September 20, 2021 Brandywine School District Board Meeting

001good evening everyone welcome to the bernie line school district board of education regular meeting on monday september 20th 2021. tonight we are located live in the bhs auditorium as well as via zoom ms karpinski may i please have a roll call mr skrobot here miss pigeon here mr ackerman here miss gordon here mr heller here reverend perry here miss stop here all present thank you uh at this time i would like to ask mr ralph ackerman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands under god indivisible with liberty thank you um before we proceed i wanted to make an amendment to the agenda um moving item 10a format of future board meetings from new business to old business which would make it

002item nine b this was something we had discussed in previous meetings so i just wanted to move that item from new business to old business and with that i will entertain a motion to approve the amended agenda so second have a motion in a second all in favor say aye aye aye motion carries all right first up this evening we have special presentations i would like to welcome dr cohen to recognize brandywine school district's very own ken hutchinson kitchens hutchins sorry good evening board members and mr holler it is my pleasure tonight to help recognize someone from our curriculum and instruction department that not only advocates for the use of data but who also helps others use and understand the data on the service of our students i would like at this time to call

003ken hutchins to the podium [Applause] ken we can't thank you enough for your work and service to our staff and students it's our pleasure to hear of all the wonderful work that you do not only to for our district but in the entire state with your colleagues in a similar role in their own districts you're a true leader in advocating the appropriate use of data to help guide decision making in and around our district and our state quite frankly at this time i would like to introduce to the board dr chris cohan the director of accountability and co-chair or director accountability from newark charter school sorry director of accountability and co-chair of the delaware education data forum and dr adrian peoples from the department of education to recognize ken formally as the data form lea

004member of the year 2021 good evening and thank you for having us here tonight i wanted to give a brief uh introduction of what the delaware data forum is the delaware education data forum was formed six years ago to bring the state education agency and local education agencies together to work collaboratively to provide clarity confidence and consensus on the best possible student level data and the ways that that's used in our education system statewide in the brandywine school district and in the surrounding local education entities uh ken is one of the two co-founders of the delaware education data forum he's been involved in this group since the very beginning he served as the first lea co-chair of the committee uh we now are made up of over 40 leas statewide all of the public school

005districts most of the charter schools um pretty much any school agency that is out there is represented at the table partnering with the state to really share and work together with our best practices in the use of data one of the best examples i can give what kem brings to this organization is at our most recent meeting last week we had a new member from down state who moved into a position similar to ken's in one of the large public districts who was looking for help it's a unique position that ken is in in this district there's one of him in every one of these districts and it's largely a job that goes unrecognized and it's important to the functioning of all of our schools immediately ken stepped forward and volunteered said i'll contact this

006person on my own i'll help them get their feet on the ground learn the steps that they need to take the people that they need to know and what they need to do to be successful in their job ken doesn't get recognized for this he doesn't get rewarded for this he does it because it is good for the profession it's good for students and it's good for education in delaware so that's one example there's numerous of these that i could give that ken has taken on in this organization he was elected by his peers uh overwhelmingly to be recognized as our lea data employee of the year um so i want to turn it over to dr peoples from the state department of education uh with a couple of words to say about ken as

007one of our founding members superintendent holder esteemed brandywine school district board members my name is dr adrian peoples i work at the delaware department of education it is my pleasure to stand before you tonight and present ken hutchins with this award it recognizes his hard work and data ken is a product of the delaware public education system having graduated from lake forest high school in 1895 i mean 1985. he raised two children jordan and taylor also proud of delaware public education with nearly 30 years of service in delaware public schools he has been a teacher a team lead a department chair a building administrator and a district administrator he's worked above the canal and below the canal he has worked for a large traditional school district as well as a startup charter school he believes

008that good decisions come from accurate and actionable data he spends countless hours compiling analyzing visualizing and explaining data to both his constituents his peers and unfortunately me late nights on the phone whether it's at district-wide administrator retreats in the summer or one-on-one tutorials over coffee in his kitchen he is a nerd and wouldn't have it any other way finally as a kid as the first laa co-chair and co-founder for the delaware education data forum he has served as a strong voice not only for good data practice but for building strong relationships between the leas and the state department under his leadership and contribution the forum is not only the most successful data cadre in the past 20 years its membership is asked to participate early and often in key state level decisions that have data

009at its core brandywine school district it is my opinion that you employ the best data professional in all of delaware public education i'm proud to work with him and it is my honor to present ken hutchins with the 2021 delaware education data forum lea data professional of the year [Applause] and on behalf of the brandywine school district we just want to say how appreciative and proud we have we are to have you here with us thank you superintendent holo board members uh to be recognized by your peers is truly uh an honor but i can't accept this just on my behalf all the support that i get from cni from the superintendent cora all the executive team all my principals other supervisors you know i do this to support them but most importantly support kids

010and hopefully make better decisions looking at the data but this award is also because of all my friends and my family here at brandywine school district thank you again for all you do for the brandon white school district and like you said to be recognized by your peers is an outstanding honor so congratulations to you and continue to make us proud i just would just like to say thank you ken and i knew ken before i knew ken because his reputation as a data guru long preceded my formal introduction to him so we are thrilled to have him as a member of the brandywine school district great next up i would like to welcome miss giana rivera morales to help brandywine school district celebrate spanish heritage month for the proclamation good evening [Music] el salvador

011guatemala honduras nicaragua mexico guatemala nicaragua peru uruguay bolivia costa rica ecuador honduras panama puerto rico venezuela espana alberga una poblacion del ocho puntodos por siento de ascendencia one [Applause] i would like to say gracias senorita rivera morales because i was supposed to read that in spanish and uh you you stepped in and saved me so thank you and that leads us next to assistant superintendent ms cora scott and director of curriculum instruction dr michelle kutch to present on continuity of learning plan good evening president scrobot members of the school board thank you for having us this evening to share some information related to our continuity of learning plan um we're going to go through a few pieces of information and dr kutch is going to assist me with that so the cdc and the department

012of public health have stressed that students attending in-person learning is the recommendat recommended approach however for various reasons that may be unique to individual students there may be a need for an alternate approach to ensure that there is continued continuity of learning we have created a learning continuity plan for our students that are quarantined or isolated due to covid as well as for students who may be identified as having covet-like symptoms so these students are unable to attend in-person learning for a period of time that is determined by our lead nurse consultation is always maintained with our department of public health liaison on student situations the amount of time can vary depending on the circumstances and the details determined through the contact tracing process students may be in and out of in-person learning in a

013fluid manner and so our continue our continuity of learning plan supports students so that they can continue their learning while they are being required to learn from whom and students must return to in-person learning based on the returned school return to school date that is established by our school nurse so for those students the k-1 students will be out for just a day or two due to having clothing-like symptoms and for grade two through twelve students we are providing the opportunity to audit their classes during the time they're out auditing classroom instruction for a student is not a full interactive experience the teacher would have their camera turned on but only facing the teacher or the instructional resources such as a white board smart board charts etc the camera would not necessarily be facing other

014students this would allow those students to listen to the instruction in real time with their classmates they can access the resources that are posted in schoology to continue their learning and complete assignments the teacher would check in on students to provide support as the lesson permits uh students attendance will be marked as remote this does not count as an absence but instead ensures that we are tracking the learning location for the students on a daily basis for k1 students who will be out for longer periods of time due to isolation or quarantine we have a different plan we developed a model for our k1 students who will be out long out for longer periods of time it will provide support knowing that they may need additional help based on their level of independence because there

015are littlest learners besides pre-k members of the curriculum and instruction department are providing live instruction synchronous for the k1 students who are quarantined or isolated for example our coordinator of ela provides literacy instruction for our students and we have asked our cni team to pull together in creating a schedule to ensure that the learning continues for our youngest students having cni provide this instruction ensures that there is alignment with our curricular expectations and will follow for ease of transitioning back into in-person learning as cora mentioned before additionally the cni team district administrators will be included in the rotation to provide a read aloud opportunity for our students this has been a lot of fun i have to tell you again students attendance will be marked as remote this does not count as an absence but

016again ensures that we're tracking their learning location on a daily basis our unique learners we do recognize that for some of these students there may be a need for additional supports particularly for our students with disabilities individual arrangements are being made for those students to ensure that they receive their special education and related services thank you ms scott thank you dr coach any questions or comments from the board yes i i have some questions um thank you so much for this presentation and i just want to thank you for having the um the foresight to think about uh you know that the continuity of services so i'm really really appreciative of this um as an educator um i just have a couple of questions so for these plans especially like the short-term kind of auditing

017uh insight into the classroom um was there like a a table of stakeholders that helped to come up with this plan so we um shared the information um with our and talked with our administrators as well as um discussed it with our union leadership around um what we were thinking would be in the best interest of the students um given the fluidity fluidity of things and trying to just make sure that students in those situations are able to continue learning so we did discuss it with um various groups um thank you so much my second question is as far as a for the long term for the younger students uh what would happen if there would be too many students in that long term because and i i really appreciate that the services were provided

018by the curriculum instruction team is there um a plan for if indeed there would be too many students for the curriculum instruction team to handle so at this time we're monitoring the numbers closely i think that's something that um i know superintendent holder is going to share some data updates and that's the piece that um we've got to just watch closely right now the numbers are um relatively small um michelle i'm not sure if you know exactly it's probably 10 kids or so um it ebbs and flows so uh 15 on some days we had 19 months today we had three so it all depends on the situation and as far just one more question thank you so much um as far as unique learners um i know that the special ed students be included

019in that what about english learners so that's something um that michelle and her team uh sue haley solana our english language learner our coordinator they'll look at individual kids and determine what might be some additional needs and try to put supports in place as necessary thank you so much and um i just have a simple question so to be honest i'm not up to date on how in sync classes are so if a first grade student at one school's math lesson is so in sync with a first grade student at a different school that this remote instruction is going to definitely align so i guess i'm asking how do we ensure that what they're learning remotely isn't material that they've already learned or that's too far ahead from where they are in their class at

020that time sure so if you're referring to the k1 is that sure but yes well for for the other grades for 2 through 12 for um they will be auditing so they'll be actually in the actual classroom of the teacher as is so really for that question i would say that the portion that cni has been instructing those students we and c and i have created the pacing guys with with the teachers um for this year so you know to your point could it be off a day or two but overall for that portion of time it would pretty much be very close yeah thank you thank you great thank you thank you mr doctor thank you next we'll hear from superintendent holler with some general news and updates the superintendent's report good evening board

021audience staff and community members here in person as well as those joining us virtually this evening first and foremost how wonderful it is to see our students back where they belong in our schools as of today enrollment stands at 10 561 but that number will change over the course of the next two weeks as we pick up late enrollments and remove some no-show students from our rosters we believe that we should come in slightly above last year's enrollment of 10 405 students this little guy is walking into preschool for the first time at the joseph brumskild early childhood assistance program ecap for short you gotta love it when the book bag is as big as the student but don't blink because before you know it he'll be scoring touchdown passes on the gridiron in high

022school it's great to see our students returning to school excited walking through the door ready to learn despite the distractions in the world around them yes things are different but they are adapting to the learning the new parameters that covid continues to impose sometimes that means seating arrangements that are much different than what they're used to not just in the library but having to sit in the hallway at springer for lunch not just springer but in a lot of our schools the gymnasiums hallways even lobbies of the schools are being used during lunch time to ensure adequate social distancing to the best of our ability even if you're in the cafeteria you might see signs on the table where middle school students very unaccustomed to having assigned seating at lunch now have assigned seats to

023aid us in contact trees and purposes from elementary to middle to high school we're making the needed adjustments including students in our site co-op program who are going to work every day practicing skills necessary to be productive in the world of work upon graduation from the program students just like those you see in the middle of tally's immersion program the first year for that to expand into middle school and we're excited about that and all the extracurricular activities that we have going on to see students back in school engaged in activities that they love that they enjoy brings a much welcome side relief not only to educators but to parents as well i happened to be at the concord football game the brandywine football game and i don't know who was having more fun whether

024it was the athletes on the field or the band members in the stands because they were having a ball and the parents were smiling as much as the students were and that's all great to see but there have been some challenges along the way these are pictures from our own community students and families who live in this section of the city that was hit severely as hurricane ida tore through their community flooding the banks of the local rivers this is actual footage of an area where our students live and i have to commend fellow board member reverend shanika perry who from day one minute one was on the scene providing much needed support and rescue and relief as much as could be to those families in need here you see the water lines along the

025side of those houses and many of those homes those four or five blocks that we happen to be at that day had basements and these people lost everything everything in their basements everything in first more carted out to the curb and i have to thank colleen carter and members of her school nutrition team and the transportation department who on a moment's notice dropped everything the plans that they had for an evening and came together to quickly uh provide sustenance and uh wonderful food arrangements for many of those people who had nothing no pots no pans no way to preserve the food no way to cook the food in a moment's notice in addition we also had staff members these are staff members from concord high school i believe who went to the stricken community to

026aid and assist in the cleanup activities much of those activities are still ongoing so just a tremendous response to afflicted community members and communities that are right here coming to brandywine schools and it's it's great for us to reach back and serve those in me this is an interesting picture those of you who have uh high school students especially seniors you may not believe this but yes brandywine high school had something called senior sunrise somehow they convinced seniors to get out of bed before the sun came up in the morning so on the first day of school there were quite a few students assembled out in the football field enjoying the opportunity to be back with friends and people that they had not seen again welcoming that sense of somewhat normal return to school activities

027when we talk about the value of social emotional wellness with our students we know that being in person is key to that relationship building so uh mr roth whatever that secret sauce was that you used to get seniors out of bed you might have some parents following up with you after tonight's meeting to get that recipe very well done so the students are back um and we are thrilled that they're back and uh we just celebrated uh at the beginning of this meeting ken hutchinson's focus on data and we have said all along as a district we will focus on data we will track that code of data and uh do our due diligence to stay ahead of it and try to put things in place in response as proactively as we possibly can so

028just showing you the data from new cases over a seven day period for four states new jersey maryland pennsylvania and delaware so when you think of us regionally those four states are three states come to mind and here's delaware in the purple we are the highest we are actually as of last friday didn't check today but 26th in the nation in terms of number of new cases per 100 000 on a 14-day trend so it's important to keep gauged where we are compared to our sister states but it's also important to take a look at where we stand in terms of other states nationally so in this graph it's the same four states maryland at the bottom new jersey in the blue followed by pennsylvania in the orange and here's delaware and here's west virginia

029not too far away but you can see the spike that they have compared to where we are here's another graph took west virginia out and put in south carolina and you can see considerably different rate of spread in other states again delaware right now right there average for the u.s dug back a little bit and what this graph shows is the range of ages and the number of cases and you can see the jurisdiction is for delaware and this shows back to january 9th of 2021 kind of like the height of the spread and when we return students after winter break students back into our schools this graph is the same breakdown of ages but it shows where we are as of the 4th of september there's usually a two week lag in that data

030that's why we can't show you 9 15 or 9 20. that was the most recent they had as of last friday and i know that's hard to see so we kind of put it into a little table here for the zero to four age group you can see there were 319.8 cases per 100 000 and that was again last january if we compare that to the 4th of september you can see we're at 3 16 so about three cases under so that that age group is much different um compared to the other ones where we are about at half when you look at our 16 to 17 year olds back in january about 800 cases right now about 400 so we're about halfway much different with the zero to four so we're trying to keep

031track of what that spread looks like in the state newcastle county has a the least spread in terms of the three counties compared to suspects kent but we're also the most compact when you think of density in terms of the number of people per square mile all those pieces come into play and this is the big one so uh board members you'll recognize this chart this is the same chart that i put in every week to you in your friday packets but it shows the progression of the seven day average of new new cases per 100 000 for the three counties you can see new newcastle county july was at 14 cases we're now at 281 up considerably since the beginning of school kent at 367 sussex at 366. the other set of data we

032constantly look at is what is that positivity rate the percent of tests that are coming back positive you can see again castle county is lower than its sister counties but if you look at that progression um you don't have to be a math guy to see that trend it's continuing and that's what's got us uh nervous as we continue to look forward national experts have been saying for several months that they predict that this current spike that we're seeing with the delta variant will uh peak around mid-october so with that in mind we have to keep our eye on this data so i'll share i didn't put them on a slide but i'll share just a little bit of data around our isolations so i broken down into high school middle school and elementary school

033on average we have two isolations per day at the high school level that means it is a confirmed positive case of code not two for building two across all three high schools on average since the school year started at middle school we have 1.8 cases per day across our three middle schools and at elementary school we have 3.2 cases per day corn teams a little bit different so quarantined students they're exposed to someone who was a positive that means they were considered a close contact and by gph definition of close contact is someone who is within three feet of a positive individual masked or unmasked for a total of 15 minutes or more cumulatively in a 24 hour period so if we look at high school quarantines on average we are quarantining 1.7 students per

034day middle school 2.8 and at elementary 17.8 again 1.7 at high school middle school 2.8 elementary at 17.8 why such a big difference well with the delaware department of public health if a student is vaccinated and they are considered to be in close contact and they are vaccinated they do not need to quarantine they still need to monitor their health but they don't need to quarantine if that student is unvaccinated they are subject to quarantine at the elementary level obviously we don't have vaccines currently available so those students are not vaccinated and then dph requires them to be vaccinated now in that 17.8 there were a few instances where bus was involved or eating in a cafeteria where a seating chart had not yet been established forcing all the students in that class to be

035quarantined so we are being very careful to watch this data but if this trend continues we are going to have to think of something different as i believe uh it was miss stock who asked or maybe it was mr heller what would happen if a larger number of students had to be quarantined how would we handle that at at this point in time uh we are very i'm nervous i'm concerned about the data trend we'll continue to monitor that trend um at some point down the road we may have to think differently especially at elementary school our approach towards keeping those numbers low and adding additional what they call mitigation strategy to what we've already employed and that would probably involve some type of cohorting don't know what that is yet don't know what it

036would look like we've had some preliminary planning sessions but again trying to be absolutely transparent mr scrobot we will continue to look at that data but again concerned about the trend line we see there with that uh we're going to move forward a little bit and again i want to thank senorita rivera morales for her assistance tonight in bringing attention to the value and culture that our hispanic community brings to brandywine school district and i wanted to be very clear with the audience tonight this presentation was going to be delivered at the last board meeting but unfortunately that board meeting was postponed so it gives us an opportunity to look at this and consider this this evening over the course of the past several months there's been some critics claiming that we are proponents of

037teaching the critical race theory uh um we have adamantly stated that we are not teaching the critical race theory that we do have what we call a very strong equity program and focus on equity that has come under question and fire by some members of the community and tonight i want to be clear on what the brandywine school district means when it talks about its equity initiative and focus on equity to do that we decided to put together some kind of like this is what we believe statements and i'm going to share them tonight and this is not new to the brandywine school district i've been in this district for 30 years and i can unequivocally state that this has been a focus of the brandywine school district and it will continue to be a

038focus of the brandywine school district so members of the board please indulge me while i kind of read through these this we believe around our equity work we believe all children can learn we believe in educating the whole child it means academics social and emotional wellness we believe every child is unique coming to us with differing abilities strengths and areas of need we believe to effectively teach children we must seek to understand who they are their backgrounds and their experiences we believe our mission is to address the unique learning emotional and social needs of each student while extending and accelerating their strengths we believe that a one-size-fits-all approach falls short in meeting the needs of today's students we believe that one's culture has a profound impact on daily life and experiences we believe that one's

039perception of the world is grounded in life experiences we believe one's experiences naturally create personal i'm sorry for the spelling error personal assumptions explicit and implicit biases and often stereotypes we believe especially as educators that we have the responsibility to seek and understand how our own perspectives and beliefs vary from those of the culture of the children and families of the community we serve we believe that all people you and me everyone in this room have the responsibility to seek and understand how our own perspectives and beliefs vary from those of our neighbor part of that work that we pursue in terms of equity is understanding where our families where our students are coming from i can't pretend to know the experience that others in a different culture have had have lived with or suffered

040with in terms of my existence and what i experienced growing up and my norms and behavior what i think is typical may not be typical to someone else sitting here in this room and as an educator if we're going to reach the mind we have to go through the heart we have to understand our kids we have to know our clientele we've got to examine our practices what are we doing consciously and equally important if not more important what are those subconscious actions that i might do that keeps a child or group from the same opportunity that they deserve that their peers have access to equity work does involve discussion around race absolutely it also involves discussion around ability and disability demographics socioeconomic status all those pieces come into play we are not promoting a

041critical race theory agenda i saw posts from an individual who foied information from the district around things that we have used to deepen our own personal understanding of the existences and life experiences of others i've already gotten an email on how dare you you read white for agility your dog gone right i did how am i supposed to understand the perspective of others a perspective that i have not lived it's by reading and educating myself and that's what we're in the business of doing in the brandywine school district doing so causes one to feel and experience discomfort it requires you to open your mind and realize that there are things that you don't know you don't understand and you need to listen to understand not here you need to listen to understand our kids deserve

042that our kids do need to hear black lives matter that does not mean that we are subscribing to or promoting the political organization of black lives matter but it means that the kids i serve understand that i do value them that i come to work every single day on their behalf so that they have all the opportunities that i can absolutely provide them to give them every advantage of meeting [Music] their hopes their dreams not just today but in 10 years and 20 years and 30 years down the road all kids need to know that they are loved and they are cared for we do not promote indoctrinate political agendas ideologies political discussions held yes they are in the classroom and they're held in classes that that kind of discussion belongs in that classroom civics

043social studies and they are monitored discussions i've told you two meetings ago that do we have time time uh educators who go across the line we do and we have to reel them back in i'm not going to sit here and tell you that that doesn't happen but when it comes to our attention we do bring it to their attention right and we do monitor we need to make it crystal clear that if we're going to be in the business of educating kids we need to understand our clientele if we're going to do our due diligence and truly serve each and every individual child that walks through the doors of our building with that mr president i can tell you that i am proud to be bsd [Applause] thank you i'm just going to take

044a minute here to reflect on your comments before we get into responses from the board there's not much that i can or want to add to that i think you you said it specifically i i thank you for your statements that you and the team have put together for what we believe in the district and you know the description of the community that we serve at large so i i don't want to i don't want to step on your message because i think it was it was outstanding um i do want to touch on your earlier point on some of the concerns with the numbers at the elementary level and and thinking outside of the box um i'd like you and the executive team for the next meeting to kind of you know continue to

045pursue that and see what options um what that looks like if and when elementary numbers continue to grow um you know through ms scott and dr kush's presentation some of the way elementary students are auditing classes i think there's some missed opportunities there that as those numbers if they continue to grow we need to think of some alternative options to deliver deliver that education and i don't know what that looks like whether that is you know giving consideration to elementary hybrid to the room and zoom model for those areas that are you know the operations of the school are really coming into question um so i would like to you know charge you on the admin team to to continue continue continue that and bring some ideas back um you know through the weekly friday

046packets and also for um any other comments from the board regarding the superintendent's report just to say thank you superintendent thank you i'd like to also um i think superintendent holder was uh he thanked everyone but i guess he can't thank himself but i'd like to uh stand to thank uh not only superintendent fuller but a host of community organizations who stepped up to the plate to assist our families on the northeast side of bloomington throughout the hurricane ida ordeal the truth of the matter is um on that particular friday evening they the families were without food and if it weren't for superintendent holder the nutrition staff and the transportation staff those families would not have um probably would not have had meals that evening so i do want to officially go on record um

047since he gets beat up so much and say thank you uh for your leadership um but also to the entire district who whatever role you played in supporting the families who were impacted and and finally i want to thank you for your comments and um and i echo what our superintendent and i'm sure many of you do as well mr scrub before we move on can i just add to that the the cost of feeding the individuals that evening was not borne by the district uh it's being picked up by an outside party all right that's outstanding thank you for making that clarification and thank you to the outside party that has made that possible i just want to say superintendent holder thank you for your message of equity and as someone who was born

048in this community raises me raising my children in this community and as a member of this board it reminds me of the reason why i chose to join the board to run for election for the board and i thank you for that message of unity all right moving on to public comment before we start that so over the last well later in the agenda we have a continuation of the format for our future board meetings which will address uh how we are going to conduct public comment going forward and over the last couple months as kind of the the volume of public comment has increased tried to manage that best we can and we've made some changes and um trying to do that so kind of tonight's i think the website might have advertised tonight's

049meeting as two minutes per speaker um but our cards do still say three minutes so i'm not sure miss scott or mrs karpinski who's running the clock so i'd like to make sure that we give speakers the three minutes and as usual you know in order to run a productive meeting it's imperative that we stick to that time please be mindful of the clock it'll be posted um microphones will end at the three minute mark it's not personal just want to be fair and consistent we ask that everyone um you know hopefully we can have a respectful civil uh comment session and everybody will get their time to speak as this is the public's time to be heard we do not have any zoom comments this evening so we will start uh in the room

050and we will start the the electron microphone is over there to my left and just ask to you to state your name if you are resident of the district and the time will begin when you begin to speak so first up we have paul falkowski with james ingresia on deck in gracia thank you very much um i came in here with a different idea what i was going to do thought about it for the last couple of weeks i thought i'd had something to say i listened to your presentation uh congratulations on all the work that you've got to do i'm deeply impressed by all your efforts of making sure about kobe um i'll try to be as brief as i can i'd like to teach i'm the math teacher showed up two months ago

051um but answering your questions here i'm 100 inner city born and raised browntown hedgeville my ancestry is polish my grandparents got here in 1901 so there's not a whole lot of past history that we did one way or another i am not privileged and in one respect i'd like to put it out i also need to be understood all right i don't know if there's any books about the polish growing up in brown town but you know i'd be happy to share that with you i'm still available as a math teacher i'm white and i'm not fragile either i'm 72. i've got some military background a few other things you know but i pay attention to what's going on um i thought about applying two months ago and i basically hesitated and i'm going to

052finish it with this way um like i said i've listened to everything you guys were talking about i was going to give a little bit different speech here talk about what we need to do is what you guys have measured and what you can measure is your mathematics scores and that's what i'm mostly interested in and math is basically a pure subject it's not like civics and history and everything else um so again i'm applying i'd like to i'd like to teach my certificate works for two more years um however the hesitation came from this and i'll just leave that as my final remark basically i was worried that if i applied that i would be entering a hostile work environment by everything else did it was presented in different ways and it might be

053not fair to say that but i was worried about it because of all the criticism that that people that looked like me put up with thank you very much thank you mr sparkowski next up james forgive me on the last name ingrassia and we'll have jay hitler on deck bradley one school district teaching critical race theory the board denies they are we've heard speakers stand here and say critical race theory is not being taught in branding one school district nor being taught widely in this country and stating this these people have displayed their ignorance of what is actually included in crt or what is being taught to our children our teachers and administrators i say to you what do you consider critical race theory call it what you may but it is politically motivated marxist

054indoctrination crt is a grievance ideology grounded in the marxist idea of class conflict dividing people by rich versus poor but that would fail due to america's mobility and class only in america do you hear stories of someone starting out in the bottom and through hard work and determination achieving success i admire those people we now have teachers prepping students for a predetermined failure take your failure as a lesson learn from it and move on instead critical race theory zeroes in on something that cannot be changed the color of one's skin people are segregated in two groups white and non-white and that a person's race represents some of their capabilities there is a common glossary of words used by crt which each in itself actually sounds euphemism such terms of equity social justice diversity inclusion systemic

055opportunity gap and culturally responsive teaching hidden under the guise of sel social emotional learning based on documents obtained through the freedom information act it can be definitively stated that our kids teachers are being taught elements of crt last year the brandywine school district hired markia davis to fill a newly created position called supervisor of equity and culture marquia davis is also an avid district director based on the structural presentations including the foia doctors this district supports less discipline and lowering standards specifically for minorities as well as culturally relevant pedagogy which states to recognize students as valuable contributors to the classroom space as opposed to social cultural and academic burdens how the hell is this not offensive all the kids are capable if you give them the means people who identify as multi-racial increased by 276

056percent from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020. what do you say to those children we also know brandon wine school district spent over thousand dollars in 2020 to contract panorama education to conduct sel and equity and inclusion surveys panorama education received major funding from facebook ceo mark zuckerberg these documents also include a proposal for revised american history including colonization and social change there is also a discussion guide for educators on the book white fragility to discuss things as their racism and white supremacy why is that an educator who sacrificed their lunch break to tutor a child is doing so because of guilt yeah an educator that does not deduct points from proper grammars helping through equity there is disparity in poorer communities predominantly minority thank you mr andrade we would really like

057to give everybody the opportunity to speak at three minutes we would really like to give everybody the opportunity there three minutes thank you jay hitler with tonya hitler on denver thank you and i am a member of the district jay hitler is my name the vast majority of the finances to run our brandywine schools as you know comes from our local taxes and our state taxes so it's a good idea once in a while to see if we are getting our money's worth starting in 2019 the amount they spent each year the brandywine school district increased year over year by 7 million then 10.5 million more in 2020 than increased another six million dollars of our tax dollars in twenty twenty one we are now at more than seventeen thousand dollars per student our district

058spends almost eight percent more than the national average per student yearly so how are we doing well u.s news and world report gives the disciple news of only 54 percent of high school students in our district are proficient in reading 54 and only 38 38 are proficient in math and these outcomes aren't getting any better so what does work well according to studies by national public radio and the national pta the most correlated factors for success were parent participation teacher to student ratios and teacher salaries not extra administrative positions not focusing on race and gender issues let me repeat the most correlated factors for success were parent precipitation teacher to student ratios and teacher salaries however according to brandywine's own freedom of information act disclosures our district will spend nearly half a million dollars i

059repeat a half a million of our tax dollars and countless hours over two years focusing on social justice ideology and equity including over eighty thousand dollars already spent on outside training organizations yet these show no correlation of outcome yes we should continue to provide extra support and attention both money and time and understand all students just like you said who need to be brought up to the math and reading standards but we should put these resources where they have been proven to work with programs for increased parental precipitate participation smaller student-to-teacher ratios and increased teacher salaries thank you very much thank you mr hitler next up we have tanya hitler with maureen mcgurk on deck thank you for allowing me to speak tonight um i want to tell you all about a teacher training that

060was offered actually the date of the last school board meeting august 16th that was titled black lives matter in school and that focused on the three principles of black lives matter one of the videos in the training states what would schooling look like for black students if they didn't have to walk in straight quiet lines like prisoners what would schooling look look like if we centered the well-being of black students instead of school codes of conduct i think these statements are offensive and racist are they saying that black students are not capable of walking in straight quiet lines are they saying that black students are not capable of following a code of conduct black students are perfectly capable of following rules for the safety and order of a school additionally they are not being treated

061differently from white students all students are required to follow the same rules for the safety and well-being of themselves and others third comparing order in a school to a jail is not helpful for anyone black or white what would they recommend instead of walking quietly in lines in elementary school or instead of having a code of conduct the description of this training states that it will show teachers how to teach the whole child with these principles in mind we will challenge educators to center black lives in their classrooms twice in this training we see the idea of centering school on black students does this mean that we do not center the school on hispanic students asian students or white students what exactly does it mean to center schools on black lives if you have not

062had a chance to look at the 13 principles of black lives matter i would suggest that you do so as some of them are concerning many of them are given positive labels such as black families but when you read further you find that what they are actually doing is discouraging the existence of the traditional family another of these principles is collective value which is the opposite of valuing the individual this is why black lives matter and social justice ideology view everyone according to groups black or white male or female gay or straight and try to split people along these lines once you look into the 13 principles of black lives matter you'll be able to judge for yourself whether you would like to see them talk to your children as is being proposed in our

063district thank you miss hitler dr hitler uh maureen mcgurk with carol burke on deck good evening my name is maureen mcgurk i'm an elementary teacher in bsd and i'm just here to express my gratitude and support for the professional development on equity that has been provided by markia davis and yolanda mckinney i can tell you that the sessions and work groups i've attended so far have been some of the most relevant and useful pd i've received in my 25 years of teaching i hope bsd will continue this commitment so more educators and leaders will have the opportunity to participate um i can't tell you how many times i think of superintendents hold fuller's words last year about the importance of educators modeling the act of being learners themselves we know that the best learning occurs

064when we get out of our comfort zones and are willing to take risks in gathering new information and applying new understanding and skills to our practice and this applies to more than just new curriculum and technology skills teacher educator and author zaretta hammond says that in order to be culturally responsive teachers must understand the socio-political context that impacts their students and communities this is very different from promoting one's own personal political views so we need to understand that broader and we need to encourage that broader understanding by continuing our commitment to equity work it's critical to be able to make these decisions in the best interest of all of our students families and community thank you thank you mr mcgurk carol burke and forgive me on the last name with kim tull on deck hello

065my name is carol burge i'm a retired pediatric nurse and child and family counselor social justice ideology separates us on the basis of race color and gender while at the same time promoting fear in our children fear controls fear creates division it moves us further from the truth fear silences a child's individuality identity and uniqueness fear creates division along social justice ideology categories and fear increases disciplinary action or disciplinary issues social justice ideology violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the u.s constitution and title vi of the civil rights act of 1964. this law makes the following illegal segregating students in any capacity based on social justice ideology for example race and gender two using social justice ideology when grading homework three applying discipline based on social justice ideology four forcing students

066to admit accept affirm or support an aspect of social justice ideology as part of it as training exercises and or assignments instead of implementing social justice ideology school boards and teachers need to assess all curriculums and teaching materials and teaching methods that undermine both our u.s constitution and the civil rights act of 1964. teaching social justice ideology in k-12 schools has been declared illegal in nine states due to the fact that it ignores both the 14th amendment's equal protection clause which was written to ensure that freed blacks would be treated fairly and equally and the civil rights act of 1964. the same should be true in delaware and in the brandywine school district promoting social justice ideology in our schools goes against anything our country was founded on and everything that we've always believed about

067how people should be treated fairly and equally both our founding fathers and reverend king rest their lives because of the importance of this statement we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights we need to once again value the truth of the equality of humankind as our founders did and as reverend king did and we need to return to these truths and teach them to our children thank you miss bird next up we have kim tull with eric bronstein on deck hello this is my first school board meeting and um i had one child graduate from this district and i have another one in this school right now we actually choiced our way into this district because we felt it

068was the best district in newcastle county thank you yes i just came out tonight to support the board and to thank you for all the steps you have taken to ensure that my child is going to be safe in this school she stayed home all year last year because we were nervous and afraid and she has some anxiety and it was just a very difficult thing to get her back in school she is thriving being back here now and doing very well and feeling feeling very comfortable and safe so i thank you for that and i thank you for your equity statement as well that's all i need to say [Applause] thank you this call next up we have eric bronstein with don wood on deck mr superintendent i listen to your very kind words

069what in this binder is the web page printout of the anti-racism uh resources for all ages section of the diversity and equity resources for family section in the brandywine school board's website we brought it to the board's attention two months ago and we were promised that it would be reviewed it still remains apparently untouched as of today i would ask everyone to go home tonight to have a look at it it's 42 pages to the best of my knowledge there is not one reference to any of the great americans who help steer us what we are today with all of our faults the most inclusive civic society in history any objective observer would have to label the extensive reading list as classic post-modernist neo-marxist indoctrination and i choose those words this is academically wrong emotionally

070wrong intellectually wrong and this is what is being offered to the parents and students on the psd website we are asking you for a standard of informed intellectual ideas which can be shared with our students and their parents not ideologically motivated indoctrination i turned to the audience tonight and asked where do we go from here what can we do with the delaware state education association this webpage was surely composed by its members or at the very least by paid consultants paid with our tax dollars and concurrent with the dsea's objectives and let it be noted that a member of the dsea is on this board where do we go do we go to our local legislature to our state legislators all of whom are members of the majority party that is deeply influenced by the

071dsea are we going to have to pressure our legislators to run a bill that would allow voters a greater say in our education nobody wants that mr super mr superintendent as you offered did you review these web pages and do you plan on making any changes thank you mr bronstein next up we have don wood with james hamby on deck kind of lost i came in i thought somewhat prepared but some of the stuff i've heard i'm uh my family has over 85 years of teaching in this district close to 90 years of coaching i've been blessed with pan american gold medalist two olympians i'm connected with eight state championships my wife was coaching the year four times in swimming and two times in tennis and never played tennis and some of the conversation long

072we i like to come back i'm in and out of schools a lot i don't okay but i will say this blake holler he was in tears one time when i had a first chance to meet him almost and he mentioned football tonight he was a yellowjacket at newark and he played for the legendary coach put simpson and when you went over your presentation i'm just absorbing the importance of athletics and strengthening our facilities to 21st century facilities that's why i was going to ask the board if they ever went down to abacino stadium they don't have to answer it i saw one of the pictures that's why i came because i'm the old bulldog that just keeps pushing for that i graduated from here in 61 so i am old november 10th the delaware

073sports the hall of fame is inducting a coach from concord who is that how many know coach k raise your hand if you know coach k he illustrates everything that i'm talking about leadership teamwork get knocked down five times get up six be responsible he had over 90 kids out for his program and it didn't matter whether you're third or fourth string holder understands that and when i'm sitting there and listening to you today dr holder excuse me um i'm thrilled one of my wrestlers from concord coached a guy by the name of holiday i think he demonstrated leadership and teamwork and trying to help the public i could go on our kids one of my administrators here in and out of building i won't say it was said don't you think our kids are

074just as worthy as having 21st century athletic facilities as our neighbors yeah it's going to cost us a little bit of money and i think the board already supports that and i point back with them before to the last election or the last uh when the taxpayers had to pay it it's important it will strengthen our schools it strengthens kids i'll go past my two minutes thank you mr wood worth time appreciate it next up james hamby with robert anderson on deck richard anderson mr president members of the board mr holler i'd like to also recognize uh my friends our senators from up in brainerd 100 here senator sturgeon and senator gay who are with us tonight here to listen to their community um i had not intended to speak tonight but alan benton uh

075was here and was going to speak and had to attend to a family emergency so he asked me to sit in for him he printed this and i'll paraphrase washington by saying i have grown old in your service and my sites have grown dim i would have printed this in much bigger font a group of concerned residents of brandywine school district were disturbed by some of the allegations that we observed in our district there was a letter that was presented to this board a couple of months ago and we were concerned about what was in that letter we want the board to know that we stand behind the comments that superintendent holder made in the past and certainly what he said tonight here um critical race theory is not being taught the board and the

076administration does not have a marxist agenda and that they're not first pushing personal political agendas uh by the district teachers we support the free speech of anyone who wishes to petition their elected board members on whatever topic they would deem important and while we feel that the recent controversy is a manufactured one we choose not to sit by quietly while others defame the district and specific members of the board in our opinion this matter was thoroughly litigated in the board election in may where one candidate pushed theories and false claims regarding things that are not part of our curriculum and it's not being taught in our district in this election by a margin of 72 percent the other candidate won the residents of brady 100 have spoken we support the district's efforts in the areas

077of diversity and inclusion we support broad conversation by members of the administration teachers and students in favor of examining race relations and solutions for a better understanding of different viewpoints we support the board rising above the noise and focusing on the task of educating the children of the brandywine school district providing opportunities to learn in a safe caring and respectful environment just as it's stated in the district's mission statement i believe you've all have received a copy of our letter to date over residents of the brandywine school district have signed that letter in support of the brand wine school board i thank you for your time thank you mr hamby last speaker of the evening richard anderson good evening i'm going to speak up so everybody can hear me first of all i was here

078two months ago and asked the board to resign if they were going to teach or bring in crt into our school district everything that i heard the night says it's here and you sugarcoat it i look at the resources that the teachers have been given and i don't see anything on stem on education all i see is ideology and i'm going to be honest with you if you can't tell how divisive it is just in this room it's unbelievable you got your teachers who believe in this obviously and you got parents that don't i'm a grandparent and i'm going to be honest with you i'm going to keep an eye on my grandkids and would like this gentleman to say who do i take it to i don't trust you guys do i take it

079to the uh to the parent teacher association do i take it uh where do i take it that's the problem so it's so many features i'm sure will cross the line in in good-hearted uh way but it's not what the parents want to see their kids taught my kid is jewish my grandson is jewish now you want to make him a press an oppressor after you know what it just doesn't fit and i think you want to reconsider your your list because i'm going to tell you 1619 project that's garbage it's i want to see real civics taught every kid deserves an education okay but they don't they don't need to be uh instructed on ideology from a world government that is tearing this country apart so i'm i'm going to show up at every

080one of these just to see how this progresses this is you you've opened the door crack on crt and now we'll see how it goes so if you can tell me who if we are not happy with the way a teacher has approached our kids with this who do we go to who do we go to that they're going to listen again my name is richard anderson and i've been in this dressing district 40 some years both my kids my daughter graduated from here my son didn't do so well here he went to delaware military academy which brings me to my last sentence you got to learn how to set up discipline and apply it evenly to all kids so that if they mess up and all kids do that they are disciplined the same

081way so that they're they're not feeling picked on and i'm running out of time but that's how i feel thank you mr anderson that concludes our public comments session as always any comments from the board i guess just a couple a couple things that we've kind of been down this road the last couple months um the superintendent laid out our yeah what we believe as a district for equity and inclusion and what that means um so i'm not sure where the disconnect is you know certainly resources posted on our website are not curriculum they're resources for our family um a couple things we heard u.s news and world report and i think that same u.s news and world report also ranked mount pleasant high school as the number one comprehensive high school in the state

082i'm not mistaken uh concord was in the top 10 and i believe bhs was in the top 12. um you know certainly some of the financial numbers taken out of context a look of what our entire budget is for our district uh where money is spent um so just to i don't think pulling out isolated numbers paints a full picture um so i guess asking you know question was raised what what do we do where do we raise questions and concerns like always i think if you have a question or a concern about your child's education you start with the teacher send an email make a phone call ask the questions raise the concerns if you're not satisfied with that answer go to the school principal if you're not satisfied with the school principle take

083it to the director of elementary or secondary education there is always a path and as a district i think our superintendent um and i know my relationships that i've you know have with different uh building administrators they're we're accountable we're a public school we have public meetings there are email chains you have to ask the questions and you will you will get answers they may not always be the answers that you like but there is a path to be heard and i hope that all of our administrators whether they be a district office or in the individual buildings i hope that they're you know giving an explanation when they're providing answers to questions and concerns and offering solutions and you know if it's a situation where you can't come to an understanding or if it's

084not the outcome you're looking for then maybe you can at least get some understanding but my experience i know that our teachers and administrators want our students to learn they want them to do well they want them to succeed and they will listen you know to your concerns and make every effort that they can to resolve them and i think i've said this in past meetings you know we hear a lot of concerns about non-specific so if you see something in your class that you're not happy with and you're not getting the resolution the board members addresses are posted on our website let us know if you've exhausted all your uh you know all your outlets and you're you're not getting it but i'd like to hear some specific objections because i'm hearing things that

085we've presented tonight what the superintendent presented what we're doing in our schools and we've shared that over the last several months of what is going on in our schools and what is not going on in our schools and then we come to a school board meeting and i hear concerns but there's no specifics to what those concerns are and where this is you know being taught in the classroom so i would say please if you have these examples bring it to our attention and we will investigate answer you know get you an answer to the questions that you need so anybody else from the board has anything wrong mr president i would just add that in addition to perhaps talking to the teachers and to everybody else go ahead and talk to your students too

086talk to your kids ask them what are you learning what is it like to go to school with people who may not think like you or look like you or act like you or come from the same type of neighborhood that you do so don't forget to talk to your students too and i think the earlier comments about you know equity and inclusion and you know we have people here tonight who you're at a board meeting i applaud you for that these are some of the biggest crowds that we've seen in years um but the the population of students that were serving and this is beyond race this is you know a combination of race geography socioeconomic all the things that superintendent holler mentioned and one of the biggest things is you know schools children

087are coming into schools and that is their one safe haven where they need to feel loved and believed in and that's not specific to any race and that's why all those we believe statements i don't think anything mentioned race in those statements it was all about the students and what we do for all of our students and different students do need different things and our we believe statements satisfy that and that's that's where we're coming from so thank you [Applause] all right board liaison reports on delaware school boards association executive board mr ackerman the executive board was scheduled to meet on september 1st but due to hurricane ida we postponed that meeting by a week and moved it back to the 8th we had a quorum in fact it was quite well attended we had

088a guest speaker dr lawson from our district came to give us an update on special ed due process it might shock the public to know that there is a law firm in the state that has gotten over two million dollars of state money while families have received virtually nothing in return for that money it's a very unfortunate situation uh we continued to we had our treasurer's report um all the committee reports we talked about the um disabled veterans tax credit which is on our agenda for this evening that's something that boards must take action on our next meeting will be november 3rd thank you mr ackerman delaware school boards association legislative committee ms gordon yes the legislative committee has not met yet we will be meeting on october 6th but i did attend the executive

089session with mr ackerman and i must say that dr lawson's presentation was outstanding and i don't mean just for those folks from brandywine school district these she spoke to its people throughout the state and lisa it was excellent thank you thank you ms jordan district finance committee district finance committee held its monthly meeting on wednesday or no actually we were monday this month september 13th we reviewed uh august monthly financial report financial position report as well as the disabled veterans property tax credit which we will talk about later and we will talk about all of those items when dr hale presents them our next meeting is scheduled for october 13th parent council for students with disabilities ms pigeon we have not met since our last meeting but i believe we have a meeting on wednesday

090of this week parents and citizen advisory committee reverend perry there are no updates from the parent and citizen advisory committee uh health advisory committee minister heller actually we skipped maintenance advisory can i jump back to that i have that report up i'm sorry what maintenance advisory we jump back to that that's the report i have no i'm sorry we did skip maintenance advisory uh so for maintenance advisory uh we met on august 24th at mount pleasant elementary the committee walked through all the summer work that was completed including the beautiful remodel of the main entry area and talked about all the summer work for all 16 buildings and then we had a pretty high level discussion on long-term projects and plenty of needs across the district that it would include future capital referendum needs to

091allow the district to maintain our current standard of excellent facilities and our next meeting is october 5th at mount pleasant high school okay thank you can we roll to health advisory committee i'm the health advisory committee met on september 15th and the committee is working on monthly themes to educate students and their families about health related issues september is start with hello october is bullying prevention the committee is also working on a mental health screener for 10th grade students in all three high schools this is a project that's still being worked on but there's a hope to have a pilot in one of the schools ready for november the committee also discussed the importance of house bill 100 that was passed this summer which adds mental health staff to elementary schools we're hopeful that bsd

092will get three mental health professionals from that bill and finally the nurses have written a grant for the future of nursing campaign that helps promote nursing careers in middle schools to help promote the nursing field the next meeting of the health advisory committee is wednesday november 17th thank you mr heller 917 wmph we did not have a full meeting since the last board meeting but i do think there was an update that i did not communicate the advisory committee is working on the renewal of the contract with delaware public media that contract will be presented to the board hopefully next month anticipation minor changes which we can discuss and hopefully move forward with that relationship no new meeting is scheduled prior to that so look for the coming weeks in the board docs a draft

093of the revised contract once it has passed legal educator recruitment and retention ms stock yes i am thrilled to announce the brandywine school district is having a new committee dedicated to the recruitment and retention of educators for the brandywine school district it's probably not a secret that we are facing a real teacher shortage uh just for example what i looked today there are probably over a hundred uh vacancies across the state of delaware so this is a this is a true problem that affects really everybody in this room so a couple of weeks ago i did meet with the director of human services deletion mcintyre to brainstorm us some ideas we're looking for educators parents students and community members uh to join us on this effort and more information will be coming soon and i

094would also just like to say that i have spent the last couple weeks meeting with some principals in their elementary buildings as well as a principal of the bush school and i've just been so impressed and just a a wonderful welcome and just thrilled to see everything that we're doing in brandywine school district thank you miss stock perhaps i think mr heller with the nursing recruitment efforts you know stay in touch with ms stock and the stock do the same for that any overlap there from teachers in nursing uh additional board member reports comments all right carrying on thank you everyone for your reports uh that will move us on to i will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda mr president yes um i i cannot vote on the consent agenda items a

095through e there is no board minutes attached to be reviewed they're not in board docs the change orders are there but the minutes are not i don't know how we can vote on minutes that are not present i i have anyone else not see them there i am you do yeah are they attached on your yeah is it where it says few minutes i did not see a little piece of paper next to my maybe refrigerator okay if i go there i can see it okay never mind it's a link okay uh are we good uh do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved motion drive a second second all those in favor say aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries personnel matters do i have a motion to approve the

096monthly personnel report as discussed in uh i don't think should we i think we had a report we just had is that correct we didn't have an actual personnel report correct yeah is it listed yeah hang on there it is do i have a motion to approve the monthly personnel report as discussed in exec session so moved second motion in a second all those in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion cares student matters do i have a motion to approve student matters as discussed in executive session motion drive a second second motion and a second uh all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries moves us on to old business uh item a superintendent heller you share us an update on the proposed gift of 44 acres at the

097former brandywine country club site to the brandon school district mr schroeder matt can i just interrupt i misspoke during my board report can i just correct that date sure okay um i had said that the meeting was coming up next week it's october 7th uh for meeting dates for parent orientation and due to family emergency i missed the past meeting so i just want to correct the record i'm sorry thank you for correcting all right superintendent hold on update on the proposed gift of 42 acres the brainwashing school district on the former friendly country club site uh this will be brief mr president um it's i'd just like to say thank you first of all to all the parents community members who were ready last week to give public comment at the planning board meeting

098new castle county planning board we were told that at that time that was the appropriate time for public comment to be made in support of the land donation that mr capano has so generously offered the district the chairperson of the meeting uh kind of decided otherwise and said that it was not the appropriate time to have a discussion around the dedication or donation of that 44 acre parcel we have learned that uh public comment will still be open not the verbal public comment in front of the planning board but we will be reaching out to parents community members staff members who live in the community who have the best interests of children at heart in this community not saying that that came out wrong let me reverse that everybody has the best interest of children

099i would put that in positive intent uh but have uh the desire to see that land donation uh go to the school district for current needs and future needs so parents please be on the lookout for an email coming your way community members we will post information in the next couple of days in the yellow box on the district website of the address and to whom you should send your public comment on that project we desperately need the planning board to hear from you to show your support our collective support in the donation of that land and again i'd just like to say thank you uh to mr capano for his generosity in thinking about the school district and our current and future needs in that donation thank you superintendent holder um i just want

100to add to that i mean i tuned into the planning board meeting last week um and just you know for those who are not aware this is a unprecedented gift for our district you know here in north wilmington um this is not like uh epiquinomic or down lower newcastle county where land is often donated through you know developments of neighborhoods uh in order to to build schools and you know this this is unprecedented for our district and we are extremely grateful um so any support you know you can you can provide is helpful but we're also sensitive to the needs of the community that immediately surrounds it and you know some of the concerns about traffic and development and we just want to echo our sentiment that you know look at our properties throughout the

101brandywine school district how we've maintained them you know largely due in part to the vision of mr john reed um you know we will continue to be good neighbors and sensitive to to the needs and we will you know if traffic was one of the concerns we had heard we've you know outlined in previous board meetings here you know ways that we can mitigate that with any future school um and this parcel would allow for you know extensive open use of our facilities you know to the public that they're accustomed to on all of our all of our district properties so thank you anyone else comments maybe just to add besides the land donation being unprecedented it's also unprecedented to have a hundred percent of the funding covered by the state bond bill so there's

102no local impact for a specially dedicated special school such as bush yes i agree all right so we moved on the agenda format of future board meetings is old business 9b um so we'll kind of open the discussion kind of we've talked about in the beginning on given the nature of virtual meetings live public meetings how as a board do we want to conduct our meetings going forward um you know i don't know that it needs to be a formal policy our current board policy um and certainly if we want to tweak that we can um but it talks about you know generally having a 30-minute uh well first off i should say the having our board meetings in person um house bill senate bill 94 with senate amendment one uh was the document that

103kind of outlined physical meetings versus virtual meetings and participation of boards it would be my intention that we um you know certainly encourage live in-person meetings uh absent of state of emergency as the the bill outlines but not to hold virtual meetings unless we're under a state of emergency i think it's good that we would broadcast our meetings via zoom or youtube to maintain our transparency and you know allow the community to view our meetings remotely uh to get the necessary information that they need um personally i believe the interaction and the public comment uh should be reserved for live and in person i understand that's not always an option for all of our families given the demands on our time with with children and activities and jobs but that would be my my direction

104to go moving forward mr president i think you know one of the things that the legislation does is it gives you flexibility as the presiding officer to kind of make those calls as you need to uh we do not amend our our policy which does talk about 30 minutes um uh periods of public comment though i think we've never actually held to that 30 minutes i think it lends itself to leave it to your discretion and i'm certainly comfortable uh leaving it to your discretion as to whether or not you know we continue with a hybrid type format where the public is allowed to attend virtually or we should go back to 100 in person but i do agree that board members absent a public health emergency should be present at the board meeting yeah

105i think so julia outside of you know the um aba accommodations uh i think a lot of what the policy or kind of what we've come accustomed to over the last couple years if you know someone's on vacation we should allow them to be on vacation and not necessarily um you know dial in from from wherever they may be um i think one i think the way the legislation is written if you do open up your meeting to allow board members to participate remotely then you should have your your public can participate remotely uh and i would you know i would like to yeah keep our meetings live in person uh going forward um and aside from whatever accommodations would be necessary for the legislation i think it's um it's difficult to say that we

106are a district who is inclusive um but at the same time we're not taking into consideration those who will not be may not be able to uh participate in person you've uh you didn't name parents and families um but those that may have limited trans transportation um i think that it would behoove us to make a small con accommodation so that they can participate if necessary virtually i would have to second what reverend perry says as well that um because we are a district that values equity and uh you know giving people an opportunity where perhaps they would not have had that that um to be able to participate virtually to be able to make comments virtually is something that only a person could do if they just didn't have transportation which is somebody who

107works with families who often do not have transportation the virtual format of different school events that we've done has helped greatly i appreciate those comments um just trying to think in terms of managing the meetings going forward um you know tonight we certainly had you know fair share of comments i think we had 11 or 12. um certainly manageable i think going forward if we're going to open it up to live speakers and zoom or live public comment and zoom public comment then i'd like to kind of maybe stay more true to a defined time of public comment um you know that means 30 minutes to an hour i know mr ackerman you mentioned that current policy allows for some discretion in running the meetings and ideally what i'd like to kind of get back

108to the consistency and have a good expectation for the public that you know i know over the last couple of months as the probably since the beginning of covid once we started doing zoom meetings just trying to manage the volume of public speakers given what the topic was you know trying to find a happy medium that the community can have an expectation that they know and that it's not going to change from week to week um i think that just creates some of the confusion and inconsistencies so you know if it's the will of the board i would be open to you know continuing with zoom and live comments um whether that means the time frame is you know kind of set to whether it be the 30 minutes general 30 minutes of the current

109policy with discretion to move it to an hour but i guess we always have the option to hear a motion to continue whatever the topics may be and to allow all the time i have uh i have two thoughts um one is i think uh listening to reverend perry this is probably a longer discussion for a permanent solution so maybe we should add this to a future retreat topic and actually revise the board policy around meetings um together where we have more time to talk about it and then um i share your concern a little bit about public comment virtually um because i think we're pretty sure over the past year we've had numbers of public commenters that not only weren't residents of the district which you don't need to be but i don't think

110we're even resident to the state so maybe something we can look at in a in a future workshop is how we can format public comment um so that we at least we know that it's stakeholders that are sharing their concerns and not a larger group there are boards in this state that do not take public comment from people who do not live in the district we had this discussion at the dsba executive board meeting recently i wholeheartedly agree with what you just said people should disclose their names addresses uh potentially phone numbers and we should verify that they are indeed district residents yeah i mean i i just think it's not fair i think it especially if we limit time if there's folks that aren't our stakeholders that are coming it takes time away from

111um those that are but i don't know if that's something we can decide tonight so maybe we could just have that on a future workshop agenda yeah i think the way the i don't know if it's code or law but um the legal advice that i had obtained indicated that the the code or law is written for citizens of the state and that it could be a slippery slope if you start trying to define residents of the district that you may have employees that are not residents of the district but would like to be heard in a public comment session i think certainly we have our public comment cards that we could maybe tighten up some protocols on as far as you know they need to be complete in full uh with the information that's

112requested in order to to make the public comment um zoom's a little more challenging um which is part of my hesitancy to continue with zoom public comments um but i do you know appreciate preparing the stocks comments about being transparent and being open um you know certainly families have the opportunity to email the board to express their concerns on topics related to the agenda but i guess i'm just trying to find something going forward in the near term that we can kind of be consistent with if it's the short term as we you know work on a longer uh whether it's a policy revision or a deeper conversation at a retreat or a workshop so mr scrub are you looking for a motion to um continue with the live format and the zoom this is

113not an action item on the agenda is it just a discussion item this evening correct just a discussion item um so i guess not being an action item then i will continue to use discretion and try to you know appeal to me that we will continue to try to certainly when we post the agenda ten days in advance um that the instructions for public comment will be on there uh i would think in the near term i'll continue to um act according to the existing policy uh we'll we'll do written comment cards uh whether we revise them or not and zoom comments uh with the discretion to limit the time as needed mr scrum could i make a suggestion in terms of signing up for public comment if that's the path forward perhaps everyone signs

114up online that way the it's time and date stamped so we know the order in which people signed up those who are attending in person we can have some ipads out in the lobby that's how they can sign up instead of just writing out the core the card and that way there's a fair distribution between call-ins virtually and people in person i think that's fair awesome um mr holler is maybe in the future we could also look at putting and this could be something of the discussion that we have later at another time but we could look at putting [Music] emails or whatever comes into the board as a public comment online so we can you know just as individuals who would read their public comment here would be heard by members of the public

115emails or letters that are meant for the board would also be put into record for public comment how would we decipher those who want their letter to be shared versus those who do not well that would be right that would i mean i would think that it would be at the permission of or at the intent of the person who's submitting it yeah i would be hesitant to reading i mean reading emails as part of the record i mean we get emails from time to time as board members on a variety of topics um you're saying through the direct public comments sign up no just like just as how um other organizations do their public meetings just like the land use meeting um where they have a link where people can submit their public comment

116as a public link so so we make it a part of the record but not necessarily read it right just that it would be available for public comment or for for public viewing and then the verbal comments would only be on the video replay but not transcribed to the rig that's something to think about okay and i also would like to add to the discussion um [Music] when when i first introduced the this particular topic it wasn't virtual versus non-virtual is more about the misinformation that goes um that is left on public record and not addressed and so i'd like to see us uh also add that into the discussion on how we uh consistently end uh and not wait two months to address the misinformation that is given um i don't know how in

117real time that we would be fact checking all public commenters i think that opens the door i don't i don't know i think they're mr troller we have a new pio coming on board uh alexis andrianopolis uh left us at the end of june it's taken us two months to find uh the perfect candidate date we do have that candidate now starting october 4th so perhaps we we get her involved in this process and and use her as a resource to figure out all the nuances of how to move forward okay all right so that will reverend perry that will get added to the to the discussion i guess whether it's you know performing some sort of pr response if you know some significantly incorrect information appears to be distributed or mentioned or raises questions

118within the community we can certainly you know offer somewhat of a response much as we do you know in real time as a board after superintendent for public comments and so forth thank you any additional comments on uh format of future board meetings all right hearing none i will move on to covet leave extension uh superintendent color do you want to kind of touch on this or uh sure and uh dr hale was is going to jump in as well last week or maybe it was two weeks ago now um we received a memo from the state of delaware the office of management and budget informing us that districts should form a policy around extended coveted leave very similar to what we termed ffcra last year which is the family first covent relief act where

119the state of delaware provided 14 days of coveted leave to state employees should they be immediately impacted in terms of covid or their care for a family member with covid the state after releasing that memo kind of backpedaled a bit in terms of does it need to be a policy or doesn't it they are in the process of writing an faq to give districts deeper detail on exactly what the requirements would be around that that faq was due to come out last week but it's been delayed fortunately you've heard some commentary tonight on how fortunate the district is to have leads between ken hudson dr lawson with her presentation same holds true with dr jason hale uh he is an immediate go-to uh in the state on anything and everything that's related to finance and

120running of a district and he has been involved since that memo came out in some of those discussions and can provide us a little deeper detail and we believe that that we have a path forward we hope that it's not a policy because just like we were discussing that how to proceed with board meetings when you write that policy it could be a two three four month process between the time you write it you get a first read revisions drafts it could be three or four months down the road we've got teachers who are in the midst of dealing with covid and family members with covid and we need an immediate path forward on this and uh part of that presentation tonight will be a recommendation for us to move forward in the same way

121that we handled covid leave requests last year i think we had a wonderful approach there was a four-person team who met reviewed each employee's request that team consisted of dr hale our lead nurse coordinator of school health beth maddie talithia mcintyre our director of human resources and another member from the district office extended leave department that person has retired and is now being replaced with angie thomas who is a valued member of our uh business office who knows the ins and outs around leaves and and all the financial and federal regulations that are involved that team comes together so that it's not one person making decision so that it's a fair and balanced approach they weigh the incident against ada to make sure that there's no ada claim if there is that follows a different

122path and again a very structured methodical timely process that we would like to say that we're moving forward with as we did last year then once that faq comes out again we'll take that faq compare our current practice to what's in that faq if we need to make any adjustments we can do that but that way we can start to offer that relief to our employees as soon as possible and with that first i'll turn it over to dr hale yes thank you and i'm i'm certainly available to ask or answer any questions you may have so um we do not have any formalized documentation from the state as of yet basically where we are at this point is that the office of management and budget um has provided districts the opportunity to allow for

123up to 10 days of coveted leave and in layman's terms this would essentially be like having 10 sick days um that do not get charged against your individual allotment of sick days so what the office of management budget is asking is for districts to work through a process that is approved by the board or get approval from the board to work through a process and or develop a process now for us we have followed the delaware code um each year that we've gone through this and really the idea is you know if an individual would be charged a sick day in this instance they would be afforded one of these 10 days so as we go through the process currently with beth maddie and her team making the determination on whether someone is able to

124be on site if those individuals are unable to work then they would be qualified for these 10 days so really the process would be the same as we've handled really any other instance in the past so having a specialized process just for this honestly is not necessary because we have an existing process in place for our sick time tracking and and all of our leave process so what we're asking from the board is for us to have the authority to move forward with allowing the utilization of these 10 days in accordance with the process that we have followed since the beginning of covid so i'm certainly available to you know answer any question you may have as it relates to the process but that is a requirement of the office of management budget that the

125board essentially give the thumbs up to allow us to move forward in doing this all of the recoding and all of how it's coded within the system is something that we handle in the business office dr hill can you provide the retroactive dates sure so what we're looking for is for all of our 12-month employees um we're hoping to allow for us going back to july 1st um and then for all of those teachers and paraeducators than those that start the quote unquote school year we would go to the first day of the school year so the the first teacher day would be the first day that we would be able to retroactively go back so for example if there are any individuals that have qualified for this prior to the approval we would go

126back and do the necessary recoding to give those days back to those employees and dr hill that wouldn't be first teacher date with students but it would be first it would be your first contractual day the first contractual day for each other so first in service day yes so explain to me how the current sick like do you start with a sick day bank uh at the beginning of the first teacher day and so so i guess this first off this is not an action item for tonight's just a discussion item given that there are so many outstanding questions with omb that uh the district's trying to get answered um i guess yes so my question is how does the sick time work now and as we wait for this clarification on the faqs is

127there any disadvantage or burden upon our employees today like do they start with a sick bank that can be used and then coded after this is all clear sure i mean i guess ideally as it relates to the process moving forward the sooner that we can obtain approval from the board to move forward with this process the better i mean if we are able to get action this evening that's certainly something that we could continue to move forward with our existing process the way that our sick time works for all of our employees if you are a 10 month employee let's say a teacher for example they are given 10 days of of leave at the beginning of the year so it's a front loaded 10 days that that starts on the first day and

128then a qualified um absence would allow them to utilize one of those days any unused days then carry forward into the future so for example if you go 10 10 years without using any days you would have a bank of 100 days um so in the instances of the individuals that have been charged sick time up to this point we would go back and basically give them that sick day back so the individual would be would be paid as they would normally what we would call their regular pay and they would not be charged a sick day so just a point of clarification uh mr president uh we're not seeking any action tonight and uh should that faq come back saying no the district should have a policy in place then we'll have to come

129back to you our intent was just to move forward with the process that we've always used until we see that faq should something in that faq force us to come back for a policy we'll do that but uh our intent was just we we didn't come to you for approval a year and a half ago when ffcra first came in because it already met our existing practice right that's so that's what i'm hearing so if we can apply to this the way we applied it earlier in the year then i think that's the direction right it should and can go um but if it does require a policy then we need to get the information on the faqs and the clarifications from omb on some of that application so the current document itself does not

130require a policy but does require the board to um approve the districts to move forward with um the allowance of the 10 days if that if that makes sense so it's not a formalized policy that's required but in in order to utilize the days the district would require or um the state would require the districts um to have approval of their boards to um move forward with allowing for the utilization of the 10 days right so so i i think if it required the policy i'm sure the board would make a motion and vote on that but absent of that requirement at this time i know i would certainly want to make sure that if the state is offering 10 days of coveted leave that i don't see any reason why we would not offer

131that if the state is paying that money and we can do it with a process that was in place last year okay correct so so basically what the like what the director of office of management and budget is saying is that the only way that we can utilize those days and or submit anything as it relates to reimbursement is that the board takes action to allow us to do that so it's not a policy it's the board [Music] making a motion to allow the district to utilize the 10 days so i know that it's it's a bit confusing but it's not a formalized policy that's required it is just the board saying we will allow these 10 days to be utilized mr president can we make a motion to approve for an emergency meeting to

132vote on it yeah i mean i would love to make that motion tonight but um it's not not being listed as an action item can we do that i don't think we can it's listed as a discussion item and the impression that dr marinucci had given the boards uh at the sba meeting was that the state would be providing guidance on this so the state is providing um you know as it relates to these faqs um we can certainly as they become available we can bring them back and at the next board meeting go through the process i do see on there that is discussion item and not an action item so um you know we can bring the faqs to your attention as soon as we get them we've seen various drafts of them

133that have not been yet made public um and really the idea with the faq is to more so clarify some of the points such as this which was you know the letter in itself was quite confusing that came out initially so the faqs are really being used to clarify the memo as it relates to things like whether a policy is necessary and or the authority of the board as it relates to allowing for these states so once that becomes available i can provide information to the board and then when we come back in october i'm more than happy to discuss those and then we can go from there i think anything we can do to expedite the process for our employees who are in the process and the throes of taking care of somebody with

134hovid or in quarantine themselves it is a stressful time right now and um i mean i would just anything that we can do we can't do it tonight i understand we can't do anything tonight but i would really like to give the employees of our district some assurance if we can but if we it's just verbal and i can assure you that we're that we're able to go back so certainly that's something that you know coming back to you in october and getting approval um we will be able to go back and make the necessary adjustments once that happens yeah i mean after all you're going back for the month employees already july 1st we would do that once we get approval yes so doctor have one more time i'm sorry it's the original lmb

135memorandum said that boards needed to approve a policy but now we're saying that we don't necessarily need a policy we can do what districts can do what they did in the beginning of covid then what document from omb is asking us to tell the district as a board to go do what you did last year right so the clarification that's coming in and again this is part of the reason why you know we had asked to be a little bit more involved on the front end of this um that the the clarification faqs that are coming out will provide that guidance but the way that it has been explained to us through not only the department of ed but also members of the of the office of management budget is that a formalized policy is

136not necessary so that will be clearly stated within the faq that's coming out that will be issued by the by the director of the office of management and budget so when that information becomes available i'll be sure to get that to everyone but you know we have had the conversation and i know that that's um that is what the document will say as it relates to policy so we can we can't vote on it tonight because it wasn't listed as action m so by next time leave any of our employees in limbo until we meet again so really what we would do at that point i mean certainly we won't penalize employees i mean you know individuals that are utilizing their their front loaded sick time and or banked sick time we would just be

137recoding that back and giving those days back to them once we receive approval on this and dr hell would they be getting some kind of like email notification absolutely absolutely once the information is known we'll we'll be communicating this to everyone so would your recommendation be to put this on the october agenda or have a special meeting to approve make an action if we can do it in october and it doesn't put any of our employees in harm's way then i would say let's do that i can assure you that we won't penalize employees i think we should add it doesn't it have a special meaning to come back even if we don't have the faqs back we can we can vote to support the district in in supporting our staff through covid but that's

138the impression i'm getting they're doing that anyway without a special meeting right we'll follow the same process then that employee will know whether or not they would qualify for those 10 days should the faq allow that that that's the part of the i guess the danger on this is being leery of moving forward with any kind of policy when you don't even see the faq who knows what's in that thing right and that's why we kind of said well we'll just move forward with what we've done until we've got to see that faq good that dr hale is on that committee reviewing it but we've seen it before until it's it's handed to us in writing and signed off on uh that that's what's needed to be said the maximum amount of time an individual

139would would have um afford it to them by this as equal to the amount of leave that would be front loaded so we would not have any employees that would be in a situation where they would [Music] be penalized in any way that would not give us enough time to go back and to make sure that they're credited with the appropriate number of days all right well let's do that we'll add it to the october agenda and you guys proceed just as superintendent holder any other comments on the board okay dr hale stay by the mic you're up with the monthly financial report for july and august financial position report and maybe we'll vote on those three items together if it pleases the board all right and then we'll hear on the disabled veterans property

140tax credit all right everyone can see my screen there this is the information for the july 31st monthly report i'll quickly go through this as well as the august report and certainly if there's any questions please let me know the the first month of the year is usually one that provides not a whole lot of activity you can see that we did get our front loaded um state funds which you know and you can see in each of the columns how much was awarded a total of 113 million dollars was received on the local funds you can see very few um roughly 0.2 um july is the month where we typically receive the the lowest amount of of our tax dollars with the months of september and october being the two largest where we receive

141a bulk probably about 90 of our of our tax dollars come in those months so the revenue on the local side as you can see is relatively low we have received final approval on our consolidated grant so those funds we will begin to see those over the course of the next month or two as as the department of education processes them on the expense side the system comes up usually about the 9th or 10th of july for us to begin transactions as you can see here for the month of july the expenditures that have taken place so this is a typical month of july you can see the number of encumbrances and expenditures and that certainly um within the next report you'll see that that picks up considerably we always look at our comparison of

142the number of pay cycles compared to um the amount of expansion you can see roughly three um of our 26 pay cycles is equivalent to about 11 and a half percent you can see here that we're running i'm in that first month about 12.2 that number will smooth out over the course of the first couple months of the year as we do have additional payroll expenses um for summer school in the month of july our prior year expenditure report these are all of the encumbrances that related to appropriations at the end of fiscal year as well as any expenditures that would take place from appropriations given to us from the state that are 21 or earlier our cash flow for the month we have projected at the end of the fiscal year to have a

143carry forward balance of roughly 10.4 million dollars and that remains unchanged in the month of july so would you like me to move forward to the august report or do you want to approve these individually [Music] okay moving on to the august 31st report in total we've received over 100 percent of our projected revenue and i do want to make note that we did indicate here and we will make the adjustment in the final budget that we did receive the full 25 million dollars from the bond bill um that is something that when we went through the preliminary budget process we weren't certain as of yet as to how that was coming in but we will make the necessary adjustments once we complete the unit count and do our final budget you can see for

144the month of august we received roughly um or through august 1.4 million dollars which is about two and a half percent we will see that continue to climb over the course of the next several months and again waiting on that that october amount which is the bulk of our of our funds similar to that of our federal funds but i also want to indicate here that we've received the full amount of sr2 and sr3 which is roughly 36 million dollars so that has been indicated in our our revenue section as well expenditures um this is a a pretty typical month of august for us as the buildings and departments are going through the process of getting ready for the beginning of the school year um so all of our budgets are looking to be in

145good shape you can see that we do have a specific budget line for our s or two and s or three funds and you'll see in a moment that we have a special report for that as well our salary expenditures were roughly 19.2 percent which would be 5 out of the 26 pay cycles and you can see that we're running currently at 20.3 again those will continue to smooth out over the course of the next several months so that's typical for where we would normally be at this time of year as we have in the prior report this is our prior year expenditure reports these are all of the encumbrances and expenditures for those appropriations that are prior to fiscal year 2021 and then you can see here that we have a new report that

146is listing the expenditures related to sr2 and or three so the total amount of these expenditures is being reported also on the expenditure page and those numbers should tie in directly to what you see on the prior so you can see that we have budgeted each of these areas very specifically to provide each of those those individual areas to have the ability to track their funds that have had been budgeted within sr2 and sr-3 so what you see here ties directly to the approved application that was submitted and approved by the department of education so this information over the course of the months to come over the next three years will continue to reflect the the areas where those expenditures are taking place and certainly if there are any other information or reports that you'd

147like to see i can provide you really with any level of detail that you would like to see on those expenditures moving forward to our cash flow statement the um amount remains unchanged at 10.4 million dollars as we get closer to the middle of the years when we would begin to look whether that that projection is higher or lower but at this point i feel that the 10.4 is a good number for a projection for our carry forward for june 30th of 2022. moving on to our financial position report this is our quarterly report that we're required to file with the department of education to show that we have sufficient funds in our appropriations to carry us through october of the next year and as you can see on this report we do have sufficient

148funds are there any questions that i could answer dr hill could you go back to the august report i think it was page five where it had the breakdown the [Music] um had the esser identification on the right here yes so can you give give me that explanation again as to what this breakdown is so each of these is called an operating unit on the side here so these operating units coincide with each of the areas that have been provided with funding per the application so for example um carcroft carcroft has a building budget that if you come on the the first expenditure page you can see that carcroft has a budget this year of 85 305 that is their operating budget for fiscal year 2022. the amount of funds that they have been afforded

149through the esser grant both two and three for for a car croft is or was it 57 720 so that's the amount that they have per the applications to spend over the next three years similar each of these individual operating units um there is also an operating unit within the operating budget for them but the reason that we are budgeting it this way is that so that we can provide those budget managers the opportunity to track these funds specifically so that over the course of the next three years they will know at any given time what their balance is and we will be going through the process of doing reconciliations tracking doing reporting and any amendments that are necessary through the department will be reflected on these reports moving forward so for the public's benefit

150just can you kind of touch on what the um you know having a identification for superintendent assistant superintendent like like what would fall under those buckets so like you know as we look at um initiatives and programs so um the one that i would look at that i always like to it's facilities for example um support services special education each of those currently have a budget with an existing budget manager so you see assistant superintendent one assistant superintendent two so each of those areas um it like coincides with a specific area of responsibility so in those particular instances the individuals supervise areas in which um you know the the budget would flow up to them if that i'm not sure if that's making sense so for example john reed um 4.7 million dollars because there's

151a considerable amount of facilities um that are allowed within esser as it relates to mechanical systems and air quality and those sorts of things so he's able to manage this budget separately than that of what he's doing for his operating budget within the year yeah so when you when you see superintendent listed as 1.1 million dollars that doesn't come to me at all i help oversee safety and security and that is the bulk of that is security cameras but because i oversee that it's listed yeah i think that's kind of what i've just some clarification for the public uh we'll certainly provide additional reporting as we move forward with this being the first month that we've had these expenditures as we go through and have conversations with the district finance committee we could potentially see

152these reports change um to to answer questions um like specifically to what you're you're asking so we can modify the reports to really show any level of detail um you know that would be um as for by either the board or the district finance committee and over time i know we in previous meetings had talked about as this money was coming in we you know superintendent gave a big presentation on the 13 or 15 buckets of where that money is going to go i just want to make sure as we go down as the money is encumbered that it will kind of tie in for those buckets and you know continue with our transparency as well it has to and that's something that we will have to provide reporting to the department of ed and

153they will be checking 100 percent they will be checking okay yeah and president square i'm glad you pointed this out because uh angie thomas like has masterminded this reporting system along with dr hale and it's totally so that you can drill down and see exactly what's getting spent and where uh it requires quite a bit of extra work on angie's behalf but again we're going to be faithful stewards and fully transparent on how that money is spent any additional comments or questions from the board with that i will entertain a motion to approve the monthly financial report for july the monthly financial report for august and the financial position report subject audit some moves second second motion and then here a second you've been scored a couple people second yeah motion and a second all

154those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion carries leads us to the disabled veterans property tax credit dr hill yes um house bill 214 was passed on on june 30th by the general assembly and it provides for a tax credit for eligible disabled veterans this tax credit is very similar to that of what we currently refer to as the senior tax credit and the concept here is that um any eligible disabled veteran would be um 100 of their taxes would be waived by the state now what happens for the district is any of those funds that are waived would be reimbursed to us by the state so there is no effect on the district in total as it relates to the revenue of the district similar to that of the senior tax

155credit currently the senior tax credit has an amount of leave up to five hundred dollars an individual that is a disabled veteran and also qualifies for the senior tax credit can only get one or the other whichever is the higher amount of the two it would not be eligible for both um so in in almost every instance the disabled veteran credit is going to be the higher credit so what will happen is very similar to that of the senior tax credit twice a year they will go through a reconciliation process at the state and they will then forward us any funds that were credited to those taxpayers will be given to us so this is something that does require because the um the legislation cannot um impose on the board to provide a credit so

156this happened very similar back and i want to believe it was 2000 and i'm going to say 11 or so when the senior tax credit the boards had to approve on the allowability of the senior tax credit so what we're asking for tonight is for the board to approve the disabled veterans tax credit and again the net impact on the district's revenue is zero because any funds credited to the disabled taxpayer will be given to the district directly from the state move to approve second all those in favor all right any opposed any abstentions motion thank you dr ham thank you that leads us to general information and meeting dates uh next board meeting is october 18th followed by november 15th and december 13th i do apologize for the public i know we've been bouncing

157around with down pleasant elementary brandywine high school and we even had a i think a claymont elementary in there uh october meeting we'll be back here at brandywine i think for the foreseeable future this room gives us the most most space so certainly for october we will be here november and december are to be determined but i would likely say they will most likely be here brandywine um so thank you everyone for your time and participation this evening i will now entertain a motion to adjourn so moved motion to your second second second all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries we are adjourned thank you