001Put the mic on. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] All right. Mr. Christensen, Mrs. Feice here. Mrs. Hedley here. Mrs. Hoppy here. Mrs. Janisk here. Mr. McGregor here. Mr. Scozo here. Mrs. Turner here. Mr. Modrack. Yes, I'm here, sir. Eight present. Thank you. I think at this time we have a presentation from our counseling department. Dr. Mench. Yep. Thank you. Yeah. What's that? Yeah. So, you may notice I broke away from the standard BP moniker on our presentation this evening. I thought we needed a little change up. You know, the guidance plan, looking out to the horizon, looking out to the future. So, just to put a a idea
002there, just something a little different. So, what we're here to talk about this evening is the um the chapter 339 plan. And what that is, the state had put out an edict, if you will, that all guidance counseling departments would put out a scope and sequence of how they were addressing particularly career readiness uh for our students. And I want to start out by saying that long before my time here in this position, Miss Wells was working very diligently behind the scenes with things like the CEW may be familiar with, which are the career artifacts that our students do. And so she worked very diligently with our counselors. Um, so a lot of this work was set up, you know, prior to my uh coming on board. And I want to acknowledge that work. But
003the purpose of this plan is to articulate some of those activities that go on. And one of the um requirements is that the board would approve the plan. Okay? And the plan gets uploaded to the state department so that they have a copy of our plan and they understand um what the plan entails. They tell us the format of the plan. So the format that you see is the format that we're given, the requirements that we're supposed to uh put forth. and our counselors have been working for the better part of a year on inservice time and such, hashing out different elements of the plan and revising things that no longer are active for us. And so we're going to talk about that this evening. One thing that you won't find heavy heavy in the
004plan. Uh this plan was not meant to really delve into the elementary program right now. We will be talking about that. We already have the plans in motion, but that's not what this plan is about. So, you're not going to see a lot of reference to the elementary program in this particular uh document. And so, uh with that, there we go. We'll give you quick overview just so everybody's aware of what our staffing looks like. We have 4.5 social workers at the elementary with the 0.5 being at William Penn. We have a 0.5 social worker at NAMS, which is the other half of that person that goes to William Penn. Uh Stella Veliser is her name. She does a nice job for us. We have two counselors at Neil Armstrong. We have one social worker
005at IMS and two counselors uh at IMS. Uh two social workers that staff our teams room at the high school and four counselors at the high school. Um basically, you know, we have about an average of anywhere from 300 to 350ish per counselor uh right now, not including the social work um in in that figure. And so that's our staffing right now in the district. I'm going to hand this over to uh Mrs. Miklo, who I'd like to introduce to you. She is a counselor at Independence Middle School. She does a fabulous job. I mean, I hired her I don't know, 2009. It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a great hire for us and I'm glad I did it. Glad I did it. Thank you. I I started in the district
006in 1996 at the high school. Dave was trying to be nice and not say that, but it's okay. Um, yeah. So, as a department, we started this document by coming up with some core beliefs and our philosophy um as to how we operate as counselors. And three of those um highlights are that school counselors address the academic, social, emotional, and career preparatory needs of the whole student in a supportive growth mindset environment. School counselors believe that all students deserve access to a proactive and preventative program that optimizes student achievement and well-being and provides problem solving skills to effectively navigate challenges. Um we focus a lot on this at the middle school level. There are a lot of problem solving skills to be taught and we enjoy it. Uh, school counselors engage students, teachers, parents, administrators,
007social workers, and outside resources in a multi-tered support system to best support student health growth and success. And then we just gave a few highlights of each of those areas of support. Um, some of these, and um, Dr. Dr. Mench will talk about this after, but some of these occur individually, some in small groups and some in large group settings. Uh we assist in IEP implementation and 504 creation. Um when learning challenges are experienced by students. Uh we try to have our pulse on the finger of how kids are doing out in the classrooms. We that's why it is so important that we meet with teachers, meet with students, talk with parents. Um we spend a lot of time just trying to um find any kind of barrier that students are having with learning. Uh
008create academic support opportunities in students daily schedules with remediation and extension options. We evaluate student progress through conferences. Um we look at report cards. We look at testing. We look at attendance. Um we use several programs to help us uh crunch this data to make sure no one's slipping through the cracks. We present learning um and study strategies to all students through large group lessons and resources. And then uh social emotional support examples. We create and implement large group programming fostering skills and traits such as communication, problem solving, helpfulness, empathy, goal setting, and stress management. Um, you may have seen we do some programs um districtwide around the idea of um grief support. Uh we have kindness days and kindness activities built in throughout the year. So um these things are very important to to
009us as a department. When a student is struggling with a social emotional challenge, individual counseling is provided and connects uh to resources, connections to resources are often made through SAP referrals, family engagement or other support services. And then small group mediation is offered when conflict is present. Um and then finally, the CW piece. Uh we lead large and small group C E C E C E C E C E C E C E C E C E C E CW activities to help students identify their interest, goals, and skills at the younger uh levels especially. This is really what it's all about. Who are you? What do you love? What's your passion? Um how do you like to spend your free time? How do you make a pathway out of that? How do you learn
010more about that and get more experiences? Guiding students through progressive CW tasks over time allow students to analyze their growth and establish individualized educational and career pathways based on their own data. So we have used um Beth set up for us a Google classroom that we use right now at the elementary and then into middle school and then we've been also using a Naviance program from the middle school level up through uh the high school. We are going to pilot a program um next year called Smart Futures that is um very student and kid-friendly, younger studentfriendly. Um has lots of layers of activities, lots of options of how to implement and we're really excited about that. um adding to our comprehensive career pathway, fostering opportunities for students to connect with community speakers, field trips, uh
011vocational technical programs, shadowing, mentorships, um and then all the representatives that come in to talk to kids at the high school. Uh this is how we hope students become healthy and productive members of their communities. We'll turn it back over. Okay. Thank you, Miss Mclo. So, as you know, I've talked a lot to the board about uh tiered intervention support. So, I really want to make sure we keep driving this point home. We talk about what we do for all students, what we do for some students, what we do for few students. So, the counseling department, we really like started talking about these things. You're going to see in the elementary program, you know, the counseling component taking more of that PBIS framework and the second step, uh work that's being done currently by our
012social workers. Um, so career exploration activities, that's what we do for all the high schools doing things like focus Fridays, IMS doing community circles. So there's a lot of like whole group things going on to support kids at that tier one level. At the tier 2 level, we have a lot of things going on with the groups that are being run in the buildings, those recharge rooms, the teams rooms, our sensory rooms that serve as that. At the elementary levels, um we have periodic oneto ones with those folks at that tier 2 level, just check-ins like every other week. Um and then of course at tier three, we've got individualized counseling and crisis response which really incorporates our social workers uh and our sitebased therapist and Aubberly and outside providers such as the outreach team
013and family group. So we have a really I think robust uh tier system in the counseling department for working with kids. We're still growing. We still have a lot of work to do. uh particularly in that PBIS area as well. Um so you know we had stakeholder involvement in this program. We had community business leaders a lot of our local people um from say like EVs we all know Andy will step up and do anything you ask him to do. So Andy came and uh worked with us uh as well as uh Brookside Lumber came and worked with us. Uh the Walsh family from the b uh the bakery uh Bethl Bakery um and also uh Mr. Mauy came in cuz you know he owns a business here in Bethl Park. Um so they worked
014with us. Um so we had some post-secondary people our steel center folks came over and we had parents involved in teacher feedback to help drive the feedback about the plan and what we need to be doing with kids. And of course we talked about these partnerships with Aubberly OVR our dual enrollment programs with the college and high school program that Mr. Volani is working so hard with. Um, so these are all parts of this this this document and this plan. So as far as just conu concl conclusions and f future steps, we're going to really work at this pilot for next year to to bring more CW activities to the kids that are more robust and more in line maybe with their ways of thinking and things that they're interested in right now. So we're
015hoping to make a big leap and Mrs. Miklo has been a driving force in that. Expanding the counseling support to the elementary schools. will be able to come back to you and talk to you about what that could look like here in the coming months uh ahead as we work on our staffing plan. Um and that will be a blend of social work as well because we're going to have a continuum K to2 of counseling and social work support and continuing to build our MTSS uh framework. And you'll notice in the document there's smart goals that the counseling department has put together to help drive their work in the future uh with this document. It won't be the only things we do, but uh you can take a look at those smart goals. Those are
016some things that uh they'll be they'll be working on. And so I tried to make it brief. I know we don't have the sand timer here, but I think we we're pretty close. Thank you, Ruffy. Thank you. So if you had any questions about the counseling plan, we'd be happy to answer them as as best as we were able to this evening. I just need one definition, Dr. Mitch. Yes. Ew. So career exploratory work work. Yeah, there it is. We're great on acronyms. Sorry. Yeah. Any other questions? [Music] All right. You can imagine yourself on that horizon in a couple months. Maybe on that beach looking out there. That's that's your vision. Well, Dr. Mitch, where we at? West Coast, East Coast. Uh, wherever you want. This is where your heart desires. It looks Yeah,
017the lighthouse looks a little northeast lighthouse. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, and I should just add that so on the board agenda this month will be the approval of the plan. Okay. Just to make sure we're aware. Yeah, it is. Thank you, sir. I have a quick question. Did you say you'll be back at some point, I guess, with um what we would need for the elementary school plan that you're currently building. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Is that all? Very good. Thank you folks. appreciate it. Uh moving on next, we had an executive session earlier here tonight to re review other personnel legal matters and to receive information. At this time, any public comments on tonight's agenda. Okay, we'll move on to curriculum committee, Mr. Scalo. Okay, we have one item, approval of the guidance
018339 plan. There's any discussion, questions about the plan. I recommend uh that we move this to the consent agenda. Second. No, [Laughter] that's it. My part's over, Mr. Mo. Quick and easy, sir. Thank you. Uh personnel committee, Mr. McGregor. Okay. Hey, under personnel tonight we have four items. Number one, acceptance of resignations. Number two, appointment of personnel. Number three, approval of extended school year program. And number four, approval of tuition reimbursement. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'd like to send these four to the consent agenda. Very good. Okay. Uh with nothing else being said, we'll move on to finance committee. Miss Walsh Turner, please. Yeah, there are, I believe, 15 items under finance committee. March 2025, bills and salaries. February 2025 financial report, budget transfers, um payment for the new 5K elementary school project, the items
019that were discussed for monthly payment. Um payment for Independence Middle School phase three to Hayes Design Group. Payment for in Independence Middle School phase two to site logic. Approval of change orders for the new elementary school which were discussed earlier tonight. Um approval of the content to connect the new elementary school to the district's existing one. Um, approval of an agreement with Sofas payment resources um for the district's security enhancement. Approval of the purchase of network equipment from the communications consulting inc. Um the 2025 2026 AIU program budget. the lease agreement with AIU for the preK counts program at Washington Elementary School. The approval of student services contracts. The adoption of the administration's recommendation to adopt resolution 1-2025, the attorney client fee contract related to the class action lawsuit over insulin prices. Number 15 is
020the school sponsored overnight trips with DECA and PMEA. And finally, items declared unused and unnecessary medical instruments. I ask that we hold out number eight because it has no pricing in it. I ask there is an estimate for number nine. Well, Mr. Bolan, how about I think there's three things there. There you eight, nine, and 10. 10. Maybe just give us an overview what uh what we're going to be voting on, please. And then we'll Sure. Uh number eight would be the category one uh build out to connect the new elementary school to the current existing wide area network. Um there will be costs associated with that uh as far as the buildout and connection. So we have an RFP that's out that is up on the 17th. So that's why there's no pricing or
021vendor. I just wanted to have it as a placeholder to have it on there. We should have um contract information and bidding information for the next week's meeting. Um number nine is the approvement of the uh Sofos payment resources. What that is is um security enhancements for the district uh high availability firewall and managed detection and response. that is um essential in today's day and age. Uh for cyber security uh we are in the process of looking at different cyber security um cyber insurance carriers uh looking at pricing and by having these services in place that will um lower our liability as well as our premium. Um the reason for uh the approval is because we will be entering into a finance agreement a 5-year payment process with that. Um it is actually a savings
022for the district. We currently pay around 120,000 annually and this will be a little over 90,000 annually. And the last one is category two. that is uh a large network infrastructure upgrade to the high school that is all new switching and all new access points. Uh for that we will be utilizing -ate. Um this year is the last year in the -ate cycle. It is a use it or use it or lose it year, excuse me. Um so that what essentially what that means is if we don't use that money by uh the end of this fiscal year we would lose it with everything going on in the federal government. There is a lot of uncertainty that this program um the future of this program if it will continue what the funding will look like.
023Uh so it is my recommendation that we take advantage of it. Um our discount rate is 50%. So while our total budget is um 667,941 uh our share would only be half of that and that is worked into the budget and this um this is all pending 2526 budget approval as well as uh USA approval of funds. Any questions? Thank you. So number eight, you're just getting us to say, "Yeah, go ahead and move forward with the uh Yes. Okay. Correct. I'll have more detailed information after the proposals come in, then we'll see it again for us to approve correct the expenditure." Correct. Okay. Y Thank you. All right. Dr. Walsh, you going to address the uh one recommendation for the uh insulin, right? Yes. Thank you. Uh just for clarity sake, I item number
02412 is the prek counts program that's run out of Washington Elementary. So this is renewing that lease for one more year. Okay. Uh they do have we do have space for them designed in the new building. So we'll get a new lease with them for 2026. Uh I believe we're talking about item 14 on the agenda. Uh there are a number of class action lawsuits currently out there right now related to uh price fixing on insulin. Uh this here is it would be a resolution to join a uh a class action suit that will attempt to recover costs from uh the the uh price fixing case. Uh there's also one that the IU pardon me through our consortium is also going forward with a class action case. So we have really do have some options
025here. This one just came on recommendation from the solicitor uh as a u as a possible avenue to join into one of these class action cases here. There would be no cost to this for the district. The only real cost is that we wouldn't recover any they would take a fee before they would we would recover damages. Yeah. Okay. Um Miss Walsh Turner. So based on explanation from number eight, we are you still requesting to withhold that or are we going to be able to move that forward? As long as nobody have objections, I'll I'll move it forward. Okay. That's I I think the answer was for Mr. B. So I'm sorry. 1 through 16 would move to the consent agenda. All right. Thank you. And number 17 is for your information financial reports 31,32
026and 39. Very good. Uh policy committee Mrs. Hoppy. Thank you Mr. Modre. Uh we have two items. The first is revision to policies. This is the third and final reading on two policies. policy 607 on tuition income and policy 807 opening exercises moment of silence and flag displays. So when we move it to the consent agenda uh it will be up for a vote. We'll be voting next week on those two policies and then we have the first of three readings on policy 252 dating violence. So I recommend moving number one to the consent agenda. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh other um Mrs. Janisac, please would you take other? There's one item under other and it was approving the administration's recommendation to approve an agreement for a specific student. Does anyone have
027any questions? Then we should move that to the consent agenda. Good. Short and sweet. Thank you. Um, public comments. Thank you. Board. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, Dr. Krosinski. Um, at this time, we wanted to address some concerns. We had some from our parents about situations that districts experienced with their buildings in the roofs. A few of the buildings had some pretty good uh leaks in the roof this past month or so. Um so if Dr. Kinski can give us an update of where we're at or what we have done and what will be planned for the future. So thank you. Thank you Mr. Modrack. Um when uh mother nature uh turned on us from a cold environment to a warmer environment, we developed uh a number of leaks in several buildings uh more than
028usual. Um our our buildings are aging uh and uh three of them uh suffered the consequences of the freeze thaw effect that we had in the month of February. Uh we unfortunately had um a number of them that needed emergency repair. Uh we called out the emergency repair team. Um they responded as quickly as they could um pending the weather situations. It just didn't help. There are just some chemicals that just aren't going to clog clog up those leaks. Uh at the same time, our warranty company and broker uh came to all the buildings, assessed the situation, uh put out for bid the repairs and uh those repairs are going on concurrently. They started putting up safety gear last week at IMS. They put up safety gear at um Franklin yesterday and they have been
029uh removing the uh gravel from those schools. Um it'll go through all this week. It'll continue um at NAMS later in this week. Uh that is not an easy process. Um unfortunately um there is some noise uh associated with it. We attempted to make uh provisions to do it on the weekends, but we were unable to do so because of code. Uh so we're mitigating as best we can as quickly as it can to get that machine machines off of our campuses safely and and um without disturbance. Um the IMS roof is going to be completely replaced. Uh so that that work is ongoing. Uh one of the areas that is affected, we are putting a temporary roof over the gymnasium. uh because it uh has such use u both curricularly and extracurricularly. So uh
030we'll have a temporary tented roof over that um that was um uh a concession that I worked with the broker to do because we just couldn't tolerate um having leaks that bad and not being able to use our gym. Um the repairs to both Franklin and Nams will be happening um as soon as they get the gravel off and as soon as weather permits. We are blessed with what you see this week in terms of 70s. Um know that that's very unusual for this time of year, but that's going to help us in a in a degree to u put the repairs. Uh those roofs won't be replaced, the repairs will put down. Uh so those will be happening in the next couple of weeks. Uh again weather dependent or that they don't find something
031catastrophic. Um at the same time u we uh have done some uh internal uh corrections uh replacing ceiling tiles uh cleaning up uh the debris that comes with the ceiling tiles and the leaks that u ensued. And we are also um in in the midst right now u doing air quality tests at all three buildings. Um they started yesterday and they will be continuing throughout this week and we'll get the results as soon as possible. Um beyond that just uh be aware that there are large pieces of equipment on those three campuses. Please provide them safety as there's a lot of deliveries. There's going to be some there already are semis that may cause congestion to Education Boulevard uh at NMS and especially at uh Franklin where it's difficult uh for parking in general. Thank
032you. One one more follow-up question. Uh we were shared photos of those black spots on the ceiling. I think we had an explanation that you presented to us, but if we just I know you answered all the Dr. Walsh and Dr. Kazinski answered all the emails and we and uh but it's still just to remind everybody we were aware of those and those plots are sure. So u two professional organizations came to um assess the situation. One is the professional roofers that did an inspection and identified that as the adhesive uh that would uh hold the roof down. We have bismouth uh roofs and so that adhesive soaked down. that's what that discoloration was. Uh he identified that it was not a health hazard. Uh but we also had the uh health department at all
033three buildings. Um they did an inspection uh with me present and identified that they were pleased with our actions and found that they did not feel there was any health hazard at that time. Good. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Dr. K. Dr. Walsh, thank you for addressing those matters rather quickly and hopefully uh they'll be resolved here with this nice warm weather. So, nothing else? Oh, with that being said, uh board comments, anybody else? Oh. Um, at the Bethl Park Public Library Trustees meeting this last week, it was um told that the new library cards for all students in 7 through 12 will be distributed um over the next couple of weeks. So, they're in they'll get distributed um and to find out our um students are really using the lockers there. So
034we know that the books are moving in the right direction there um for after hours issues and those things. So it was really nice to see that that is being utilized by the community in general, but the student usage was up also. Good. Thank you. It's good news. So I just wanted to say if you don't have tickets for the musical yet this week, you might be out of luck because I know that there were only just a few left. So if you haven't gotten them, please do. And it should be an outstanding production. I can't wait. What show is it again? Come on. It is The Sound of Music. Opening night. The opening cast is Wednesday and Friday. And the closing cast will be performing Thursday and Saturday. So go twice. I always go
035opening and closing. So I see everybody. See you all there. It's fun. So excited. Yes. Just wanted to highlight tomorrow morning around 8:30, Llaya Walsh, who's a senior at Bethl Park High School, is going to be on Good Morning America. So, everyone, Mr. Chrome, he put a post on Facebook. Uh she's done a tremendous amount of work uh with the Girl Scouts of America. And so, she'll be highlighted uh on Good Morning America. So, tune in. It's a major accomplishment and a highlight for the district. Very good. Thank you. Good way to end it. Very good. All right. Nothing else. Uh I got to have a motion. Uh was there a motion to uh Is there a second? Second.