing a plan for a return to on-premises instruction that provides for students in K-12 a return in a hybrid model beginning on or about November 12th, 2020. Winners. Thank you, Mr. Winners. Second. I heard Ms. Perdue in there first, so we're going to go with her. Any comments from the board? I am in favor of this and we can talk
224about it more at education. I just want to make it clear. It is going to be very, very difficult to keep everybody happy. Nothing here is ideal. And I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but when we are creating these plans, first and foremost is children. We know that. Secondly, I'm living it every day as a parent and a teacher. So I do feel I'm not an expert, but I do feel that, and I'm not teaching hybrid yet. I'm all virtual. My district has not made a decision yet. It is a Montgomery County public district. They are working towards it. They're having a special meeting on Monday. And they don't know which way they're going yet. But no matter what way they go, it's going to be difficult. And it's important to get these
225kids back. I'm not saying that. But I just, when we are making these plans, we need to be as educationally reasonable and realistic as possible. You know, we talk about cameras, we talk about microphones, we talk about kids doing this and kids doing that. We need the educators in our buildings, the teachers and the administrators, to make a realistic plan with their knowledge of what it's like. And nobody's afraid of hard work. I know how hard these teachers are working. I know how hard these students are working. I know how hard their parents are working keeping them. mentally fit and stable during this. But I just implore you, implore you to think about it educationally, not, and I don't mean this in a negative way, not based on community pressure. And I don't mean that
226negatively because the community pressure is important, but there is just a reality people don't understand unless you do it. And it has nothing to do with hard work. It has to do with realistic expectations. And there's only so much one individual can do and one child can do. So anyway, I will, I'll stop there. I am in support, but I just urge not only the realisticness of the educational delivery, but of course. the safety. And I know we're going to get into details. One thing I did not mention when I asked questions is there has to be, it's a very different world for teachers, for students, for parents. There needs to be a very different world for our wonderful maintenance staff. They need definitive checklists and definitive monitoring, not because we don't feel like they're
227doing their job, but because it's a new world. So I did forget to mention that. So when we bring that, when we talk about further plans in the next few weeks, if I ask Dr. Zerbe to please have a plan in place that an employee is checking a list of what has to be done in each area, each room, and then it is someone else's job to go back and go over that list. It's not a matter of trust. It's not a matter of trying to monitor every move. It's a matter of importance and safety to our students and our staff. Thank you, Ms. Reese. Just one final comment for me. I think it's important to note that while other districts are having these same conversations, other districts are encountering some of the same problems.
228Other districts are encountering different problems that we aren't having here. If there was a right or easy solution, someone would have figured it out by now. There really is no one right solution. So I think it's important for us to bear in mind that. Every option that we are presented with here involves a trade-off. And I have faith in our administration. I have faith in our board and the work that we have done so far. And I have faith in our teachers that we're going to be able to figure out what's the best solution for methactin. Because what works for Spring-Ford, what works for PV, what works for Norristown is not guaranteed to work here. And so we have to work with... with what we have and I am looking forward to continuing to consult
229with the other board presidents to hear what their plans are and getting ideas for things that might be able to work for us. I know Dr. Zerbe is in regular communication with superintendents across the county. So we are not working in a vacuum here, but I have confidence that our administration will be able to develop a hybrid model that will address as many of the potential issues that we're trying to solve for here. You know, we're solving for education, we're solving for health, we're solving for safety. And I have confidence that we can do that. So with that, if there's no other comments from the board, I'm sorry, Mr. Navarro, go ahead. That's all right. I didn't realize you were going to jump right to vote. Yeah, I just want to say, just to address
230some of the comments from earlier tonight, just so we're clear, this plan that we're talking, we're just authorizing Dr. Zerbe to go back and put together the hybrid plan that we can approve later on. But any return to on-premises will still include an all-virtual option for parents, correct, Dr. Zerbe? Yes, that is exactly what I mentioned earlier in the evening. And that's what I'll say again here this evening. I mean, then what I said was, the Pennsylvania Department of Education is recommending that an online option be made available at all times during the pandemic period. Yeah, I just want to make sure that it's abundantly clear. And then as you put out this document that's going to have all of the guidance for parents and as many details as we can put together for parents,
231that will include the details of what that all virtual option will look like too, right? Correct. Okay. I do want to thank everybody for all their work to get to this point. I know when we started this process, a lot of us went back and forth about in-person and virtual and where do we go, and I was right there in person until we found out we didn't have all the necessary supplies. So I'm glad we're set up at that point. And I'm glad we're now having this conversation to move this forward and get our kids back at school. I know I often walk a fine line on this board and on this item and we get to outside groups too because of different routes in this community. But being married to an elementary school teacher
232here in the district and seeing firsthand what the difficulties are and hearing about the challenges day in and day out. for our students, for our teachers. You know, I guess I'm fortunate now that my children are a little bit older in our call in the high school. And for them, this isn't quite so bad, but I do see how difficult it is. So I would just. I would just strongly urge you, Dr. Zerbe, as we go through and we're creating this plan and we're creating this hybrid model at the elementary schools, that we make sure we're listening to our teachers. We're listening particularly to our classroom teachers that are the ones that are going to have to manage this. I've seen how difficult it can be to manage a group of kids online through a
233Zoom when they're sitting there all day, no matter how many breaks that you can get. But I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be to try to do that and manage a group of children in a classroom and a group of students online. So I think, you know, a hybrid model where we look at maybe a morning and afternoon program may solve that problem and may create others. But I think as we go through this, I think it's going to be important that we set out what the most critical pros and cons are of each of these options. How we got to the decision that we ultimately get to as far as this model, but I'm glad we're here. Thank you. Any other comments, Ms. Drummond? Yeah, this question came up to
234me. If we could just make this point of clarification that the special education, special needs students who are currently attending five days A week that will continue. There will be no change in their services that they get. Just wanted to clarify that. The. They're there. I can't. The answer to that right now is they are going five days a week. If we go to a hybrid environment where we are going, everyone's rotating in a four day a week cycle. There is a fifth day that still hasn't been determined about how we would continue providing five days for those children when most all other children would be in a virtual environment. So we need to work through that. But it is on the discussion block about how we might. provide that. So I don't want to
235say that it's exactly going to occur the way it is right now, but we do recognize, A, that some of our students that have IEPs, 504 plans, etc., you know, may need a different level of service and frequency of service than maybe other students, and we are considering that. highly in our plans, but I don't have a definitive answer for you at this very moment. Okay. Any other comments from the board? Okay. So all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so let's do a roll call vote here. Ms. Cancro? Yes. Ms. Drummond? Yes. Ms. Hull? Yes. Mr. McGinnis? No. Mr. Navarette? Yes. Ms. Perdue? Yes. Ms. Reese? Yes. Mr. Winters? Yes. And myself? Yes. So that's eight to one. The motion carries. May I have a motion for, actually, this is spectators at events.
236So we had talked about revising this. Kyle, feel free to jump in if you have something better than what I've got here, or if you have something drafted, we'll go with what you have. I did write a draft down, so I can just read it, and then if there's any alterations to that, feel free. But approve the revision to the Methactin School District Health and Safety Plan for athletics and marching band to include the procedure for spectator management, along with establishing spectator limits for outdoor and indoor events, as outlined in the presentation. or in accordance with guidelines issued by the Pioneer Athletic Conference where such spectator limits are permitted under law. Okay, so what he said. I'll take a motion on that. I'll make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Winters. And a second? A second.
237Cancro. Cancro. Any comments from the board? Mr. Winters. Yeah, I know that Dave, I respect that Dave and Dr. Spiewak made the point that we are trying to be good citizens among the pack. But I believe in this case, we should just open up our door for one parent to come to the fact and to visit, to watch their athlete participate for the safety reasons that have been previously discussed. I personally would like to just put that in there independent of PAC has made that change and maybe it'll be retroactively, retro, wrong word. if the other districts allow for our parents also, our one parent to be able to visit and watch those games as well. But I don't know if that puts Paul and Dr. Spivak and Dr. Sergini in a bad position, but
238I would suggest that we just go ahead and put it in there straight up. I would support that. Dr. Spiewak, I don't know if you want to speak to that or Dr. Zerbe. Does that, based on the conversations that you've had, would that present a problem? Well, I think what we should be considering is how to support our athletes and the parents at the events for which our athletes participate in an away event. If I'm trying to ensure that I address the comments made by Mr. McGinnis earlier, he was concerned about our students going to away events and a parent not being readily available, at least one parent. This you can't what Dr. Spielbach mentioned earlier is you can't adopt a recommendation for any limits from another district, you would just be making a a
239good faith attempt to allow for other districts to attend to our events, which I think that is what I'm suggesting. I understand what you're suggesting, but then I'm telling you I have 236 spectators for home, and how many do you want me to add to that? Even though it's one extra ticket for the other opposing team. And let's say the other opposing team is Spring-Ford, which travels, you know, as a large team and could have a neighborhood of 50 players. And that would be another 50 on to the 236, which would be over the 250, which we were commonly, you know, trying to stay as close to. So I'm just. I know what you're asking, and I just want you to know that the more, if there was a reciprocal process, then we would make
240that happen. And that's what I want to let the board know that if we have an agreement with another district that we can reciprocate the process, we will put the resources in place to make that happen. But for us to open the doors for everyone to do just what you're proposing and not have that reciprocated at the advantage or an equal advantage to our students and parents, I'm not sure what that gets us other than additional challenges. of spectator management. I think what it gets you, Dr. Zerbe, what it gets you is the same purpose an upper perk football player's parents would want to be here if their son blew out an ACL. We're representing athletes. in both directions in my case. But I honestly, I don't want to, at this point, I'm not going
241to die on the sword for this argument, but I'm happy with just voting on what Kyle put together. But I certainly believe that the reality of what the request was from the parent is a very valid concern. And I think it's something that we could do independent of the conference. But again, you're talking about doing something independent for all other teams, but it wouldn't support the parent. I understand. I understand. It's more about what's good for kids in general, as opposed to just what's good for the kids in Mithakton is what I'm hearing. I hear that as well, but I also know that there's a pandemic and there's health and safety concerns. And the reason that there are limits is so that we can manage the, and safely manage distancing and so forth. But if
242that's not the concern of the board, then I'm all for what Mr. Winters is proposing. However, if you want me to control. this to a greater degree and have some certainty over it. I don't know if it's in our best interest unless, for example, with the motion that Kyle had provided, the PAC does go ahead and allow for this reciprocation to occur and then therefore those rules would apply then to the schools equally. So I'm all for the idea. I'm just not sure what that gets us in the interim if it's not something identified by the PAC and then allows schools to agree upon the matter. So, Kim, sorry, I'm going to jump in. I think, you know, last week I made a comment about... not conflating counting spectators with a reopening plan. But on
243this specific matter, this speaks back to a comment I made, I don't know, months ago when we were talking about the fact that our reopening plan needed to be made on a regional basis. And for better or for worse, as much as I don't like, you know, the pack throwing around their weight and telling us what we can and cannot do. that's the closest thing that we have to a regional cooperation as to how to approach this right now. And I think this is a great time for us to set an example at outdoor events where we're going to allow, if it's 50 additional spectators, as long as we can do it safely and within the six foot confines and the way you've mapped out the bleachers, then I'm totally for it. Where we're talking
244about the gym, where we're talking about the potential for. 11 more spectators within the gym, I have no issue with it. I fully support this, Paul. I think it's a great idea. Let's set the example. Before I start the churn of making a motion, any other board members want to weigh in? Well, first, wouldn't Paul have to amend the motion? Well, that's what I was going to do was suggest amending, but I guess Paul would have to because he was the one that made the first motion. Yeah, I don't really want to waste everybody's time. Yeah, and I don't want to waste anyone's time either, but I want to have you think of one other thing. So, and maybe this isn't important, but it just might be. So let's say we open up spectators, 50
245more spectators to visiting parents. We would then be okay with an additional 50 spectators. Why wouldn't we give three tickets then to every player? as an example, to accommodate the 1,200 spectators that we, closer to the 1,200 spectators that we normally would get. I guess the question is, should we be opening up our access to the away team or the visiting team versus having more home spectators participate live in person? And this is something that may be important to this conversation. But Dave, you're muddying the waters there, right? The goal of this conversation is to allow one parent in case something really, really goes wrong. So, and then we get into this slippery slope of saying, well, why don't we add six or seven? I mean, we make things complicated, man. Just plus 30 tickets.
246Let the other team figure it out. Dr. Spivak needs a list before they get on and they check it off. That's all we're asking. So I'm going to make a motion to add 30 visitors to any event. Just to be clear, Mr. Winters, you made the motion. Is that correct? The original? Yes. Yes, I did. And who made the second? Karen Grove, Miss can grow and miss can grow. Do you have any objection to the original motion just being adjusted to include the additional item of the The numbers being as outlined in the presentation with an exception for a one away. Karen Grove, Basically, the language that Mr. Winters was about to propose of one away parent PB Sarah Silveri, Co-Chair, No objection. Okay, so basically, Mr. Wenders you can just present them the motion
247or the item that you'd like to adjust to the motion and then we can get a second without needing to go through an amendment process. PB Sarah Silveri, Co-Chair, I would just caution to not maybe not put specificity to it and just make it one per player and that way it's just dictated by the event that would be my advice, but I'd like to make a motion to add an additional line that allows visiting parents or a visiting team to have equal number of tickets for the number of participants in the event being the athletes. I would second that motion. Any further discussion? Ms. Hall. I just want to clarify that we're holding the visiting parents to the same. standards that we are our own. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? All those in favor?
248Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion carries 9-0. Now we need a motion to authorize administration to make school gymnasiums and the high school pool available under policy 707. Reese. Ms. Reese. And a second? McGinnis. Thank you, Mr. McGinnis. Any comments from the board on this item? Mr. Winters? Yeah, I just want to make sure that there's an understanding that certainly from me and I believe all nine of us on the board, that activities inside the school and outside are representative of great educational experiences and we support those. So it is not built around just a money decision. It's around what is good for the kids. and their mental aspects and being able to physically do things, have some friendships, etc. Learn, coach, live and learn, lose, win, etc. It is not, none of this, in
249my opinion, on my side at least, is related to anything to do with the fiscal money coming into the district. Sorry, we've never generated a profit of any kind to speak of in renting out our facilities to these local sports organizations. I mean, I know that there is some money that comes in, but I believe that it's pretty close to just the right amount to offset our expenses with the understanding being that these activities are for children who are in our district, who are already the children that we are serving. So yeah, this is not. financial. I'm sorry, Ms. Reese, I did cut you off there. No, I was just going to say that at property, the committee discussed this, moved it forward. There will be plans in place by the outside groups. And not
250that this is a requirement, but many of the children who participate are methactin students. It doesn't mean they have to be. Obviously, there are other students that are part of this group, but there is quite a few methactin students. as Paul said, something to address the needs of children. I do know that we in discussions about this, I believe we talked about whether or not there is an increased cost to the district for the additional cleaning that's required under covid. I don't know if we were able to calculate. Is there an additional cost? And if so, how are we covering that? Well, certainly there's some additional costs. I mean, we are planning to disinfect those areas on the cycle related to its use. And those costs can, in some instances, be absorbed through some of
251the CARES grants that are associated or been awarded to the district and use the supplies and even staffing. to cover those costs through those grants. Okay. Any other comments from the board on this item? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries 9-0. We have three settlement agreements. May I have a motion to approve the three settlement agreements for students that are listed on the agenda? Thank you, Mr. Winters. And a second? McGinnis. Thank you, Mr. McGinnis. Any comments from the board? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries 9-0. We have our regular meetings coming up next month. As we discussed as part of the hybrid plan earlier this evening, we will be adding a special meeting to the work session on October 20th
252that will be advertised in all the usual places so that we can vote on some sort of a hybrid plan. Does anyone have any old business this evening? Okay. Under new business, we have our PSBA officer elections this evening. So for some of these, for one of these, I'm sorry, we do have to choose one person or another. So I think what I'll do is just take the first one. May I have a motion to approve candidate David Hine as president for a one-year term? I'll make the motion. Thank you, Ms. Hall. And a second? Neverett. Thank you, Mr. Neverett. Any comments from the board? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that carries 9-0. I'm not quite sure how to handle it when there's two different options. Let's say... So I
253apologize. We go ahead about this at the MCIU. Refresh my memory on the two names. Sabrina Backer or Daniel O'Keefe. Okay, so I should have, I apologize. My notes from IU were small. We were going to suggest a slate. We meant at the IU we had to do this and they were going to suggest a slate and they forgot. But I will just say that the IU backed Sabrina. And- Sabrina Backer, okay. So I make a motion, but I don't know how, Kyle, I need your help because we didn't do it. I just wanted to let you know that. So there's two ways. You can open it up to nominations or if you wanted you and you were about to make a motion under item two to vote for in favor of Sabrina Backer as
254vice president. If there's that motion in a second and if it passes, then that is the individual who's approved. Okay, well then let's go with that. May I have a motion to approve Sabrina Backer as vice president for a one-year term? I so move. Ms. Reese and a second. Mr. Winters, comments? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries 9-0. And then I'll take a motion to approve Michael Gossert as treasurer for a three-year term. Ms. Reese, and a second? Mr. Navarrete? Comments? All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. And a motion to approve candidate Marianne Neal as PSBA Insurance Trustee for a term ending December 31st, 2023. Ms. Reese? Second? Mr. Winters? Comments? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. And approve candidate Michael Fasanetto as PSBA insurance trustee.
255The fact that these are listed as two separate items, I believe that means that we are responsible for electing two. Is that correct, Dr. Zerbe? You got a 50-50 chance. Let me flip the coin. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to assume that Ms. Mendia did this intentionally because that's... how she rolls. I'm sure that she would have listed this differently if it was otherwise. So I'm going to go with that. Approved candidate, Michael Fascinato as PSBA insurance trustee for a term ending December 31st, 2023. I'll make the motion. Thank you, Ms. Hull. And a second? Navarette. Thank you, Mr. Navarette. Comments? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Does anyone have anything else for new business? Just quickly that you jogged my memory. I just wanted to add one more thing
256about the IU. And I apologize because it's my first year being the IU rep. So at these meetings, some things are new to me. We do not have an October meeting, and that's why I wanted to tell you tonight. We don't have an October IU meeting, I should speak correctly. The new building is opening at the end of, it's opening this week, and the new building is housing, I shouldn't say new building, the renovated building, the old IU that is now. the beautiful new renovated early intervention system, early intervention school and an emotional support school at the top. So they are phasing their opening over the next few weeks. Some is virtual, some is in person. And I will be visiting that. And if anyone else is interested, I will fill you in on when
257we are doing that because it's a really, really great opportunity for students in Montgomery County, early intervention students in Montgomery County. Thank you, Ms. Reese. Anything else, Ms. Hull? Just for the board, a reminder that PSBA is hosting on October 8th, the Advocacy Day, and October 14th and 15th is the School Leadership Conference. Everything's virtual this year and everything is free. I don't know if you've got the emails, but they look like they have some really good speakers this year. So if anyone has time to tune in, I think it would be worth it. Oh, can I ask one more question? Absolutely. It's not related to this. It's related to the... The possibility of changes within the Office of Public Health in Montgomery County. It looks like from their agenda, they're drafting a resolution. And
258I wanted to see if we could get a legal interpretation of how we would deal with a resolution from them, how binding that would be on our actions. Are you speaking with regard to the outdoor gathering limits? Correct. Sure. In terms of just do they list a specific number in their proposed item? No, it says that it just says that they are reviewing a draft resolution. So if they were to impose limits, how binding would that be on us? So as Dr. Zerbe mentioned earlier, my understanding is that the Department of Health has the authority with regard to outdoor events because of public health needs to limit those gatherings. My understanding is that they have. already been involved in monitoring certain events within the county and shutting down those events where they believe that it
259prevent or presented a public health crisis. So my understanding is that the county health department does have the authority to limit those outdoor gatherings when they believe it's a threat and if they determine a specific number of individuals. that that is capped at, I think it's important to note that the judge's decision involving Governor Wolf's mandates only involved those orders issued by Governor Wolf and not any other orders that might have been issued or might be issued by governing entities. So the one piece I guess I'd point to in the item, the motion that was approved this evening with regard to spectators was it had a caveat at the end subject to the legally permissible gathering limits under law so if it were the case that the county came out and and imposed a gathering
260limit that was lower than what the board has already authorized I believe under that circumstance we would adjust our how many spectators we would permit at an event to be in conformance with any such order of the Department of Health. All right. Anything else for new business? Okay. At this time, then I will open it up to courtesy of the floor. This is the time for the board to hear comments from the community on any matters that could come before the board. We ask you keep your comments to four minutes or less. I'm just gonna ask that anyone who signed up to comment during courtesy of the floor to please raise your hand and I can call on you. And if it's appropriate, the board can choose to respond to some of the matters following
261conclusion of the comment period. Okay, Mr. Bickelman. You are up. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I want to speak out against the building a new Arrowhead and the need for a new Arrowhead school and the need to spend $35 million on construction and another $15 million on interest. You know, the only reason that sixth grade is not in Arcola is because in 2006, there was a... enrollment projection done that said we were going to have 6,500 kids in this district. 10 years later, in 2016, 2017, the board was made aware that our enrollment was like 4790 and it was declining. It's going to decline further. Okay. That was based on our consultant saying it was going to decline so we could close Audubon or Arrowhead or both. OK, because it's going down and
262we didn't hit 6500 kids. So right then you say to yourself, I have an Arcola school that has a capacity, a functional capacity being used of 58 percent. That should be a problem that should have been addressed. That sixth grade should have went back into Arcola. And we should have changed Skyview to a K-5 for better educational results and put things back where they belong because we had some very suspect enrollment projections in 2006. And the board was made aware of that in 16-17. And that undercapacity to Arcola should have been addressed. That was the issue. Okay. And then two years later, the same consultant said enrollment's going up to justify the building of an Arrowhead. So close Arrowhead, save a million a year, save your 54 million in debt and move on and address
263the issue at Arcola. It's now 58% of functional capacity. That's a little over half used. Okay. The other thing that has to do with the aquarium, I didn't hear why the aquariums exist in the first place. Whose idea was it? Is it in the curriculum? Did somebody just get tired of cleaning them and maintaining them? And, you know, why do they exist in the first place? Are they just ornamental, aesthetic, or what? I don't know why they existed, okay? Another thing, I sent an email to Ralph Navarette addressing some issues with the Act 34 hearing and how the public didn't see a capacity form. and issues regarding that form and how the public can make an educated opinion about what is the size of the building and how many kids are we addressing at Arrowhead?
264We didn't see the capacity calculation and the aggregate calculation number for the cost. And we're getting a gym that's two and a half times bigger than the current gym now. Okay, I don't, I think the public needs to see that form. And I wanted acknowledgement tonight from Mr. Navarette or the rest of the board that you got the, that you got my email because I don't even get a courtesy back from anybody. It's ridiculous. I heard tonight that the board put last year surplus of three and a half million dollars away in the, in to account for employer contributions to the retirement system for the employees. Three and a half million set aside. that you restricted. The board dealt with increases from 1% of salary to 35% of salary from 2002 to the present. Never
265once did they have to hide money in a fund balance to take care of those retirement increases. Now you're hiding $3.5 million for retirement purposes that you can change just by a vote. You can change it and use it someplace else. You have $8 million in surplus on top of that. Did you get proposals for the forensic accountant? Thank you, Mr. Bickelman. From other firms. Thank you. For the Shenandoah. Okay. Next, I have Jim Mollick. Whenever you're ready. You hear me all right? Yep. How much did you rent out the district facility to the hundreds of people who were here for the Black Lives Matter protest? Do you have that number? Because it sounds like you're big on policy 707. The number was zero. You didn't charge them anything. Can you tell me why you
266didn't charge these protesters anything to use our property? Don't worry, I won't interrupt you. Are you aware that you just lost a lawsuit in common pleas court at docket 2020-05045? I sent you an email, just like Mr. Bickleman, I didn't get an answer. So can you tell me who authorized the solicitor to file this lawsuit that you lost? I don't remember it being discussed at a meeting. I don't even believe it was discussed in executive session. So maybe you guys didn't get informed consent. Either that or you got it somewhere else. Do you know how much it cost the taxpayers for that lawsuit you just lost? Can you give me that figure? For some reason, like I'm looking at my screen now and I can't see all of the board members. Actually, I can't see
267anybody. Is there a reason why we can't see all the board members during a meeting? Because the reason I asked, I'm concerned because I'd like to see if I'm being F-bombed by a board member. You know, I don't have to go look the next day and see that that's happening. So if you could work it out that, you know, we can watch the board members during our talks, that would be great. I think it's time to get back to in-person meetings. Governor Wolf's order has been shown to be unconstitutional. Your Act 34 hearing was a disaster. And at the last meeting, unbeknownst to me at the time, since I couldn't see the board, it appeared that Ms. Reese F-bombed the methactin mom's comments. That's totally inappropriate. She owes the mother an apology. But, you know,
268I can't be too surprised. I mean, this is the same person that allegedly said that she wants her kids to go egg somebody's house. This is the same person who had an outburst at the property committee meeting. So I would suggest you guys do something about it, investigate it or something, because it's totally inappropriate. You know, you guys struggle to make decisions about going back to school, but you have no problem making pushing through Arrowhead. You have no problem allowing partisan protesters to protest on school property. You even had two board members, Ms. Hall and Perdue, part of the protest. So I guess, you know, you guys are good with things that you believe in politically. Pushing it forward real quick. Maybe you should think of what's going on with the kids as like a
269political thing, because, you know, I really can't understand what you guys are doing. It's sad to watch a board that's more concerned with activism and indoctrination than education and sports. There's no reason. why you have to go with a 50 more limit. I mean, what kind of science did you use to come up with? Dr. Zerbe said, oh, maybe we'll let you have 50 more people. Can you tell me what the science is that you based it on for 50? Or did you just pick the number out of the clear blue sky? Thank you, Dr. Mullick and Jessica Bradbury. And that'll be it for public comment this evening. whenever you're ready. Thank you. Good evening. I'm exhausted. I'm sure you all are. First, thank you. I know this is a lot of stress and aggravation
270and hard work for everyone. I probably don't say thank you enough. So thank you. This is... A lot. I have a whole thing I'd like to talk about, but I'll give the Cliff Notes version because it's so late. We talked about we're so concerned with the staff, their mental health, but why don't they have a contract? Surely they would be more respected and maybe more willing to work. Not that they're not willing to work. They're amazing, but why don't they have a contract? I think it's ridiculous. I talked about the mental health of our kids and I'll offer some statistics that I found from a neighboring Delaware County district, Wallingford. Swarthmore did a informal poll of their students, grades K to four, right, ages five through 10 years old, maybe, asking how they felt. 75%,
27175% of the students had issues of depression and or suicidal thoughts. 75%. What are we doing to ask our students how they're feeling? Are we giving them the same level of counseling and remote care if they were in the classroom? I'll tell you right now, firsthand experience, I know that we're not. I know a seven-year-old that had a moment of crisis and her mother was handed a phone number to call. Unacceptable. I mentioned it last week. I'll mention it again today. We continue to depend on technology, making the director of tech one of the most important roles in the administration this year. And yet we have someone in there that has no technical background whatsoever. The quality of my child's education is my number one focus, and that is directly tied to the quality of
272our tech, unless we bring our kids back to school, which clearly isn't going to happen anytime soon in full capacity. I really hope that providing quality of education to our students is your top goal. I hear it, but how are we measuring it? Has the K-4 benchmark assessments in math and language concluded? What are the results? I'd like to see them. How does it compare to prior years? Are they keeping up? Are they falling behind? How do our students compare to other districts? Where's the data? I see health-related metrics to find. I don't see any other data. I'd really like to see data regularly compiled and reviewed so we can track progress and quality. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I think that does it for the pre-registered speakers for courtesy of the floor.
273Do we have any comments from the board before we adjourn? Okay. Yeah, I'm just going to call it then. Can I have a motion to adjourn? Ms. Drummond and a second? Second. Second, Ms. Hull. All right. Thank you, everyone. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good night. Good night.