001[Music] [Laughter] [Music] fox news one nation under god indivisible with liberty mrs face mr grizz back here mrs hoppy here mrs janice here mr mcgregor mr modric here mr scalzo here mrs turner here mr christensen here all night numbers present thank you can i uh get a motion to uh uh adopt the agenda for business items submit second second second who is the second yeah okay uh it was uh moved by mr griezback second by miss hoppy to adopt the uh agenda voting is open yes thank you mr mcgregor motion carries can you get a motion to approve the minutes from the uh 4 12 22 meeting in the 426 2022 regular meeting so moved second moved by miss calzo voting is open yes thank you mr mcgregor go again yes voting motion carries thank
002you i want to announce the executive sessions we've had in the past month on may 10 2022 for personal other legal matters and to receive information may 17 2022 for personnel other legal matters and receive information and may 24th 2022 for personnel other legal matters and to receive information do we have a student government report excuse me could you just slide the microphone over or is there a remote microphone you could use here all right uh so we had oh there maybe that's someone comfortable okay um so we had our last senate meeting of the year today so we're kind of reflecting on the year how it's gone it's been a crazy year just in general but we were able to get a lot accomplished in sga and i think the students also enjoyed uh
003what we did throughout the year we were able to pretty much we had a lot of interaction i feel like between the student body and sga more than we have in the past years and morale seemed to be pretty high this year too which is always good um so as we also had the end of the year meeting we also had new positions for our e-board so today i brought the incoming new school board reps this is cam he's a 11th grader going into 12th grade and lila who is a freshman she will be becoming a sophomore next year as well i'd just like to say it's it's been a pleasure sitting in the meetings and giving reports informing people about what we do why we do it stuff like that so thank you okay
004next caitlin do you have a pto pta report yep i do um this is caitlin metzler so on behalf of the pto council i'll present our report today for abraham lincoln elementary the lincoln pto held a sweetheart dance on may 13th formerly this was formerly the father-daughter dance and every lincoln student and their parent or caregiver was invited this year the kids dressed up and danced the night away with a dj while enjoying sweet treats refreshments and a photo booth congratulations to lincoln's four winners in the 2022 wqed writers contest kindergarten had a first place winner anna schubert milner second place with teddy griffiths in the second grade they had a second place for jacob anderson and in third grade they had second place for hazel cramer way to go winners they were so happy
005to celebrate the lincoln staff during teacher appreciation week volunteers ran the last school store in the beautiful sunshine they are also preparing for field day in the fourth grade party george washington elementary george washington recently held their sports day the first since 2020 due to covid the students were very happy to enjoy this event again all grade levels competed in several outdoor sports and game stations several local mascots including the bp hawk were present for the big event which is the tug of war the end of the year will be celebrated with family fun night on may 27th this family event will include several bouncy houses carnival games food trucks a photo booth and many more fun activities both of these events take a lot of helping hands and the pto would like to extend
006many thanks to all of their wonderful parent and teacher volunteers william penn william penn elementary school has an exciting end of the year planned for its students on tuesday the 24th they will have a career fair assembly and college trade school spirit dress-up day to get the students excited about the event on the evening of wednesday may 25th students will each receive a passport and the opportunity to visit 40 different individuals representing a wide variety of careers the career representatives will teach the students about what they do for a living and give each student a stamp for visiting their booth the following day they will have a career dress-up day where the kids can dress up for the career they are most inspired by their school talent show will be on june 1st in the
007evening on the blacktop they have musicians dancers comedians stage crew and presenters who are all excited to share their special talents with their school neil armstrong middle school neil armstrong middle school pto has been busy wrapping up events for the year they held their spring fling on may 13th and had about 360 kids in attendance the students had a blast with the tattoo artist dj and photo booth fifth and sixth grade fun days were held last week kids had fun being outside playing games and socializing with friends pto would like to thank all parents and staff who helped this year be as successful as it was independence middle school the ptso is very busy with planning the 8th grade move up day that will be held on may 27th they are thrilled this event can
008happen again this year and on behalf of the pto council we would like to thank laura hoffman who is an outgoing co-president for her many years of service thank you very much uh solicitors report thank you i've provided my report in executive session to the board thank you thank you are there any committee reports that's happy so i just have yeah just have one quick uh little something from steel center which i think is incredibly cool recently they've acquired an anatomage table which is a virtual cadaver that's projected onto a screen it's a life-size table with this virtual cadaver and they can access all of the body systems the parts they can turn the body they can slice and dice and it's a huge contribution to the health sciences department at steel center so the
009students will have access to to study with this hands-on learning tool it was provided through grant funding and some fundraising it's an eighty thousand dollar piece of equipment and our students in the health science health sciences at steel center have access to that so i just wanted to report thank you any other committee reports any other things going on okay superintendent's report thank you good evening everyone i'll start with uh to share we received a certificate from senator devlin roblins robinson who uh recognized that bethlehem park was once again honored by the namm foundation as a great communities for music education and this has been a probably a several decades long tradition to earn that designation in bethel park and we're most proud and we appreciate the senator's recognition of that tradition second piece is
010to share with the board two of the staff members that are on your agenda tonight for retirement the first is linda counts she was hired in september of 1982 as a bus driver and she served until 99 and came back again in 2002 as a sub driver and then in 2004 became a full-time driver and she'll retire from that position at the end of this school year and mr william herman started with the district as a substitute bus driver uh in april of 2011 in 2012 he became a full-time bus driver and he holds that position today those two retirements are on your agenda tonight i'm going to turn the floor over to mr cromey who has his five big things uh to share with the board in the community mr cromie excuse me i'm
011sorry could could you use the microphone yeah that's my phone that's my phone i've only done this 3 000 times so uh anyway so the five big things we certainly do what we can to highlight some of the wonderful things happening around bethel park so uh our first one is not working first one we celebrated some exploratory days many district schools recently celebrated exploratory days giving students access to a number of different traditions and cultures or career paths to which they normally wouldn't be exposed for example students at memorial elementary school were treated to the traditions wardrobes and culinary delights of a number of countries all around the globe that was an amazing exhibit that they had there and some of the countries featured included germany france switzerland the uk ireland greece uh south korea
012japan and ethiopia i still can smell that ethiopian food and it was delicious ims also they ran they had their annual first uh ever dice day and william penn as was mentioned earlier tomorrow will have a career fair uh and exploration event at the school for students from 6 to 8 p.m at the school they've worked really hard at it and they had an event today they had an assembly for the kids and it was wonderful it featured several of our students who are currently members of steele center also talking and it was just it was a wonderful event earlier this month bethel park's biology students spent a few days participating in the crispr cast 9 genetic modification lab the event was led by their teachers with the help of dr david boone who's an
013assistant professor at pitt's prestigious school of medicine genome editing also called gene editing is a group of technologies that give students the ability to change an organism's dna proponents say it is completely changing the face of medicine i see someone was my star of the video that we did on that so and it was a really pretty amazing event it's it's an incredible opportunity for our students to be part of something that is so genuinely cutting edge i'd like to congratulate the lincoln elementary students who just recorded top three grade level finishes in the wqed writers contest uh enter schubert anna schubert milnik a kindergartner wrote hedgehogs go wild and she took first place another kindergartner teddy griffiths did teddy in space and he was second place in that division there were more than 800
014entries which is pretty amazing for us to take the top two spots tonight jacob anderson who won last year along with his sister olivia he had jake's dream job he took second place and hazel kemmerer a third grader took third place for sunshine bakery we're very proud of all of them and they really did a wonderful job the hydroponic garden we've talked about this a lot i think uh mr espinar who really does an amazing job his class at neil armstrong they've spent the past several months now cultivating a hydroponic garden the students recently hosted a lunch in that featuring what they grown with salads topped by healthy oil and vinegar dressing and chickpeas that were roasted by mr espinar and whose room is where the hydroponic garden is located and i can tell you
015it was uh as someone who was invited to enjoy the salad along with uh mrs figlioli it was delicious so they've really done an amazing job they hope to expand it going forward and i'm i hope they're able to as well because it was it was pretty incredible and you can see the potential in it and it's a true stem lesson and finally we have our deca students uh deca excelled at nationals uh deca always does an amazing job and we're not surprised but we're certainly proud in late april they went to atlanta and some of the winners you can see the list of the winners there and we're very proud of what they did and here to talk about it more is uh mrs smoller um well thank you very much for inviting us
016um today i really appreciate the opportunity um to recognize the efforts of all of our students and i'm really excited to just give you a snapshot about what deca is and then i'll let each of our groups tell you a little bit about their project and what they've done but if you're not familiar deca it's an international organization of high school business students and there's over 170 000 students involved throughout the world locally at our chat at our school it's a co-curricular club through the marketing classes which myself and mrs christensen are the instructors and in the classes the students prepare for competition we do a lot of community service which you'll hear about with one of the projects today and a lot of leadership opportunities too one of our students a sophomore lexi dorfner
017is going to be serving on the state officer board next year too another component with the classes a lot of these students are all the ones here today did projects which it can be from an integrated marketing a business plan operations research project management and these were comprised of 20 page papers and 15 minute presentations which a lot of these if you saw them extremely college level or beyond i say with some of them and a few of the projects were project management too so it wasn't only writing a paper and presenting but they had to organize our whole chapter throughout the project before they had a chance to start writing and breaking on their presentation one other component of our class which everybody here are all stars at our school store being in barrie
018very good experience working managing planning the operations of that store too which has also benefited our club by raising funds to help pay for some of the competitions this year too they started working with julie hernandez's work based learning center students in the store with plans to continue with that next year too some why we have this group here just want to share some of the exciting news from our competitions this is my 15th year at bethel and this is the most success at the state and national or international level that we've had and especially considering i think we took about 57 students to states i think it was 34 of them placed the top six and qualified for internationals and then we took a group of 34 um to internationals and then everybody here
019today was a finalist which that means you placed in the top 20. there was 17 000 students i believe across all events there was they were competing against the 200 other groups we have all the groups here today we're in the top 20 and then we have two groups represented today also that were in uh the top ten so i'm going to turn it over to the students to tell you a little bit about it we have at least one person from each group we had four groups comprised of nine students so we have at least one from each group so they'll tell you a little bit about their project and what they've gotten out of deca and i'm going to start with our two seniors hi i'm sadie fedor and as she said i'm
020a senior this year and i was also one of the co-presidents of our deca chapter for this past school year my partner anastasia and i placed sixth place in a sales project event our sales project was about fundraising for our deca chapter as co-president we noticed there was like not a lot of participation interest this year and we figured out the main reason was the like money that goes into participating in deca events this includes the school activity fee the deca membership fee that's an international membership fee as well as the cost to participate in states in hershey which is around 300 to 400 per student to go to atlanta it took a little over a thousand for each student so this combined was around eighteen hundred dollars per student if they wanted to like
021participate in all the competitions and advance their learning so we decided to introduce a new product mix of fundraisers for this school year these were all in collaboration with some local businesses like pittsburgh popcorn that's wrapped pepperoni rolls in sarah's candies and in total over all of our sales we fundraised around seven thousand dollars in fundraise money for our deca chapter that got us to place in sixth endeca and a whole has really helped me it helped me decide my career path i want to go into marketing i'm going to pursue that in the fall at the university of south florida and it's just really helping with public speaking i definitely couldn't be here talking to all of you like this if it weren't for deca yeah so it's really a great club and i
022love it so i'm going to pass it to my partner anastasia uh yeah i'm anastasia antonucci um so sadie really kind of covered a lot about our project but a big thing that i wanted to point out is how mrs muller mentioned that 57 of our students went to pennsylvania states and then 31 qualified to go to atlanta every single one of them had to use our fundraising promotional mix so we kind of proved that throughout our project as well and i just think that's really cool and sadie and i were super proud to you know be able to you just utilize that and help others utilize it as well to gain the experience that you get from deca because it actually means so much to me mrs smaller i can't speak enough about how
023amazing of a teacher and a deca advisor that she is and it's such an important club and can help somebody in so many ways and i also am it helped me decide my path that i'm going to pursue which is going to be finance at penn state so yeah that's it all right my name is mia kakanya i'm natalie engel and we're juniors and we competed in the hospitality and tourism operations research event which we did on kelly's very delay which is an ice cream shop pretty local it's on broughton road i worked there so it was an easy place for me to pick so this year's topic for this event was how to boost employee engagement and morale so we did a lot with our employees we found out we used our research methods
024to make some conclusions so we sent out an online survey to the employees we did some secondary research as well as a focus group that we conducted in our high school and we just used all this information to like make plans for the future for kelly's on how we can boost the employee morale and make people want to stay there and continue working there especially with coven um from deca i've learned so much miss buller is an amazing run she runs it so well i've gone to experience so many things i never thought i would get to go to atlanta by myself as a high schooler leave my parents for a few days it was really nice but it was it's everything that i've learned for deca is amazing and i love everything about.com hi
025i'm olivia missouri i'm a junior this year and my partner and i addison hill we conducted a community awareness project with the adoptive family organization of south hills and for this project we just wanted to gain awareness throughout bethel park about those in need during the holiday season who may not be as financially stable as others in the community so this year we adopted 12 different families who applied for this position to get gifts donated to them for christmas day and we gained awareness around 23 000 members all throughout bethel park and there were eight clubs in the high school who were involved in our project as well and this just allowed for all the families who may not have christmas presents or cannot afford them be able to enjoy their christmas together as a
026family and just share memories and mrs smuller really helped us with this project she helped us organized it and we couldn't thank her enough for all the involvement she does in deca and it's really a great opportunity for all high school students to participate in hello everyone my name is owen and my partner mason and i participated in the personal financial literacy promotion plan um for the financial literacy promotion plan we wanted to focus on increasing the awareness on the importance of financial literacy and we did this by implementing a series of games activities note sheets and presentations throughout our marketing classes we truly believe that financial education is very important to not only the success but the sustainability of our generation and we even did this through social media and reaching out to students
027to realize how much they truly want to know about finance but weren't able to accommodate it in their schedules deca is probably the best decision i've ever made in high school it really helped me build skills and make memories that i won't ever forget and will forever use in future careers and university settings mrs smuller has done a great job and i just want to thank you for your time all right well thank you very much i appreciate taking the time [Applause] um thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you very much just uh one thing and it is an amazing organization you know the kinds of things you talked about putting together a business plan marketing plan being able to make a presentation influence people those are the kinds of skills that are the path to
028success regardless of the career you choose so great job i encourage anybody to be a part of deca okay thank you mr crummy for your five big things we're gonna move over to the other side of that of the room there for the curriculum updates from our coordinators this month i wanted to share with you an annual it used to be an annual event with a brief coveted interruption um but the art art department was brought back the arts fest and steam expo this year it was held on may 7th at the high school organized primarily by mr wallish kent wallace who is the department chair for the art department and just truly for those of you who are able to attend such an impressive event the things that our students are creating there were
029some elementary projects this year that were included i wanted to share some of the posters that were designed the art department had a contest and selected posters that were designed by the students and these were displayed in the buildings throughout the school district and also used mr cromey used them on his social media communications and there were many many submissions these were just the five that were selected uh and i put together i took a lot of photos there were so many people involved and so i i thought the most shortest and respectful use of your time would be to put them in a video [Music] do [Music] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] so [Music] and like i said it was more than just the art department it was truly an exceptional event and
030i was just blown away um being relatively new to the district at what our students and teachers are capable of um and long term one of my goals for the district is that art is infused in in all of the core subjects um so i'm really glad that mr wallace was including the steam component as well and i want to save the date marked calendar um we my my second week here this year we celebrated dot day and this is an annual celebration so mark your calendar september 15th 2022 will be our second annual dot day um and you'll i won't waste your time telling you more about this event those of you who participated i know we have a lot of business to do but we will be um the author of the dot
031book also has what's called a create trilogy and there are three books and so we won't want to beat that same book to death every year so we'll use those creativity trilogy books in between so next year we'll be using the book called ish and making sure that k to 12 we're celebrating creativity in the district so save the date and buy something with thoughts hello good evening today i want to reflect and plan forward for our kindergarten class of 2035 which seems such a far way off so we had our screening day on may 17 2022 at neil armstrong elementary oh middle school i apologize and we did this all five buildings came together and we welcomed 240 rough families roughly families into be screened we also held some of our aiu english language
032screenings and we had our nurses and our speech teachers on hand to address any questions and help parents and families with any inquiries they had about the process of registration and here we just had some students with all of our kindergarten teachers working to see the students their alphabet skills their colors their shapes their numbers this was a great opportunity i told everyone i got 16 000 steps this day walking five-year-olds to and from their parents to the screening where i learned all kinds of fascinating things about favorite colors and animals and summer plans and so they're all very excited and it's really refreshing to get back into the buildings with the students so this is one of my all-time favorite days i think i held a hand or talked to virtually every single incoming
033kindergarten student so it was a wonderful day we have our orientations coming up on june 6th these will be held in the home buildings and each student will be provided with a summer learning welcome to bethel park bag it will have a tag with their name on it it will have a calendar of things to do some activities some welcome to bethel park kindergarten pencils every child will receive a hard-bound book i'm a paper person so i love the power of having a book in your hand that every child can look at to touch to feel and the students will also be receiving the yard signs so we will be covering bethel park neighborhoods in the orange yard signs welcoming them to our bethel park school community and our save the date is camp invention
034this year camp invention will be held at neil armstrong july 18th through the 22nd and this is for students i want to make sure i get this correct entering kindergarten through sixth grade it is 255 this is not an event sponsored by bethel park but they utilize our space and we have been doing this for many years so if anyone is interested this will be a live link and you can click on this live link and register your students for this wonderful steam opportunity thank you for your time this evening well thanks to mr crummy and thank you mrs figlioli and mrs wells for your updates i only have one last piece from my part of the agenda that is the board received at your places this evening of a second installment in my regular
035monthly series of updates on our strategic plan this one refers to the sixth goal of the strategic plan the diversity equity and inclusion committee's goals and it's an update on where things are with all of those efforts the first goal spoke to administrative training and capacity building for staff on supporting students feelings of connect respect and value some things accomplished there and some things in the works probably have a lot of that accomplished certainly before the start of the next school year the second goal listed there is the students feelings of connected respect and and value through their activity participation through their selection of course rigorous courses uh and their participation in uh extracurricular programs uh and clubs and the last goal it would be professional development for students staff administrators and some tools that
036the faculty can use also when reviewing curriculum materials as well so it's been a a pr that was a productive committee i appreciate the support of all the committee members that that served over the past year that that task force accomplished a lot and we appreciate them handing this all over now to our principals building administrators to carry that torch forward and making sure all students are connected respected and valued in bethel park we'll continue to update the board each month on different pieces of the strategic plan i appreciate that opportunity to keep you apprised of our progress with those ambitious goals that we set for bethel park over the next five years and that is all i had for you great thank you are there any public comments on the agenda items so this
037is just for the agenda items that are on tonight's agenda how's everybody doing uh brendan mccarthy 101. sir if you could use the microphone there you go thank you brendan mccarthy 101 jordan drive i'm here today to speak in favor of the trauma-informed approach policy that's going to be discussed [Music] i think in light of today we understand there's something wrong there's something going on in our schools it's going on everywhere you don't have to live in a poor neighborhood you don't have to live in a downtrodden neighborhood this is happening everywhere and i don't know what the answer is but we need to be doing something to get a finger on the pulse of our students and find out what's going on so hopefully that bethel park is never the one in the news
038so that's all hello everyone my name is marianne ramer 5062 orchard avenue i am addressing the board about the trauma-informed approach policy i've been an elementary teacher a high school coach a public school principal and a supervisor in an approved private school for students with emotional needs my husband and i were foster parents of two children who were identified by the foster agency as having mental health problems and our children came to live with us when they were nine and ten when staff are trained in the effects of trauma they are better equipped to understand students behaviors trauma changes the wiring in the brain students have difficulty concentrating they don't focus they can be hypersomatic over emphasizing the slightest illness they can be paranoid about possibilities of danger and they can appear angry uncooperative needy
039or clingy trauma is different for every child two children can experience the same event for example a flood one child becomes anxious every time there's a weather report about rain when they're in school it begins to rain they can be irritable angry cry another child with the same flood experience is not concerned so what are examples of trauma that students in bethel park might experience chronic illness of a parent death of a parent physical abuse of themselves or a family member a car accident violence in the neighborhood consistent bullying the effects of trauma impact the classroom when when trained in trauma-informed care teachers begin to identify the reasons for classroom behaviors in a different lens this does not mean the teachers are expected to be a psychologist teachers are better able to talk with kids
040about issues that teachers handle daily absences disruption with other students inability to finish class work angry outbursts for simple requests my husband and i both public school administrators decided to not send our foster children to public school we decided to send them to small religious schools where they would be in small classrooms we talked to the administrators of both schools about their sexual abuse and constant neglect we thought that this more supportive environment would be better for our kids at the first parent teacher conference i'm sorry we have a limited two minutes so you're gonna have to wrap up okay um teachers who know how to respond to students with trauma backgrounds know about body language personal space tone of voice wait time all techniques that do not escalate situations with students who have trauma
041backgrounds giving administrators teachers and staff training in trauma-informed care is another tool in their toolbox which reduces teacher stress improves interaction with students and provides a healthier productive classroom environment for all students thank you [Music] any other comments from the audience any comments no okay very good moving on to the business items um [Music] this hoppy can you take the consent agenda items remove those [Music] so we have 32 items on the consent agenda this evening one acceptance of resignations two appointment of personnel three involuntary transfers four change of assignment five approval of staffing changes six approval of unpaid leave of absence seven approval of job description eight approval of administration tuition reimbursement nine approval of classified tuition reimbursement ten approval of extended school year staffing eleven appointment of board treasurer 12 may 2022 salaries
042and bills excuse me uh 13 april 2022 financial report 14 budgetary transfers 15 approval of steel center for career and technical education budgets 16 wave of facility rental fees 17 renewing of the food service contract 18 approval of student services contracts 19 agreement with two extreme moms llc dba lois johnson learning and child care center 20 payment for independence middle school phase 1 renovations 21 approval of frontline education proposal 22 harris school solutions web hosting migration 23 acceptance of rotary club of upper saint clair bethel park grant 24 lease agreement with first american equipment finance 25 payment for independence middle school phase 1 renovations and 26 payment for independence middle school phase 2 renovations 27 payment for waterproofing repair 28 approval of policy final reading 29 revision to policies final reading 30 a student agreement
04331 a student agreement and number 32 approval of the consent agenda you have a second second this is moved by ms hoppy seconded by mr scalzo to adopt the consent agenda any comments or questions on these that we put on the agenda last tuesday just to state that our two uh citizens come up about the trauma and form of policy which is we are proven here uh tonight just so they're aware of that that was on last week's yeah and i think that maybe dr walsh you can walk through the process because what's there isn't actually a process it's just it's it's a kind of a mandate by the board for the administration to actually create the policy you know that's kind of how it reads right now so can you walk us through the
044policy and when we'll become visible what's the timeline for creating this right so the policy that you have there will direct the administration to write regulations on trauma-informed instruction having trauma-trained teams in the buildings and programming for those teams to offer and provide for students so this policy actually directs us to write regulations to implement all of those requirements and i think we heard clearly tonight about the need for it given the the experiences that students are having and the level of stress and anxiety that our students have have expressed or shared and so we're anxious to get that moving here any other questions comments okay voting is open yes please thank you yes i'm not seeing anyone are you not seeing it pop up no nothing no all right oh i don't know what's
045going on um this is f fize mr grizz back yes this is hoppy yes this is janasek yes mr modric yes mr scalzo yes mr christensen yes motion carries thank you mr scalzo can you take the three items on the curriculum committee yes under curriculum committee we have three items number one independent study and art number two purchase of the smithsonian science number three pennsylvania department of education flexible instruction day application i would like to move all three second second said okay so mrs calzo made the motion mr mojack seconded it any comments questions on these uh dr walsh just for the public's benefit could you discuss exactly what the flexible instruction days are for sure so it's the 19 2019 the the department of education gave school districts the ability to call for a
046flexible instruction day which once the pandemic struck and things moved remotely we we learned had a totally different meaning that what was originally intended pre-pandemic but flexible instruction days would be when we can't pick up students but we can still have a school day they can participate from home or they could be dropped off at school and have a an asynchronous academic experience where we would still have all the other services available to students that they would have come to need and rely on in the schools counseling and nursing and cafeteria et cetera so this application would give us the ability to offer that again for three more years you get five fit days a year you could use so we have a you know extreme cold and we're not going to run the buses
047we could still have a school day thank you mrs figlioli could you uh go over what what is the smithsonian science program thank you in june of last year oh sorry in june of last year the science curriculum committee delivered a report to the board and okay one through four adopted the smithsonian science kits um these are hands-on kits um based on the next generation science standards which are very much in line with the standards that pennsylvania is adopting those will become official as of july 1. so grades five and six piloted those kits during this school year and they are very very happy with the kits as well so we will purchase these in the same way that we purchased the elementary kits meaning we purchase next year's and then also two years worth
048of vouchers for renewing those materials so essentially that amount is for three years of curriculum for grades five and six so that would have us grades one through four using the smithsonian science series and i think it puts us in a really good place to transition to those new science standards um so those take effect july 1st but our students won't be assessed on those meaning on the pssa exam on grades four and eight and the keystone biology exam until spring of 2026 but i think that we are in a really good place in being prepared for that transition and the teachers are well prepared as well okay thank you you're welcome i'm gonna try voting try it again voting is open try it again see if it works this time there it is yes
049please thank you mrs turner yes this is for all motion carries mr mcgregor can you take the personnel committee uh before you make the motion can uh i have you hold out number four because i have to abstain from that one due to a conflict of interest okay uh on tonight's agenda we have eight items one approval of extra duty responsibility program two acceptance of resignations three appointment of personnel i'm gonna hold out four which is the approval of summer program staffing five change of assignment six approval of staffing changes um just ahead number seven uh approval of curriculum writing and number eight approval of curriculum revision can i have a second second this is motions made by mr mcgregor seconded by mr scalzo any questions on these voting is open yes thank you [Music]
050motion carries you take number four now okay and uh number four approval of the summer program staffing i move that second motions babe by mr mcgregor and second it again by mr scalzo voting is open mrs turner yes please yes thank you motion carries eight yeses one abstention thank you uh mr greisbeck can you take the finance items sure we have five items under finance tonight number one adopt the 2022-2023 proposed final general fund operating budget number two items declared unused and unnecessary number three extension agreement with precision hr solutions number four pathfinder school administrative budget number five approval of the purchase of busware does anyone want any of these items held out does anyone have any questions on any of the items is there a second first second thank you now does anyone have
051any questions on any items mr mclaughlin would you like to give some clarification on item number one that we are at this point not actually um adopting a new military but rather this is the proposed final general fund budget sure um i presented the budget last week at the agenda planning meeting it has not changed it has been posted on the district website is also available for review in the administrative offices right now the budget stands at 99 million 873 538 dollars there is a deficit currently in spending of slightly over a million dollars it does call for a four percent tax increase bringing the millage to 23.4281 however we are not by approving this proposed final budget setting that millage rate uh the budget will continue to be worked on for the next 30
052days prior to final adoption in june thank you very much voting is open yes no thank you mrs james okay there it comes motion carries thank you uh miss turner there's uh one item under policy uh since you're not here this is just the second of three readings nothing to vote on uh any comments that you want to make about this policy for electronic devices no thank you but it is the second of three second or three right okay it's the end of the business agenda are there any public comments on any other topics good evening today after reading the new trauma informed policy for three months it was finally approved which is a good thing clearly our society does not handle mental health appropriately especially when it comes to children the problem though is
053that this district has been going against this policy even as the policy was being read and reviewed specifically i refer to an item that indicates the trauma-informed approach plan will include quote culturally responsive practices that focus on identifying valuing and integrating the culture's languages heritage and experiences of all students and staff to ensure support of school climate and community last month bethel park had an opportunity to get a head start on this by approving the creation of a curriculum for the contributions leadership and successes elective proposed by bethel park faculty instead of allowing this curriculum to move forward the idea was voted down also towards the end of the policy it goes into data collection specifically listed as the use of a climate survey again last month the district chose to undermine the road administration's
054ability to meet the data collection requirements of their own policy by refusing to allow the distribution of a student climate survey there is a certain inconsistency here between what our school district is saying and what it is doing the board should address this inconsistency by holding another vote on the contributions successes and leadership elective and the climate survey and approving both doing so is the only logical path forward since everyone here read the policy at least three times over the past three months and everyone agrees with each of these points if they hadn't it would have been voted to approve this new policy any of the comments in the audience uh brandon mccarthy 101 jordan street uh first of all thank you for passing the plan for a trauma-informed approach i do believe that is
055extremely important especially in light of the tragedy today in texas however now that you have passed this plan i feel the need to call attention to a couple things in the trauma-informed approach the need to assess the climate of the school is mentioned five different times yet one month ago this board voted down an optional climate survey also in the trauma-informed approach it explicitly states that the implementation of the trauma-informed approach shall include and i quote culturally responsive practices that focus on identifying valuing and take integrating the cultures languages heritage and experiences of all students and staff to ensure a supportive school climate and community yet one month ago this board voted against an optional class that would explore the rich history of minority cultures here in america that all being said i am asking
056this board in light of its vote today well sorry i unmisunderstood how it worked but in light of the passing of this plan to revisit its decisions around the climate survey and the elective class contributions successes and leaders this all seems significantly more important considering the tragedies that occurred in buffalo last week and in texas not even 10 hours ago thank you okay mary mcgarrity 2894 maples i think most of you know i loathe public speaking but i feel strongly on this i was waiting to see whether we passed this um trauma-informed approach some of you that are familiar with me know my situation and they know that this is a very important um consideration to me it's a very important issue to me i didn't come here planning to speak i came here thinking
057maybe i would but um i listened to what i could stomach of that last month's hearing meeting and um listen to the repeated references to crt i i would hope that we know that's not taught in grades kindergarten through 12. so that fear mongering that was used to maybe influence people i don't know whether um like i said i didn't come here prepared to speak but i'm i i'm looking at these things and i'm saying you know we tell our kids to stand up to bullies and what i saw last month and like i said with what i could stomach watching especially after listening to that young lady speak of her experience in these schools and the things that she has had said to her and to watch that get voted down by educators some
058of you are educators i i just felt i couldn't stay silent on that i meant to do an email i never did the email so instead i'm here doing this which makes me extremely uncomfortable but like i said i think we need this in our schools i think we're not taking it seriously and bullying is definitely a problem diversity is definitely not being addressed and we need to do better thank you thank you thank you for uh speaking even though it is challenging sometimes but thank you any collins no no any other comments from the audience okay we'll shift to board comments and um i wanted to announce that uh john gentile did pass away and uh this heart because he's a close friend but we'll have counselors that believe in the school tomorrow so
059maybe you could say a little bit more sure i think the the board shares the grief of the whole entire bethel park community at the loss of a great teacher great coach a father husband a friend and his passing untimely passing and tragic passing will be really affect all of us and we're here tonight talking about trauma and trauma-informed practices and i think we're going to have to put our our practices into action right now because we're all experiencing that trauma of the loss of an important influence in our lives so we send our deepest sympathies to the gentile family his wife and son his relatives and of course the entire high school faculty as well as the middle school faculty who worked with him for a time as well so we um we'll pause
060i think for a moment of of silence and his honor and thank you so thank you there'll be more information coming out but it is a very tragic and uh shocking uh instance any other comments hey barry i just want to echo that um as a parent um i have a student who had a lot of interaction with him and his wife my heartfelt sympathies and deepest prayers go out to the gentile family especially his wife and his son thank you any other comments no okay uh motion to adjourn so move second all in favor aye [Music] [Music] you