PENNCREST School Board (Mar 9, 2026)

001Good evening everyone. Uh welcome to this committee as a whole and voting meeting for March 9th, 2026. If you join me in standing for the pledge and a moment of silence. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Let's turn it over to the secretary for roll call. >> Miss Bears here. >> Mr. Bennett >> here. >> Mr. Brown >> here. >> Mr. Bryant >> here. >> Mr. Chi >> here. >> Reverend Custard >> here. >> Mr. Penn here. >> Mr. Jacobo. Sorry. >> It's our first day. Give her a break. >> And Mr. Stoky >> here. Now turn it over to uh superintendent Mr. Ford for the committee as

002a whole. >> Our first item business, we have some guests with us tonight from Connected. Um we have Max Lynn is it? >> Yeah. >> And then we have Aaron Payne and then Michelle. Okay. Am I missing somebody in the middle? >> Joe. >> Hi Joe. >> So I will turn the I'll turn the floor over to you. We're looking forward to hearing your presentation. >> All right. Thanks so much. >> And you're you're okay with driving the reset. >> We're getting there. >> Sorry. >> Where'd you guys all come in from? >> I came from um Mechanicsburg from PSBA headquarters. Okay. >> And >> Cincinnati, Ohio. >> Okay. >> And then, uh, Diamond Headquarters in Springfield, New Jersey. >> So, kind of all over the place. >> Yes. >> We were really excited to

003see how beautiful it is here. I can't believe there's no snow. How did you get rid of our >> We're all knocking on wood when you said that. >> I know. I should say that loud. It's still March. It's still not St. Patty's Day. That's the end of the week. We're supposed to go >> out apologize slowly. >> I can do a little intro if you like diamond. >> Sure. Absolutely. And tell you how we how connected can be a little spinning. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's all good. I understand that. Um, so PSBA recognizes that wireless connectivity is so critically important to school districts and IUs and and public education institutions certainly for everyday learning but also for emergency communications. Perfect timing. Okay. So wanted to provide a solution for districts to improve their wireless

004connectivity as well as provide an a revenue stream. So if you want to go to the first slide. So, we partnered, PSBA partnered with Diamond to create ConnectedPA. And as you can see from the slide, the the the basic um program provides districts with education about wireless connectivity, an analysis of their current connectivity and how reliable it is and then options for them to improve their their connectivity and and um and figure out what is the best solution for the district. So, if you want to go to the next slide, I won't read all that to you. Um, the way it works is that Diamond, and you'll hear a lot from Diamond about who they are and how it how more detail about how it works, but basically they market your properties to cellular wireless

005carriers. Um, and if carriers are interested, they will decide to actually Diamond will facilitate a tower build and carriers can jump on that tower. The advantage to the district is there is no cost to you. um you get improved connectivity, but also you benefit from the the lease income as a result of what the carriers pay to be on the tower. Um basically again it's no cost. There's no obligation to even explore the this option. Uh and what we tried to do as a team and as a group and a partnership was try to make it easy. So as you can imagine it can be very technically legal as you start to talk about marketing agreements and lease agreements and things like that. So what we did as a team was work with legal counsel,

006PSBA legal, Diamond Legal, and Specialty Council to provide templated documents. We already have a templated site marketing agreement and and you'll hear more about that so that you're not starting from scratch. You have something to go to go on. Your solicitor certainly would be involved, but we've at least hopefully created a foundation for you if you decide to go forward. So I'm going to stop talking now and I'm going to turn it over to my diamond partner so they can really get into the nuts and bolts of of what they do. Karen. Yep. Yep. Um, so I'm Aaron Payne, the vice president of strategic partnerships at Diamond Communications. Um, Diamond is a full service wireless infrastructure company and what we do is work with our landlords and partners um to help them improve connectivity and

007we do that through multiple verticals. It could be building a tower um a collocation on an existing structure like a rooftop um inbuilding services uh public safety manage Wi-Fi. So, basically, we want to work with you to figure out the best solutions to help improve your connectivity. Um, we're headquartered in Springfield, New Jersey. Um, but we have presents across the country, including in Pennsylvania. We work with First Energy since 2009. Um, where we rolled out this program in Texas, uh, in 2024, and we already have 70 plus site marketing agreements signed up, um, and over 20, uh, tower builds in process in our pipeline. We also just recently rolled this out um in Florida and um are working in other states as well. Um so this slide here is really to show that we do

008all this for you guys. Um we'll do every part of the process and then um you guys will have the final sign off. Um so starting with the wireless coverage analysis which we'll get to uh later in this deck. Um we'll look at that analysis and figure out the best solutions for you. We market to the carriers. We have relationships um at a regional and national level in Pennsylvania. Um our business development manager is constantly communicating with the carriers um on a weekly basis. Uh we do the lease negotiations, the community engagement, the zoning meetings um and then the admin and reporting and we'll report to you on a regular basis. Um, oh, and then one, sorry, one last thing to note is our management controlled um with additional financing through individual and institutional sources

009in including Ontario teachers pension. Um, so on this slide here, we show the analysis that we did for um your school district and we use crowdource data. Um the program that we use allows us to look at the coverage strength um and that's the bars that are on your phone and basically the data is picked up from people actually using different applications on their cell phones. Um so you'll see here the um analysis that we did and basically the numbers show anything that's um negative 85 or greater is good coverage and then anything negative 105 or less than that is unreliable coverage. And you'll see here that many of the schools fall in that category with the unreliable coverage. Um the next few slides that Max is going to go through will show on an

010individual level what the school's coverage looks like. Um and we are aware of the new tower that's um about 0.9 miles away from uh the Maplewood Elementary School. So you'll see Max will go through that though. >> You can go to the next slide. So what you're going to see I'm Max Lynn. I'm uh senior vice president of business development and I'm part of the senior management team at Diamond. And what you're gonna see is red's bad. Obviously, as you go through this chart, you'll see the negative 115 or less is red. Green's negative 74. That's where you want to be. Okay. So, this is showing the senior uh junior and senior high school. And I think everybody can admit here the service is quite bad there. Go to the next slide. This is actually

011showing the elementary school before um the new tower was developed. New towers go about 0.9 miles um to the east of this site. Um so this is giving the crowd source data. It's not giving it up to date. What we what we've been running is the last 12 months. So as the tower goes on air, Verizon is the tenant there. As they go on air, they'll continue to show green coverage there. So if we go to the next slide, what we're showing is this right here is where that um Northstar Tower was developed and what it's propagating currently and that's just based on our assumptions of just standardized. Um Verizon will be able to get more in depth, but as you can see that the school's completely covered now and actually some other things what

012the this junior senior high school if we were able to find a place to put a tower site there. You merge these two together and when you look at RF propagation, what this is showing is anticipated. But what you can say is RF would continue to bleed down through and you'd have continuous coverage all through this area, making the the junior senior high school perfect place to place another tower site. Um, we go to the next slide, it's just showing again this is right around here, right? So, um, you see when you're outside, it's not too bad, but when you get into the building, you're not going to have reliable coverage, right? And it's showing this. So, there's an opportunity here as as well to go to the carriers because this is relatively a higher

013spot. Um, and it should be able to propagate down through. Um, if we go to the last one, I think this is uh the Cambridge. You know, we have AT&T showing service here. Um, I don't know where exactly the existing tower was at, but it's still to be a potential for um, both Verizon and T-Mobile if we went that route. Um, any questions on any of the maps? We can go backwards, forwards. Any questions on that? All right, go to the next slide. Joe. >> Hi, everyone. Joe Colin, manager of the strategic partnerships team. So, Matt just touched on indoor connectivity a little bit. We include this slide because that's a big topic for schools. Um, ways to improve it here on the left. That's what this program is all about. It's putting a tower

014on the corner of one of your school properties somewhere the school district is okay putting it. It's not going to interfere with future plans, etc. And because you have the signal source so much closer to the building, it's going to improve coverage inside the school as well. Now, Aaron said before, we are full service wireless infrastructure company. So besides for just towers, we do other wireless infrastructure um such as systems inside of the building. Now all the way on the right, an indoor distributed antenna system or a DA for short. Um those would work really, really well. You'd be very happy with them. The issue is they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you see these in major airports, stadiums, etc. But if there's not like 20,000 people at the venue at a time,

015the carriers aren't going to fund them. You have to budget it. So we know that's not really really always realistic for school districts. Certainly something we could have a conversation about, but why we always start here first is this is no cost to you all. Now there's also cell boosters or repeaters. The key word there is repeaters. So what there are and maybe you've looked at them in the past, I don't know, but it's a small antenna you put on the top of you put on the roof of a building. It points towards the nearest cell tower and it takes existing coverage and it repeats that indoors. So Max went through all those uh coverage map routes of your campuses. When there's bad coverage outside, you're going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars

016on these. You're going to be repeating bad coverage indoors. You may not be very happy with that. So usually we say don't really spend the money on those until you have a cell tower nearby. So you can take reliable coverage and then repeat that inside and be happy with it. And J tackle that not only the repeater about bad signal but also about capacity and how it cannot handle the traffic of what a school would have, >> right? So, you know, let's just say there's a certain class where students are all using their devices at a certain time. Um, the repeaters are not really going to help with that. Coverage, and we were looking at the slides before, how many bars I have on my phone at a certain time. Um, capacity has to do

017with how strong or resilient is a network when a lot of users are trying to to use it at the same time. A repeater is not going to help with that. So, you're going to still have problems when a lot of users are trying to access a wireless network at a given time. Okay. So, back to cell towers. Um, there's there's a lot of capital involved with this. So, Diamond to to design and build a site that's going to cost us about half a million dollars. Same thing with the carriers for them to design, engineer, and then colllocate their antennas on the tower. That also costs about half a million dollars. So, like Diamond, like a school district, like PSBA, the carriers have annual budgets. They need to plan these out ahead of time. 2026,

018their budget is largely planned out at this point. So mostly you'd be looking at 2027 even further in advance. Um you know the carriers are multi-billion dollar companies that have really really big budgets and they strategically allocate different types of projects and capex putting their antennas on certain towers ahead of time. Now Diamond has very strong relationships with both all three AT&T Verizon and T-Mobile. So the quicker we can market your properties to the carriers, the quicker we can tell them, hey, you know, we have a willing landlord here who's at least open to considering an opportunity. You have a network need in this area. Why don't you put a tower on, you know, the corner of the junior and senior high school property, improve your network in the area for the schools, the community

019around it, and then um we're able to, you know, share some some revenue back with you all, which which Aaron will touch on in the next slide. So this slide here just shows um the illustrative economics. Uh so like Joe said, Diamond provides all the capital that goes into building the tower site, which um is upwards of $500,000 depending on the type of structure, which we'll get to later. Um so here it shows the model. uh the school district would receive 30% of the revenue from the first and second carrier that goes onto the tower and then 40% of the revenue from the third and any additional uh tenants that go on the carrier. So you'll see this model here. Basically, we're using a monthly rent of and this is just showing one new tower

020of uh 2500 is the rent from the carrier. That's a pretty um standard rent. Uh the rents really change based on the area. So depending on the um density, if it's in a very dense urban location, it would be a higher rent. to consider more rural. It might be a little bit of a lower rent. Um the escalator here is showing 2.5% which is pretty market rate um standard right now. Um and then if you look here you can just see it we have the carriers number starting with carrier one in year one and then you have the second carrier coming on in year three and the third one in year five and then you see the opportunity to um make up to 1.5 million plus um of revenue from just one tower. Um and

021then if you look and then not showing on here too is that the carriers amend their equipment um every three to five years. So there'll be additional revenue from the amendments and again uh the school district will still have to sign off on any equipment changes and everything else. Um and then the second bullet there um which is really least relevant to um the school district but for existing structures um which is like rooftops and generally the carriers want to be on taller structures. So, the schools are not usually good um locations for a rooftop collocation, but uh the school district would receive 75% of the revenue from um from that because we're not building a new structure. Any questions on on this? >> What's the uh what's the in your experience thus far? And

022I know you're fairly new. What's the chances of getting one to two? Like if you say it takes a couple years to probably get one carrier in, are the chances good to get two and three once the tower and a carrier is up? Yeah, absolutely. They they are very competitive um when it comes to the marketing and if you just think through um the junior and senior high school that was down there um once Verizon goes up now they're marketing against T-Mobile and AT&T. They're both going to come on that site actually. Um, traditionally when we look across our portfolio, you know, the lease up takes about five years to happen. That's why we show like tenant two coming on in year three and tenant, you know, three coming in year five on that model.

023Um, because it usually follows that. Now, am I saying I guarantee it's going to be five years? No, it could be seven, but eventually that number is going to end up. >> What kind of strength? So if we put a tower out of Maplewood, how far would that spread out so that we would be not only providing better for the school but also for the surrounding communities? >> Okay, if we can go back to the Maplewood side, it shows the RF prop. This is basically so the carriers have different spectrum. The higher the frequency, the less it travels. So we're using a base spectrum here of 1900 megahertz, which is the PCS band. So 700 would actually go out a little bit further. So you could have that, but also the benefits of having this

024on the site, we could also say, hey, if you have school bus services, you know, you could attach an antenna to the top of the tower or such and cover a wider area because a lot of times you're doing school buses, it's on like 220 megahertz. So those are opportunities that we could work with you guys as well. Who who would own the who would own the tower? >> The diamond would own the tower. >> Diamond would own. >> Yeah, because we're putting in the full. So that liability is on us. So >> any other questions on this side? >> No, right now. >> Um and then here you just see the different tower examples. So all the way to the left is our standard monopole. Um that structure again costs upward from $500,000. Um

025and then as you go to the right, there's some additional towers. This one here is on a light pole. So if you have a light pole in your field, that's an option. Um, however, sometimes there's not enough space for other carriers on that. Um, here is a mono pine. So that's a tree tower. Again, we look at the existing surrounding area to try to figure out what the best design is. Um, and we work with the schools to to do that. Um here is a rooftop structure and then here all the way to the right um is a much more expensive structure um that we did for a high-end community um >> right and for the the junior senior high school we would be looking at more to the left that's what we proposing about

026190 foot monopole that we put towards the back of the property I think for um the tower that was developed 0.9 mi away I believe it's a 250 ft self-support/lattis tower wouldn't look like that it would look more like a pole and it be shorter. >> And how how much uh property would you need? Half acre, acre by 50 usually. >> Yeah, about 2500 square ft. That's to accommodate all three carriers equipment. It doesn't have to be a perfect square. You can get creative. We work with you on the fencing for the compound. So, make sure the fencing is appropriate for a school setting. Um and then everything that's in that lease compound, we're going to take care of it, maintain it, landscape it, etc. bring the fiber to power to our empty be. >>

027Any questions? >> Does it have to be on school property or just district property? Meaning we have >> whatever property you own, we would be willing to look at and it mark it to the carriers. >> We have property that not on the school zone. >> Yeah. We we always encourage districts to include non-campus properties as part of your site marketing agreement. Just increases the chances of generating carrier interest and being able to bring the revenue back to the school district and your budget. Um so I mean if if you own the land, we can lease it and enter into an agreement. Um here's a quick slide on on just health considerations, you know, before we get into a Q&A. I'm sure this could come up. So, you know, we just rely on credible World

028Health Organizations and and the findings that they've came up with on RF health and safety. Um, if you want to look at a specific study, the World Health Organization in 2024 came out with a really good comprehensive study. It spanned over 30 years um of of research and you know, the finding is cell towers and cell phones for that matter aren't related to to brain or trial cancer. um you know brain cancer actually has gone down and cell phone usage has gone exponentially up. So that's just another data point but >> yeah then before we get into any other questions um the next steps so we can set up an additional meeting to go through any other analysis you want to see if you have other properties for us to look at we can do

029the analysis on those properties um and present that to you. Um, and then I think Michelle mentioned this earlier, but we would I know we provided the um, SMA already, but any questions on the SMA and all the documents, the site marketing agreement, the option ground and the antenna site license agreement um, have already been vetted through uh, PSBA, which um, helps with moving things along um, a little more quickly. Um, and then again, just to reiterate, the SMA um, just allows us to market the properties to the carriers. Um the school district has all final say if a carrier says you want to come on this property and you guys don't want to seize that property um we are we would say that property doesn't work and try to figure out a different solution.

030Um so once we got the SMA signed we would market the sites to the carriers. Um and then again school district that's all final approval. Any questions? >> I have uh health concerns. I don't trust uh WBH because of COVID and all the other stuff. I'm really concerned about the kids' health with 5G frequencies and all that. I'm I'm going to tell the board right now. I'm voting no on this because of certain reasons. Um it sounds good and we need it, especially in this area. If I have AT&T in Maplewood and my survey AT&T is pretty good, but overall just looking at the existence of things that's going on. Who can you trust? Where can you get information that's true? Putting a tower next to a school building is is is not an option

031for me. I think it's it's a health concern. Even if I look at the WHO, if you come up with some facts literally, I don't trust the WHO. maybe some other place because what happened in co a lot of stuff that I looked up and did research I'm just I'm disappointed. So, and that's where I stand right now. >> Can I answer? I I understand exactly what you're saying um about the trust in that. But to go back to what Joe was saying, not that study, just think of how medically advanced we've become in and in in detection of say brain cancer and childhood cancer. And if you take the correlation and go all the way back to 2000 2002 and say let's look at childhood cancer and detection and let's look at cell phone

032use. Cell phone use goes off the chart, right? That childhood cancer rate has stayed the same and actually brain cancer has actually gone down over that time. So what it's showing is as more of these devices came out if there was a direct link and a direct correlation they should have followed that same pattern. >> So we're starting at 5G right now. >> So when did 5G started? >> Well 5G frequency. So 5G is is a marketing term. So 5G it comes into the frequencies and the 25 frequency that T-Mobile uses was started with a company called ClearWire in 2008. So 25 is one of the 5G bands and that's been around since like I said clear wire 2008 was a national nationwide deployment was eventually acquired into Sprint and then T-Mobile acquired them. So

033that's been around those antennas the frequencies have been around. Um the the other 5G frequency is an upper like 3.4 to 3.6 band. That's what AT&T and Verizon are deploying and those started deploying in about 2019. Again, if we look at the facts, there still hasn't been an upward tick over those past five years. Now, >> so you said 2019. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. So, right now >> So, what what's your plan on the 6G when that comes out? >> We don't know that. I mean, 6G is theoretics right now. So, now they're just they're just starting to to say, "Hey, we're going to we today or two days ago was announced. I think T-Mobile's doing a testing in uh Belleview, Washington. They're doing in a six um gigahertz band." So that's two times up

034of where Verizon's on the 34. So what they do is they'll go through, they'll test that frequency and say, "How are we going to deploy?" So they're working with a company called Ericson. But you know, if you go all the way back, you had the first generation of cell phones, you know, you have those giant bags, right, >> where the radiation off of the phone was greater than the actual radiation that's deployed from the tower site. And that still technically is a fact today. you you the radiation from the cell site is not as great as from your cell phone. >> So there's no lawsuits either if something happens to a child with 5G or a tower next to the school. >> No, I mean there's been stuff in >> because 19 1996 the lawsuits

035you can't you can't sue. >> Well, it's it's the Telecommunication Act of 1996. That is correct. um because the FCC deemed it as healthy then. I you know >> Motorola was out then and there was a lot of lawsuits being >> created and then they Yeah. >> If you look at California, there's there's stuff where they've made people take down towers or bic schools. Um but um and we haven't seen that any of our sites. We haven't seen an uptick in any of the rates of >> cancer. That can be a bad example. water is cancerous in California. So >> yeah, like I said, I'm just um it's great. I mean, the whole overall your presentation was fabulous, but just the health of the kids with the frequencies close to the school. >> Yeah, I

036just question. >> Yeah. And the other thing I'd fall back on is too is this is an opportunity for revenue for the school and whether the school moves forward or not eventually those sites are deployed just like there's a site.9 miles away. >> Yeah. I'm thinking like you 1 1.5 for like 35 years for revenue. I mean is that worth a child's health for me? It's just money means nothing to me with that. That's just my opinion guys. That's just me. Okay. >> Okay. >> Do you have any question do you have any more information on the impacts of the radiation? >> Yeah. I I have something um we put up six different health organizations and I have like a two paper that has um just like a couple cents quote from each of like

037the studies those organizations have. So not just the World Health Organization but >> yeah I think we would want more information for sure. >> We have >> Did you look at any of our property that does not have a school campus on it? >> No, we didn't. Um, I don't think anyone provided those sites, but we can look at that. Um, we just got this off of the website. We found your location. So, if you want to provide any additional locations, we can take a look at those. And if those are further from the school properties, maybe they're better options for uh the marketing agreement. >> If if you choose to Yeah, >> we have acorage somewhere. I've not seen a map in a long time, but there's a somewhere. >> We have lots. >>

038Yeah. I mean, we have soccer fields. sewage plants. I mean, we have acreage for sure. >> Okay. Any properties on we're happy to look at and we can present um those slides to you. >> Good. Everybody, thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> We'll follow up the information and if you want to just somebody on your team wants to email me the additional property information, I'll make sure. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for coming out. Thank you. >> A safe trip back. >> Student representatives. Um >> tier. Thank you. >> One of these times I'm going to put you like C, you know, instead of A. So, >> good evening. >> I'm Ella Morant, your student representative for Cambridge Springs. The Cambridge Springs residents and community are what make the

039school so special. The community attends all of our games, wishes us luck, and helps raise money for school events such as bag three ton, a fundraiser and food drive that helps the that the school does to help impoverished families in Cambridge Springs area. The community does much for us and to give back yearly the whole school goes out and does work and service to help them and improve the town. This event is called Cambridge Cares. One of the most special parts of the day is that for the last 30 minutes, the school all sits on the front lawn and eats ice cream and hangs out. It truly connects the students. This year, the juniors will not be participating. The same class that while still sophomores without licenses or real jobs won the competition part of

040bag three ton getting the most food for those in need. Clearly this class cares about service. How bad do you think this makes the school and the board look? Cambridge cares. Yet do they? Not all of the students will even be helping the community. Field Day is a yearly incentive at the elementary school where students get a day of friendly competitions, games, and popsicles. High school students run the games and look forward to a day in the sun with cute little kids. The junior class, who make up many of these helpers, will not be attending this year. Teachers claim that the class of 2027 is one of the best behaved and motivated. Yet, somehow they always get the short end of the stick. Another example of this is our lockers. Although the second oldest, we

041have the smallest lockers in the building. What happened to seniority? The reason the junior class will be missing all of these activities, which they look forward to every single year, is because business week was moved from the last week in February to the second week in May. This supposedly fun activity is taking away other activities acting as a punishment instead of an incentive to the students. Furthermore, business week will be combined with Maplewood and Sagertown this year. This will make the groups bigger. Instead of having about six kids in your group, there will be about 20. This makes it less hands-on because there are more kids for one job, meaning you participate less. This will also decrease students abilities to get bigger roles within their group like CEO and CFO. One thing that makes business

042week fun is that you know your competition since you grew up together. You know that a student on another team is very artistic. So you might want to try to challenge them by beating them on other competitions. Well, that being said, once combined, it takes the personal aspect and friendly competition away as you don't know the students who are you're competing with. Continually, with about 100 extra kids in the school, there will be a need for an additional lunch, causing extra stress onto the lunch ladies. And what time will that extra lunch be? 10:00 a.m., maybe 100 p.m. Both seem to be extreme times, which are either too late or too early, causing students to be hungry for part of the day. Not to mention costs. Having at least four buses coming to Cambridge and

043back every day for a week is not ideal when you have to pay for gas as well as a driver's time, which it seems you guys have already run into this as there are ads for parents to pay $30 in order to get their name on a paper bus that'll be hung in the school. I struggle to see the pros in this situation. Sadly, it's too late for my class. yet. I hope this convinces you to think next year before combining business week as well as picking the date. Now for your monthly update. Spring sports are just starting up now, so there's not many updates with that. Some leadership students will be driving to town looking for sponsors for prom till dawn on Thursday. Keycl Club is tying dogs on Friday after school, which will

044be going to shelters. Hayden Taylor, Bryley Miller, Glenn, and I will be headed to states on Sunday. So, wish us luck and thank you for your support. The elementary school will be preparing for their PTO bingo night on the 21st. Also, the St. Patrick's edition of The Pitchfork will be coming out on Friday. It will be featuring our mystery teacher leprechaun, which is students have been making guesses based on daily clues about that teacher. For more news and update, please see Cambridge Freaks. Thank you. >> Um, Maggie means from Maplewood. >> Someone from Maplewood. >> Do we have someone from Maplewood? >> She's not here. >> I'm from Maplewood. >> Are you okay? >> I'm different than here for Mackie. >> You're not here for that? Okay. >> Oh, you you want to talk? you

045here for comment or >> there too. She's on there too there for comment. >> Comment. >> Okay. Comment. >> Thank you. >> Then >> she's not sure if she's here for comment or something else. >> It's similar to the previous one. >> Oh, yeah. Then you're welcome. Are you going to share what what's going on in Maplewood or do you have a concern? >> Um, no. Like I have >> Do you want me to bring her up now? >> That's fine. Sure. >> Yeah. Come on. Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, um, good evening. I'm Cecil Preston and I'm a junior at Maplewood. I would like to bring up a few concerns about business week. Um, first, we have a band concert that week and second, the Friday of business week is our elementary school

046field day. Both concert band and field day have been planned by looking at the calendar to ensure there is no conflict with other events. The current the current schedule will cause two of us to miss our concert practices and all juniors will miss field day miss field day. Business week has never been a problem before because it was never in May and this year the date was set after other events were scheduled. I would like to share why these events are important to us and some ideas on how to address the conflicts. The band concert is on the w is on Wednesday of business week and the juniors, there's two of us, one who is a lead drummer and one who is a lead trumpet will not be in class to practice ahead of the

047concert, making it difficult to go through the songs to make sure that there's nothing that needs to be changed or looked over again. For field day, we recognize the importance of business week, but we juniors have waited our whole lives to go and help the younger kids at the at the elementary school field day. I would like you to consider if you would a if you could agree to the following. Allow the juniors who are in concert band to participate in practice. It's first period. So, we are requesting you allow us to drive ourselves to business week with parent permission after our first period practice on Monday and Tuesday. Consider ending business week one day early, so on Thursday, so the juniors can attend their field day. and help coordinate the plan next year earlier

048so the other groups can try to schedule their calendar around the week of business week. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. >> I'll come back to business week here after. I'm going to let Sager Town I think we Levi >> and Tyler >> I was going to ask anyone to I've got a lot of questions so >> good evening everyone. It's great to see you all. I am Tyler Smith. I'm a sophomore from Seager High School. And here's the monthly update of our school. To start with, we'll start with our club operations. That takes us to National Honors Society. Read Across America. Volunteers read to elementary schools grades a variety of Dr. Seuss books. Next, our math and science club playing the Pi Day activity that will take place this Thursday

049for kids excelling in their math and science classes. Key Club. Our key club recently added 11 new members on Thursday, February 26. Student council blood drive was very successful taking place on Thursday, February 26 where we had the most amount of participation in many years. Student council sorry wrestling states three athlete athletes competed in PI PIAA state wrestling tournaments. For the boys, Milin Harrison completed competed and unfortunately lost in the blood round. For the girls, Leah Sample and Kaye Stamping Williams. Leah placed third place while Kaylee unfortunately did not place. >> And I'm Levi Gardner. The boys basketball team competed in states against Wickley Academy and put up a great fight against a private school. Uh but they did not win. They ended the regular season of a record with 21 and five. Our music

050program welcomed a new teacher, Mrs. Hec. office standpoint. We had another set of 200 award winners who won a variety of prizes for outstanding um or sorry outstanding participation inside and outside the classroom. Four students went to Embro for the educators rising conference where they explored careers and education at the college. Students finally took the asvabs after multiple delays of mother nature's students that were involved in the manufacturing activ academics sorry finish their last round of tours. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> So business week thank you guys for coming sharing that. um this is naturally done at the building level. So, uh tomorrow morning we have a meeting with the principles and so this will be is now on the agenda. That's what I whispered over to Mrs. Steelely to

051um take a look at that. Um >> I do know that it was it was a request from the organizers of business week to combine the three high schools because of the dwindling numbers in the three junior classes. they were having a difficult time getting people to work with our three high schools and um they requested that we combine the three schools into one week and they gave three dates and the May date was what was selected by the three principles because it needed to be after testing um and the other dates were before testing and the the February date was not available as a date. So I know that much is beyond that. We can talk about some accommodations for band. Um you know I think we can work around first period. That shouldn't

052be an issue. >> Um and field day the chance of field day getting rescheduled anyway due to weather is >> high probability anyway but we can talk about that in Cambridge Cares. You know, again, that was a date selected by the principles, but we will definitely talk about that tomorrow at our administrative meeting. >> Yeah, I asked elementary school uh the principal. I mean, field day is a big deal. Um and as noted to the juniors, um >> I I noted those three. Cambridge cares, business week, field day. Those are those are highlights. >> Big deal. Yes. >> And so I I agree. I think field day is easily movable if that has to be. Many times it's moved anyway because the weather. So >> yeah, regardless if it isn't the weather, I think we

053need to move it so that we don't have the conflict of not being able to attend, banned, whatever it is because it sounds like it was scheduled on the worst week possible. >> And I'm sure the elementary didn't know that the high school had scheduled business week that week because the >> Who's going to help? Who's going to help if it's not juniors? Well, actually a lot of grade levels help with field day. Not just the juniors, but most of the juniors do also help. So that's a big deal. Yeah. >> So we've done business week prior to testing before. It was >> February usually. >> February has been our date and then available. >> Yes. >> And so now >> and then they didn't want to they had given I think um March and

054April as other dates that were available, but that's right in the heart of getting ready for testing. So, >> so it's either got to be before like way before or after. >> Correct. And they may date because it's after testing usually May pickings as it is. There's going to be field trips. There's going to be >> there's going to be sporting events. There's going to be people getting dismissed for games. Um May is insane as it is. I'd imagine. >> I'm just thankful we as a board did not vote to change. >> You did not. >> Yeah. When you when I heard all this, I'm like, we didn't do that. about to the point this is valuable experience. >> Yes. And we and I do appreciate and I always listen to everything you guys say.

055So because >> because frankly I just found out about this this morning and I already talked to the principal about making accommodations for the music because that's what came to me this morning after I found out that you were speaking. I did a little research. So all right. So thank you guys. I appreciate it. Next up is our PA rep, Debbie Miller. >> Are you supposed to Are you supposed to have that correct? >> Good evening, U members of the board, superintendent board, assistant superintendent, Mrs. Speeley, Congress, students, families, teachers, administrators, and community members. Again, my name is Debbie Miller and I'm here tonight representing the Penrest Education Association. We are the educators who see your policies in action every single day. Tonight, I'm here to talk about the single most impactful variable within this

056board's control regarding student success. And I bet you can guess what I'm going to say. Class size. As we look toward next school year, we cannot afford to wait until August to see where the numbers land. Effective education is not a crapshoot. It requires deliberate early planning to ensure that every student is seen and no educator reaches that breaking point that I've spoken to you of many times. Why class size matters now more than ever? The research is overwhelming. Smaller class sizes, ideally fewer than 20 in early grades and captus 25 and secondary, are not just a luxury. They are a necessity for the following reasons. First, individualized instruction. In smaller classes, teachers spend 25 to 38% more time on individualized instruction. We can identify learning gaps early and provide the targeted support that prevent

057students from falling through the cracks. Second, behavior and safety. Smaller groups naturally lead to fewer discipline problems and improve classroom management. When a teacher isn't managing a crowd, they are mentoring their students. Finally, mental health and engagement. Since the pandemic, students needs have grown more complex. Smaller classes foster the strong student teacher relationships that are critical for social emotional well-being and academic confidence. We are calling for a proactive plan. We're asking this board to prioritize adequacy in next year's budget. Now, waiting until summer to hire staff or adjust things leads to overcrowded classrooms and shattered schedules. Large class sizes are unsustainable for our staff and unacceptable for our students. When classes exceed critical thresholds, research suggests 27 students is a tipping point for unpredictability in readiness, learning outcomes suffer and teacher burnout rises. What's our

058proposal? Well, here it comes. First of all, we urge the board to do the following. Commit to hard caps on class size across all grade levels for the next school year. And do not start at the cap at the beginning of the year. Make sure there is room for moveins because they always happen. Since we are talking about caps, let's look at our caps. They are caps that no one seems to know where they came from. I've been questioning these for four years straight. Penrest has a cap, the classroom size slide that often comes up in the budget season and it says kindergarten 20, grades 1 through 3 26, 4 through 6 at 29. What's the truth? The National Institute of Health said the ideal range is 15 to 18 students. Many re researchers agree

059that a class size of no more than 18 students is required to produce significant academic bumps. The critical threshold, I mentioned it before, 27. A 2024 study of over 21,000 schools, not just a couple, 21,000, identified 27 students as the tipping point. Long-term impact K1 through three focus benefits pronounced are the most pronounced when small class sizes are maintained longitudinally from kindergarten through third grade. Students in these smaller cohorts are more likely to graduate on time and attend postsecary training. Need more proof? We're always looking for what to do about our achievement scores. The academic advantages include higher test scores. Studies consistently show improved performances on standardized assessments across subjects. Stronger literacy development. Students demonstrate better reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and writing skills. The big one that Pengress is always talking about lately, enhanced mathematical

060reasoning. That's the problem, guys. Our kids can do math. They just can't do the, you guys will call it Common Core, the critical thinking. They can't look at a situation and figure out what steps of math to apply. And in a smaller class, you can get to that thinking, get to that individual comfort with kids. Deeper conceptual understanding. Teachers can verify comprehension rather than just content coverage. And the biggest one that I think our kids have got to have to be successful in life, critical thinking. More classroom discussion fosters analytical skills. And if this didn't convince you, this study showed that they moved from the 50th percentile to the 58th, that's two standard deviations if you're a statistics geek, just by lowering the number of students in the room. Second thing I'm asking you to

061do, or we are, authorize early hiring to secure highquality candidates during the current teacher shortage. Please don't wait. the neighboring districts are not. I have already heard of interviews in other schools. Let's not be caught scrambling in August when few applicants remain. My third or our third um ask of you include educator voices in the enrollment projection process to ensure classroom realities match the data on your screens. In Prankost, we proudly offer the least restrictive environment to students with many challenges. Let's also proudly make room for those who might need specialized attention. How, you might ask? Demand assigning off of the class list by the educators at those levels. They can tell you if the numbers will or will not work for next year. I'm serious. At next month's budget proposals and the projected class

062sizes asked, were these checked by the teachers? And do they feel like this is doable? Like I said, we are your boots on the ground and we know what is or is not feasible. Investment in smaller classes isn't an investment just in our schools. It's an investment in our community. Let's give our students the environment they deserve by planning for it today. Thank you. got a couple updates. One discussion item policy 2011 um was pulled tonight. That is the um kindergarten testing. We just want to bring it back in April for the second reading because we are we are working out how that's going to look. Um, and so we might we're looking possibly at an outside entity due to some research that we've we've seen about not doing it. So we just I want

063we need another month. We've had first reading. I asked Jordan, he said we can absolutely. So because I know certain families are waiting for that, but we still make sure it's done if we approve in April. Okay. So just wanted to second is the uh school calendar is there for your review. We were able to add a um fourth snow day. Okay. Um and although that's going to be in the next discussion also. So um but so we took the input. We we had trouble getting five to get done by June 11th. Um so we're going to start late next year. I think the first day is not till September 2nd for students. Um, and then the last day in graduation would be Friday, uh, June 11th. So, just because of the of the fair

064and the of the holiday. So, it's that's way it's fallen this year. Um, so that leads to into this discussion. Crawford Central and Connie have both now gone to remote learning days. Um and so Pony had already had it and then Crawford Central recent pass. So then what happens is the Crawford Tech um always goes with two out of the three. So now they'll be doing that. So it's really forced this discussion here at this at our board now about looking at um remote learning days um in instead of the actual snow days. Okay. Um and so there's you know I think there's good and bad to that. I think I think there are some positives. Um but there also is some challenges. So you know it reduces the need for the makeup days which

065is nice. Like this year we we basically we have one day for the holiday at Easter for the students. Um, and so when you use your snow days, and thank goodness we we've only used our aotted so far. Now we've had a lot of two-hour delays. Um, so so it reduces that. It aligns probably the number one reason I'm bringing it here is because it aligns with the neighboring districts. And so um, so I am bringing it here. It supports our CTC students as a result of that. Um and then uh teachers will you know can provide flex flexibility. I don't believe we can expect our students to utilize devices to learn on those days because of what we heard and saw in the map out there. So we would have to utilize some sort

066of um packets you know and I'm not a big fan of the beginning of the year you give a packet because that might not be relevant relevant to the learning. So I think that would have to be worked on more from a monthly basis so it's more relevant um and the kids are prepared for that naturally if we know that there's going to be a a blizzard or something like that we can absolutely pre pre plan that. So um the downsides to it is you know technology I just mentioned but I think we can overcome that. Um you know remote instruction is not the same as having our students in the classroom. It's just not um part of what part of what makes teachers teachers in my opinion is the relationship with the kids and

067the and and and that that teacher, you know, technology can do a lot of things, but it can't emulate what teachers do for kids on a daily basis. And so, and I'm very aware of that. Um staff preparation, I mentioned that. And then and then, you know, I I put this one down. preserving the snow day, you know, you know, it's a I don't know about you, but I remember having snow days as a kid, right? And I remember that that that was a fun day. And and uh you know, so as you can tell, I'm I'm mixed on it. I I think in some ways we're probably going to have to do it because the other two districts. So that's why I'm going to recommend it. Um we're we're a team in Crawford County.

068We try to stay together to the to the maximum extent possible. Um we've had some two-hour delays when they haven't. We cancel school when they haven't. Um I'm not going to put kids at risk either. So, but I wanted to have a discussion um with you. Um this is a discussion item. It's not a um it's not a voting item tonight. It's a discussion item tonight. >> Yeah. I I don't my opinion I don't like it. Um, I understand that the other people are doing it, but they live in the city. They, every kid can get on their device and actually do something, whatever. We have that part that we can't. Some can, some can't. >> Well, I mean, we're talking Kanyville, too, and Coington like not necessarily. They all they off the other district.

069>> What are they require like what are the other schools requiring a packet or are they doing >> Crawford Central is working on that now because the board just passed it and that's what we would do. I I haven't started um getting educators together and Mrs. Bey Mrs. Henry would um get teachers and they would work on that because if the board's not interested in doing that I said there's no sense of moving forward. Hence why I discussion tonight. I think people can say they're doing remote study, but it'll just be a snow day anyway, >> right? Exactly. >> I don't I don't teach us about remote learning. >> Did we learn anything from CO and remote learning? >> Well, the thing is with the with the snow day though, you're talking a day, maybe

070two about a year. >> Yeah. Not >> so how many days did we use this year? >> Three. Do we have an obligation for uh feeding families, students on these days? No. >> Even on two-hour delays, um >> we don't want twoour delays. >> I just think that there's I don't know off the top of my head, but there's a percentage of students the only reason they get fed is because they're >> Oh, I that's a fact. Well, I tell you, I think I I know the days that we had off this year. I think two-hour delays. We could have got mostly kids to school, there was one I think was a good call, but the others by midm morning, I think I think you and I even mentioned maybe a three-hour delay on them

071and letting the bus drivers just say, "Hey, we're not going down that road." >> This is what we did last week, right? We had a lot of room. we're not going to pick those kids up cuz we're not it's not safe. >> And letting the bus drivers make that determination and just let the parents know, hey, it doesn't go against your kid. >> And I mean, remote learning is the easy way out. >> But who notifies the parents if if the buses aren't coming? Because I know there was a parent that wasn't notified. >> Well, a lot of that though, the bus driver said, >> it's happening on the fly. That's part of the problem. But the parents are waiting by the road like waiting for the smart bus up there. >> Yeah, that's that's

072the hard part because the bus drivers are out out and driving and if they theme it okay, they're going to go down that road. Um now part of the technology that we have out there, we're testing it out there where they can see the bus, you know, um they can see where the bus is at and we have that technology. were piloting and um >> but only what like 50 or 60% of the population. >> Yeah, we don't have a high subscription rate sign up rate on that. Really? Now we got some more. >> You got 100% complaint rate. >> That's for sure. >> No, we brought up bus tracking uh I think at at least three or four meetings of bus and everybody. >> I think we only have about 30% participation on the

073bus routes that we have those on right now. I mean, I can get that number for you, but it's >> it's >> we're pushing out more communication to try and get more people signed up, but it's quite below the the uh sign up rate. >> Is it because it it's >> we've had one family say they don't, you know, they don't have any money to >> get cell phones or have any connectivity. Um, and we've just not had a lot of back. >> We have pushed it out. The buildings have pushed it out. We pushed it out. We've done >> We pushed it out a lot. A matter of fact, I think Tony's even doing another >> Yeah, she's working on more communications. So, I get a phone call every time there's a bus breaking

074down. Yes. So, I'll probably sub subscribe to that. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> You have 38% of participation. We have 140 families out of 372 that are utilizing the software. >> Well, there's not that many family without cell phones. >> No, we've only had one call that said there ain't that many. >> We've kind of been monitoring this because we're trying to make a decision for next year for for all the schools. So now we talked about as far as the busing for next year is getting parents to commit to they're using the buses or they're not >> because that's something we've talked about. >> We do that this year. >> We did that this year. >> Okay. That's worked out. >> We sent out Yes, absolutely. Um yeah, we we sent out a letter

075and asked them to kind of declare, if you will, so that we could better manage the routes and put right students. >> Exactly. you know, if we didn't eliminate a bus doing that, then then we'd do it knowing that they can choose to come back on, right? >> But I don't believe we have had any um >> we have had a few. The only issue is we cannot if they say that they're not going to be riding every day, we still have to have that available if they choose to change their mind, the family situation changes. So, we can't necessarily eliminate the route and consolidate because we have to have that ability to be able to put those students back on the bus, >> right? But I'm just saying for the days if we have

076a 2-hour delay, there's not as many kids. The the parents that are bringing the kids in can still bring the kids in >> is what I'm getting at. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So, >> I went the long way around about that, but I was getting there. >> And we what we what we put out is if they bring the kids in, we tell them they have to pick them up that day. um the one day that it got nice last week, we put out a message to the parents that said we were going to be able to take them home in the afternoon, but for the most part, they know if they bring them, they have to pick them up that that day. Um I that's what I'm thinking. If we could somehow the bus

077drivers could get on the radio, communicate that out, there would still be a little bit of a lag, but we could probably push it out then. You know what I mean? Um I'm thinking there would be a five to 10 minutes. >> What's that? >> Or if there's a spot that you can safely meet the bus, >> right? They got township building or something. Right. I don't know if it's possible to communicate that, but right. That's that's the other issue. So >> go ahead. My >> since my kids have been graduated for like 30 years. All right. the remote learning. Um, is the remote learning on the honor system or are you expecting parents to call off work that day? How does it work? I'm just curious. >> Well, there's two two sides to that.

078Number one, you've got your teacher side to that and the principles have to make sure that um that's being done at the teacher level, whether whether at the high school level. I do believe you can do more online and you can have classes as Randy just stated he used to do during COVID. He would have his kids come in and they would do different projects and you can you can do that. Elementary makes much more difficult. Um and that's that's the that's what I'm sharing. So upper level it's easier to take attendance. Um at the lower level it's it's not. Um, now saying that I required it. Um, and I would I would want that to be done. Um, and when during COVID, it's bringing up a little PTSD right now, but um um but

079I I required it even if parent even if our teachers had to call home and ask if they were online or they needed any help and the teachers should be doing that that day. So there would be a level that I believe that could happen. Um, is it going to be perfect? No. I I'll say virtual learning looks a lot different for secondary students and I think there is a route that we could navigate if we need to to provide learning opportunities to our secondary students outside the virtual days and snow days um in in the future. I think it looks a lot different for elementary students. Um it is parents need to be there uh especially my daughter was in kindergarten during that and we had to we had to be there. It was

080a full-time job. And kind of what what uh Fred said over there, you know, I'm thinking a 2-hour delay. I don't know the statistics, but I I know from experience, two-hour delay, attendance is probably not as high as it typically is. We probably have a lot of kids out, but I think on a virtual day, we're going to have even less. I think we'll have even less student participation. So, I think a two-hour delay is probably uh a better um we're going to have we're going to have students participate more on a two-hour delay than on a virtual day. >> Yeah. My daughter even I asked I told her about this and she's like, "I'm not going to." And she's never I'm not going to. >> I'm like, "All right." >> Well, would she rather

081go till June 15th cuz >> Well, that was another follow-up question was um we have >> use all our snow days. That's where >> Well, the the state has changed. It's ours now. Um, and we we complete those hours even with the snow days, right? And we have, and you may be thinking it's less time, but I'll be honest, a June 15th day, there's no difference between a June 14th and a June 15th day. Um, >> oh yeah, I don't care. >> But we we are over our hours, correct? At both secondary and elementary levels. >> Yes, we can talk about that. >> And I was that was my next question. I know we're above our hours. >> So, can we use that to our benefit on the snow days? So, the biggest issue that

082I see is if we have a bad day out, let's say it's icy, >> right? >> Now, you've got our our CTC kids are the ones that can get hurt the most because if they can't make it into the school, >> then you know, now that snow day later in the year, they're not going to be open. >> So, >> but but on the virtual day, >> but if they're doing a virtual, they can get on. There is no >> they could do virtual CTC work >> unless they're taking they could do that in our building >> the house. >> Yeah. We have an asbestous floor. >> Well, if we take the snow day >> or if we close and they're doing >> they could do their virtual CTC work, >> but there's hardly any

083virtual >> Mrs. Fieldy and I have concerns about remote learning, but because the other two districts, >> I brought it up for discussion. We're discussing three days. >> This year we used three days >> and it was drafting average winner. You know, we had some bad days on two hours, but we're discussing three days. I don't >> to me it ain't worth three days. >> Just give them the snow day >> cuz that's like Randy said, you're not going to have any >> especially if the kids are home alone. Yes. Right. They ain't going to show up and mom and dad are at work. They're not going to be calling. Hey, hey, Jimmy, you on the computer? You know? >> Yeah, I'm on. All right. But >> yeah, he's on the computer. He's on a

084computer. He's playing >> Fortnite or >> whatever those games are. >> Stephen, so it would be you're suggesting more of like uh workbook packet >> for the younger. Oh, okay. >> No, please. >> I think you have a answer. >> I think I know the answer. >> I mean, if you talk to Meatville and or you talk to Crawford Central, you talk to other districts and like this actually worked great. I'm sure the board would revisit it. Let them be the guinea pig. If if you come back with what they did like packets or this or that and you and they say okay our attendance or this was that and they have details of how it worked and we could we can mimic that >> I would say okay but I don't know when you

085say >> do we have to do it for all of all of the days or can we say three plus we would want like do we have to apply for a certain number? So in other words, if we used all four next year of our days, then we could we could on the fifth day, we could use the virtual learning day. >> That's a that's a good >> I don't that that's a lot better idea. >> Yeah. >> That way >> you call it a virtual day even though no one's going to really participate, but it's not another it's not a six no day or a fifth snow. >> Well, last year here's the example I I would say to that. Last year we went over >> Yeah. So then we used our hours. So

086we didn't make that day up. So having a virtual day after those days would be better than just using the hour where we didn't make it up. Yes. >> So that would be >> Yeah, that was good idea. >> It's actually a good idea. >> Yes. I I just don't see why we would not offer them something if it's going to save us in the long run from going another day or >> I mean I understand the safety and I understand like this is for the kids something the parents are going to have to participate in but I mean >> it could be an hour long thing. It doesn't have to be eight hours of instruction, right? I mean, it's not a set. >> Correct. >> So, you're suggesting if the snow days are used

087up, >> so instead of going to hours, we actually have a virtual day as needed, if needed. >> I mean, like, yeah, just in November when they, you know, have a planning day. Hey, this is what we would do if we get to that fifth day or whatever. >> Right. >> Well, they would do it. They would only increase on that. We've used our snow days, >> right? Ben, >> but I mean like we knew I mean I thought for sure he's a forte this year and thus far we haven't. >> We got a little snow coming. >> We're good. We're good. We have a little >> We haven't been up here that long. You haven't been up here that long. >> We still have trout season St. Patty's Day Easter. >> You know St.

088Patty's >> I'm thinking of >> Yeah, that was my fault. I go that's that's >> um >> 200 miles. >> I've been fishing in the snow. >> Yeah, I put 200 miles. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Um I have a couple discussion items as well I wanted to bring forward. The first one again this is for discussion. Our uh 6 through 12 ELA curriculum resource status is up for renewal. It was purchased um with er funds back Oh gosh. 20 20 2020 2021 I believe and it's a it's a peridual. So um we got some quotes. We talked with teachers. Mrs. Henry went out and met with all of the teachers at the three attendance areas to see what they how they were feeling about status. We got collected quotes whether we needed to look

089at another resource and it was across the board they wanted to stay with SAVIS. Our data is pretty good with SAVIS. SAVIS is on the recommended resource list for um structured literacy. Um so we are ready to move forward. We wanted to put it in the hands of our middle school teachers before the end of the year. So what you're seeing is we're breaking it up over two budget seasons. So, six grades 6 through 8, we would bring back to you next month so that it can be in the hands of those middle school teachers before the end of the school year. And then July 1, we would bring you 7 through 12. Splits it over two budget seasons. And we're bringing you the six-year agreement because it saves us, it was about over $100,000

090to do a six-year agreement than if we just did a three-year, which we typically would do. So, just wanted to put that on your radar for this month and then bring it back for a vote next month. >> So, I had a really good conversation with you and Mrs. Henry, I think it may have been a year ago, um, regarding literacy and the way it was described, and forgive me if I'm not getting it correctly, was uh, the Lucy Caulkins material that's now being outlawed. uh we still had even though we were not using the methodology we unfortunately had those resources and you explained that the science reading structure I called science of reading I'm sorry >> science of reading is more on the pedigogy and the methodology regards to the resources so this would

091begin to replace those outdated >> well this is starting in 6 through this would be the 6 through 12 we're not in the literacy cycle yet this is off cycle for literacy renewal because of using er funds to purchase it Got it. >> So two more years. So in 2728 we would then do the K5. >> Okay. So beginning the process of replacing those materials that are >> Yes. >> now illegal in some states. >> Correct. >> In 2728. Yes. We have to be on the approved list and status is on the approved list. >> Right. That was good. >> Yes. >> Can I ask what the evidence is that this is a good program because our scores don't really reflect that, do they? So, our score our scores are pretty good. I mean, are

092they stellar? No. Um, but they're showing progress and there's about six resources in the grade band that Pennsylvania has identified as acceptable in the state of Pennsylvania. SAVIS has one of the higher rating um of the six that are on there in the 6 through 12 grade band. They've used a variety of vetting sources for that. Well, >> I guess we can talk about this more when we get into the comprehensive report, but our statistics really don't bear out that this is a great program. >> I Well, if you look at curriculum, if you look at curriculum ratings, >> um they do rate curriculums. There's they're out there. >> I'm talking about our our scores, >> personal scores. >> I'm I'm talking You ask if >> curriculum, >> right? The correct curriculum rating. That's what

093it's called. Curriculum rating. >> I don't care about the curriculum rating. I care about our scores, right? And our scores don't reflect that this is a great program. >> So our scores, I think what you're seeing is a reflection of us making that transition. So we've worked on training in the science of reading. Our assessment has been adjusted to that methodology. So we've been working in the last two years on getting that training with our staff, some of that coaching with our staff. So ideally, you know, those scores will go up. The resource is the resource. The educational instructional practice goes with that. So, um it's not all about what's in the curriculum and the resources, that whole package. So, we're looking at we've added phonics in the lower levels. We are looking at um

094how we're doing our um instructional practice in in our other grade levels as well and bridging that as we're moving up. So, the writing component as well. Um, so we're tackling some of those pieces. I don't think it's purely about the curriculum in any way, shape, or form. I think it's looking at our instructional practice, vetting the resource that we're using, taking a look at our students performance and where those shortcomings are, and then then explicitly teaching where that is, and seeing progress. We're putting all of those pieces together right now. Um and it takes three to five years for that progress and growth >> in ELA. We are seeing growth for sure. I mean um ELA is much better um than math especially at the six through eight. So it it is it is

095better. >> Well, when you look at the numbers when we do the comprehensive report, I'm not seeing this great growth. So I I don't know where you're getting that from. And if you compare them go back 10 years. I mean where's this growth >> growth data is in POS >> there's longitudinal data to show growth over years with our PEOS data >> and when you say it takes five to three to teach kids to two years I mean you know we homeschooled our kids they they were reading at three and four >> yeah but you were teaching a couple kids you're not teach by >> you're not teaching a classroom though >> I'm baffled by >> you're not teaching a classroom compare two different I'm baffled by why we're struggling this hard to get our

096kids to be able to read. >> Well, if I had that answer, I would be a very wealthy woman. >> Well, I wonder if it has something to do with curriculum. That's why I'm asking. >> Well, and I think we're looking at of at all those pieces. That's a fair question. Um, and I I do think that's something we look at when we look at our data trends. You know, are we missing something in our curriculum? Is there a component that's missing? What is our data telling us? And we're going back through our data team meetings and trying to zero in on that and fill those gaps with those are the resources we bring back to you for and ask for permission to supplement what we have in our series because we're seeing holes and

097gaps. We've done that. We've filled that with phonics most recently decodable text at the lower levels um uh interventions that >> our philosophy of reading at the lower levels is changing. Okay. and it's going to the science reading which it needs we need to do. All right. Um we spent a lot of money a couple years ago. Um unfortunately we need to wait because of the cost but we've what we've done is we've supplemented different things at the lower level. So I believe that our reading will get stronger but that's just been that's been implemented in the last couple years. the science of reading probably most even this year when I because we talked about when I first came here. So that's that's what she's saying in that time period. So the kids the kids

098that are already in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, they did not have the full science of reading. And I think that's a I think that's an important point to make. Um and so um we're doing a lot of good things that I know that work because I've done it. Um Aeron's going to go over some math data here tonight and what we're doing. Um and so just because it might not be reflected in that comprehensive plan, I think you'll see what we're doing and we're using a lot of high impact strategies. Um and and I believe we're not no not I don't believe we are headed in the right direction except in two areas that we need to and we're going to and we're going to blow it up because it's not working. >> So

099is that you? Yeah, you can go right ahead. >> Wait, I didn't. Oh, yeah. That is You are my second item. >> Does everybody know Aaron? >> Yeah, we should. >> Hi. >> Go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Aaron Bonso. Um I'm at Segre County Elementary is the principal and then also help with um district assessments now that I'm next door to central office. So, thanks for having me this evening. Uh Patty had asked me after last month's board meeting, there was some math data questions. So, I dug into the data and just did a a brief achievement data presentation from uh spring of 2025. So, our PSSAs, our Keystone exams at the high school, um again, spring 2025. So, by the time we get this data, dig into it. Um we're getting ready for

100this year's testing season. But tonight, and who Kristen, are you working the presentation? I am. You are, Patty. Okay. If you want to scroll through two more. Yep. >> Yep. Perfect. Okay. So tonight's data is just going to refer to PSSAs and Keystones um achievement. So a student snapshot at a moment in time. And again, I don't think I have to say it, but it it's one data point for a kid. Um so there's a lot more that goes into that. There's a lot of other assessments we give, but this is the state testing data that we give every year, and it's one snapshot of how a kid did on their standardized testing. So, third grade last spring um over 54% were proficient or advanced on the math PSSA. Fourth grade almost why don't you

101go ahead and tell them what the four areas are. Advanced, proficient. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. So, it advanced is the best you can score. Um proficient is you've met you've met the state standards. You you have a good grasp of the standards at your grade level in regards to math. Then there's basic where you're you're getting there. You're almost to that level. And then there's below basic um where where you're behind grade level standards. So these numbers are reflective of our kids that are proficient or advanced on the math PSSA. Um so 54% a little over that in third grade, almost 50% in fourth grade last spring, um almost 42% in fifth grade, 43% in sixth grade last spring. 7th grade uh 25 26% and then 8th grade 23%. So again PSSA math spring 2025

102in comparison to the state um we are oops sorry thanks Paddie Penrest is the dark burgundy the state is a little bit a little bit lighter um to compare how our students as a district did in comparison to the state. So as as you can see um you know while the scores may not look stellar we are comparative to to the state where the state is scoring overall. So third grade fourth grade um as you can see in sixth grade our sixth grade students last year actually outperformed the state average. Um and then there's seventh and and eighth grade. But those numbers are also comparative of the state as an average. all the students that took the PSSA last year and those kids across the state that scored advanced proficient are up there comparison to

103how our kids did. So, a lot of areas where kind of where the state scored overall or or like in sixth grade we we actually scored better than the state average. >> Yeah. One question. >> Can can I I don't want to interrupt but >> No, go ahead. In your opinion, eighth grade across the state, us, those kids five years ago were in third grade during CO. Correct. >> But we're at five years of co, right? >> Yes. >> I think that had a huge play in why eighth graders now are there. Is do you agree with me? >> We're Yeah. I've seen that. I wanted to make sure I was seeing the same thing. And cuz Okay. >> Yeah. Yep. That that >> Erin and I were talking this morning cuz this the line

104goes like this for for everything. And I think CO really screwed us right. >> I think we'll see a change once the once those third graders are now eighth grade then everybody behind them is no longer we got to get CO out of schools. The kids from CO got to be out and I think we'll see a change. >> That's Once they graduate, >> make sure he clarifies. >> They may have come out wrong and I'm not a great speaker, but once they graduate, I think we'll see. >> Just like how you got to your point, >> the right that cohort cohort of students that you're referring to, >> the discrepancy is even wider. Um, when you start looking at socioeconomic status of of districts, >> yes, >> I ask this every data presentation. You

105probably know it's coming. I hate state comparisons. Can you compare Pancress to similar districts of socioeconomic status? >> Oh, I should have done that. >> Can you pull a district? There's 500. You're comparing it, you are comparing it to very affluent districts that perform very well affluency in the district. And when you have an affluent district, they did better during co >> they have more parent involvement. They had parents at home. They had better technology. >> And so that cohort you're referring to, the gap was even wide was wider. But if you compare Penrest to similar socio economics, even to the county, well, I know where we'll stand in the county. >> Yeah. I think I think last year I pulled like the 10 closest surrounding districts like even like Oil City, Titusville, Franklin, and

106and kind of put that in a grasp >> and I think because we're looking, you know, then you're comparing apples to apples to me. Um, >> so I just ask for that every every data presentation. I'm sorry. >> I do. Yep. I should have known. >> You can send it out. I'll get it out to everybody. >> Is this just public schools? me. >> Um, well, it it it is, but also if you do have kids from from charter schools that elect to take the state testing, they would be included in this as well. >> Okay. Because I didn't know if any other schools like even if they're not if they were not public, if they do this, too. I didn't know >> cyber schools in this. >> Okay. They're they're included. Okay. >> Y

107>> most private schools. >> What do these sixth graders when they go to college? >> What's that? We need to help these sixth graders or I mean the seventh and eighth graders. How are they going to get be ready to go to college or where can get their math? >> Another I'll bring it up since we're talking about seventh and eighth. My daughter was in seventh grade last year. She's in eighth grade this year. Um this is a direct impact of some of our decisions. Attrition has impact. I don't know what Kylen was able to do last year in seventh grade math. They had one teacher for multiple math courses and she bumped around from teacher to she had a different teacher every I know about six weeks. My daughter had a different math teacher

108every six weeks because of the amount of math teachers. The math teachers that we did not fulfill. >> They had all these students that now need algebra and algebra is a you got you got keystone assessment. And so a part of it, I'm not saying all of it because I think a lot of it is, you're right, it's state, it's co, there's so much to answer and but attrition and and to your point, Mr. Brian was, you know, studenttoteer ratio is big and and that shows uh across the board is that studenttoteer ratio in the room regardless of curriculum and and a fluency and co but when that door closes and how many kids are in there and my daughter, she lived it and if anyone could be upset about this, it's me because it's

109my daughter that had to live through that uh that seventh grade and uh she bumped around. I give Kylin credit because I don't know how she did it, but they got through the math curriculum with I don't know how many different teachers, but I know every month she had a different math teacher. That's not I think we would agree that that's not effective. That's not effective at all. So, our decisions up here do impact that um in staffing. I'll say because my daughter looked at >> Sorry, but I think that contribut is this. This is last year's map. This is up to date, right? Yes, this is this was our most recent PSSAs. And then there here's a four-year trend. So 2022 23 24 25 of of how the grade levels scored on each year's

110of the PSSA. And then speaking of of algebra 1, yeah, that that is that's quite the keystone. Um we had almost 30% of our kids pass the algebra 1 last May. And then here are the numbers in comparison to the state. So our kids that that passed versus kids across the state that took it and passed. >> Um and then again that that four-year trend of our kids passing algebra one over the past four years and the percentage of kids that are passing that and successful. Um so yeah, the numbers are what they are and you know been alluded to a couple times tonight. What what are you doing? So principles are are meeting with grade levels and departments to go over math data. So we have different benchmarks that we give. There are different

111assessments that teachers give. So we're we're looking at that math data. We're looking at individual kids. We're looking at cohorts and groups of kids and figuring out instructionally what we need to do shift around to to meet kids needs um regardless of of a COVID consequence. you know, we we've really had to since co look at each group of kids very carefully to see what holes and gaps they have because each group has very different needs um based on a lot of factors. So, but we're meeting we're intentionally looking at that. Um earlier this fall, end of September, early October, each principal met with um Mr. Ford and Mrs. Fely to to look at our building level data specifically, strengths, weaknesses, and and what are you going to do? Um, so some of this stuff

112that I'm going to talk about too came came out of those principal meetings whether whether it's staff development or like the regular data reviews things that came out of looking at that data that you know we we see the data what are we going to do with it how are we going to improve it last year um PTE came out with a free benchmark Firefly and um schools that have engaged in that last year if they took it actually showed that schools got a 5.5% bump in their case test scores just from taking the Firefly. Um, and high schools also give the CDT, which both of those assessments are in the DRC platform, which is where our kids take their PSSA tests. So part of that is getting kids familiar with the platform, the online

113tools that they're going to need to solve math problems, becoming familiar with that format so that they're not seeing it for the first time in April on their their PSSA test, but we're exposing that to them earlier in the year, giving them practice, answering their questions in a safe in a safe way before it's high stakes testing. Um, this came a little later than usual. We were we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the the items in the scoring samplers to come out. Every year PTE puts out um scoring samplers, you know, test items to give to kids to practice. We usually have them earlier. They just came out on Thursday. Um but they were shared with teachers and so now they're able to see the the items in the scoring samplers to help

114them get ready for this next round coming up with PSSAs in 2026. Um, speaking of of win time and intervention and planning for kids needs, we give a variety of assessments, but also we have some electronic things that we give kids that we can progress monitor them with and watch their growth to see how they're doing. Elementaryaries use Freckle quite a bit. It's tied to our Star Renaissance platform, which is how we give our kids their benchmarks three times a year, and it it levels kids where they took that benchmark. Um teachers can obviously assign things in the platform if they need to but it also individually levels for kids. So they take that benchmark they log into Freckle and it's meeting them where how they performed on that benchmark to help assist them. Uh

115we also have >> also on on on freckle at least because I'm familiar um it is a test that if Randy and I take it um it'll it'll norm to how he's if he if he scores a yes on a question, it'll go a harder question. If I miss it, it'll then level off to help that kid, you know, right where he's at. So it's a very >> not too easy, not too hard. It's always right right above them, right? One side always one right above them. >> So you could have a kid working first grade level, another one doing sixth grade work in the same sitting right next to each other. >> Yep. Yep. Um and these success maker study island two other forms of that that give kids um questions practicing at a

116variety of levels to again get them ready for that state test. It provides teachers with progress monitoring data and they're able to use that for their instruction conference with kids. So we we have those in place around the district. We also have math 180 as an intervention. Thank you. Speaking of when math 180 is a really really powerful intervention that we use. Um it's it's actually evidence-based. I mean people like to talk about researchbased. It it's actually evidence-based that if you do it with fidelity, you're going to get the same results which are successful. So it it takes kids it again levels them where they're working at. So maybe it's a group of fifth graders that are still really struggling with fractions. The program will put them in those modules and kids will continue working

117through fractions along with teacher direct instruction too. There's an app component and then there's a direct instruction component and it's meant to really close the standards gaps where kids are not doing well in math so that they can go back to the classroom and be where they're supposed to be with their grade level content. >> The idea is to get them algebra one ready with math one. What do you mean they go back to their classroom? >> Well, like for math instruction, like eventually the goal is that they don't need that intervention forever and you've closed those gaps in math that they needed so that they're able to successfully do the grade level content. >> So while they're doing that, are they not missing other instruction? >> It's an addition to >> we we give

118it during win time. So there's that. So essentially there's no new instruction happening during that block of time. So kids that need intervention are cold and not missing core instruction. >> Thank you. That's and that's been a class thing. >> We've had wind time for a long time. We've made >> we've restructured it. Yes. And we've made math focus. >> W stands for what I need. >> So whether you need >> we we've changed a little bit of direction. >> Was a heavy reading focus for many years and we've shifted to more math focused in the last two years. I know the data doesn't show it, but we have. >> And then targeted professional development. Um, all the campuses have had Kevin Morrow, who is PTE's math contact. Um, he has been to all the

119campuses to offer different types of math trainings. Um, so for example, he was at at Seaggertown this year, Seagertown Elementary, and met with teachers in grades three through six that teach math and gave a a three-hour presentation about open-ended questioning. You know, coming back to that critical thinking piece that's been brought up tonight, open-ended questioning, getting kids to engage with the math content and be able to maybe talk to a partner about it, how to get kids to engage and parse out that higher level math. So he did a training on that, showed us some some tools that were helpful to build assessments to get kids to engage in those types of questioning. Um, and it it was really beneficial. Um, building thinking classrooms is another piece of professional development that different teachers have engaged

120in. Um, Ben Bro from IU6 has done a book study that that teachers participated in for act 48 credit. Um, we also touched base on it at our first inservice day with IU IU5 staff coming in um with our elementary teachers to talk about these strategies. And again, coming back to critical thinking, discussionbased um in a nutshell, building thinking classrooms is is a book of 14 really high impact math strategies. Uh the fellow that wrote the book researched it in in literally thousands of classrooms over a 10-year period. and he wrote a book with the 14 things that he saw over time. These were the 14 things that really made the most impact in math instruction. Um, so it it's a really good book and the teachers that have dug into those strategies have definitely

121saw improvements in in their math scores over the past couple years. And Petan math training is another offshoot of Patty, what do you want to call it? An offshoot of PTE. >> It is. Yes. >> Okay. So, we have started sending teachers um Kevin Morrow from the math training encouraged some of our primary teachers to go to an early numeracy training that we just had a couple weeks ago down at our Patan in Pittsburgh and and it was all early numeracy getting kids to have a strong number sense so that they are adding quicker, subtracting quicker. um it was a K12 focus that day because obviously if they don't have a strong number sense adding and subtracting is going to be hard and then multiplication is going to be impossible. So the the training was

122really focused on building strong early numerousy in in K1 and two. Thank you. Did I miss anything? I don't I don't think so. We've really t are starting to take a look at where our shortcomings are in math and we're finding that our current resource at least at the primary level has a lot of a lot of it goes through a lot of topics quickly and doesn't allow us the opportunity to go deeper in those. So we're moving quickly through concepts and not getting time with the basic facts. So, we're trying to rebuild those skills and look at our instructional practice at the primary level and then build that through at the secondary level. Um, so it t it does take time and I know that's not something we have a lot of, but we

123need to to go back to those basic facts, building that strong foundation and then look at that concrete knowledge and how to get our kids to think critically about those math skills to get to that algebra 1 readiness. So, it is that process that we're looking at K12 um and and trying to build a stronger math foundation from the beginning and growing into more math-minded middle school, high school students. >> So, I brought this up to you guys last year about the math and I know you mentioned that you were looking at restructuring um because we were coming up to that point. The the the problem I have is all this stuff sounds great. I'm sure it works, but what happened to flash cards? And how come we actually don't use them? Because I'll challenge

124anybody in this room to a flash card duo of all my times tables division. I I can do them to this day. >> That's >> because I had nuns. Granted, that maybe that's why maybe because we had I had nuns, but they were drilling it into my head through my whole grade school. Now, I'm not writing calculations to the moon. >> You're not wrong, right? >> But but so why why are why isn't that why isn't that up there? Why aren't we saying we're using flashcards? >> Um they they kind of renamed it into fact fluency, but they are kids are getting flash cards. There's a systematic way to go through it where the the kids are only getting so many new ones at a time. So once they've developed automaticity, you know, they can

125answer these 10 automatically. the teacher gives them five more. >> Yeah. Great. >> And they work with a partner. Um, so yeah, they are still using >> all of our schools are using flashcards. All three of our schools, >> all math teachers, all three schools. >> Or is it just select few that want to use them? Why are we not Why isn't that mandatory? Use flashcards somewhere. I'm telling you. >> So I believe that's part of the early numerousy that we're looking at and rebuilding. So we just started looking at the primary like we sent three teachers two weeks ago, three weeks ago >> to patent trying to to restructure that early lit or literacy which I mean back on literacy early numerousy to build those solid foundation skills and you're right flashcards and those

126you know that fluency that fluency back >> so we're coming back to where we were um when I first started teaching where we were doing flashcards And we were memorizing those facts and at those primary levels and and doing timed. You used to get the one minute time. How many problems can you do in in 60 seconds, right? We're getting back there. So, we're looking for those resources. We're building that. >> We used to have drilled into my head. We used to have like two lines of the classroom and you would and it they made it into a game to see which line could get done faster in the classroom to to answer the quite right answers. I mean they that's the simple things that we did when we were kids. >> It never ch

127government got involved and said oh we got to change it. It those things still work. I need we need to go back to them and make it mandatory not a suggestion. I want it need to be mandatory. Yes. >> Well, I agree with you a thousand%. But I corrected some first grade tests for my wife last year when I was helping with that. >> And those math tests in first grade, they're not stinking math. We got to be able to freaking read. >> Well, the correlated, right? Yeah. >> But I mean, there was there were some I I went through one just didn't look at the answer. Just went through. >> It was tough. >> I want to stop. I want to stop. What's that? >> I I would compare I comp I compare eighth

128grade math is like our our 10th grade. It's something >> our math our math for these kids are not the test that they're teaching for and that's one thing I disagree with is teaching for these PSSAs and stuff but there it's not just 2 plus two anymore. I mean there's >> but that's the basis of it though. That's the foundation that if you don't have if you don't have a footer, your building's going to fall off. >> But I'm saying when they get into these tests though, >> I I agree. You have to change it up or something. >> Yeah. But these tests, but they're unreal for a first grader what they're wanting them to know. And I I'll I'll bring one in for you to see. I'm sure she has some, but it's unreal

129what they're asking the first grade to do, or else I've just got that student. the um the data you presented that was on pass proficiency. >> It wasn't on growth. >> No. Okay. >> No, we did decide to do achievement. >> Okay. Because growth I mean if you're not proficient in grade three, right? >> Now we have a task to not only get you to grade four, but then grade four proficiency. And then if you're still not then we got to get you to grade five. And so that gap, that's why growth is often sometimes measured over achievement, >> especially since we don't control what comes in, >> right? >> But I think uh we're going to see that cohort of seven, eight. >> Well, >> next we're going to talk next year will be

130what's going on. So we got to be like careful. I think you're right. The seventh and eighth grade is a reflective of probably what we've done in third and fourth. But I'm sure you know that. I just had to ask if we had growth data up there. Uh what I'm interested in is you showed 2025, but I'm interested in the changes from 2024 to 2025. And I I'd like to see how over the years we show that or we don't >> she had 2025. >> She had a slide four years. >> Okay. >> But their grades, >> but what about all of them across the board? If you look at this longitudinally, in 2022 your was third grade was here and then 2023 they would be your fourth graders. >> 2024 they would be your

131fifth graders. So you can see >> I guess I'm just asking it to be >> I thought you were saying what's the progress over years though >> um with the same student group. Can we really demonstrate? >> That's what I just show you right there. So this is the same group the same student just in 2020. >> We can make it even easier chart to read but you can do it. So that's going the wrong way. >> No, it's the right way. In 202 when they move into the >> third grade in 2023 they were fourth graders. >> 2024 they're fifth grade. >> Staying pretty close the same. I think a lot of that is if you're not proficient not then you move up a grade you gota not only >> right >> try to

132carry that you got to become proficient and and >> right >> so some actually often times you see it going >> because that gap widens >> we go up through fifth grade then we went like with that hair six >> and that's I guess I'd like to see one one grade and their progress through you know it would just have to be a different >> so we gained this particular group of students students. We gained proficiency from third to fourth grade >> and fourth to fifth grade and then they stayed pretty stagnant fifth to to sixth grade. We don't have their seventh grade data yet because that'll be this year's data >> that particular cohort of students. >> Okay. >> But the kids that you if you think about it in third grade the kids

133are just making the proficiency if they lose a little bit in fourth grade >> you know what I'm saying? they're going to it's going to keep dragging down that whole bit. So, >> kids all have to be up to par and it I mean it really >> it goes back. It starts with first, you know, kindergarten. >> They have to get their bases in kindergarten to be able to stay up. We could make you know I I was going to say and I'll make a comment and maybe we can move on is that this board seems very interested in in data >> achievement and I sometimes have to check myself because I live in this world and I I want to try to look at it from a different uh lens and I think maybe

134that uh we could entertain as a board some type of we've had a lot of meetings so I wouldn't suggest anytime soon but maybe within the calendar year a meeting on explanation of data um we get these 30 sec we get these 30 minute um quips But I feel that the board seems to be more intrigued with data uh data points what's being done for growth. Um not to put more work on your plate, but I think we have a board that's invested and I think that's a good thing. So >> be I'd be intrigued with accountability as well. That's all I'll say. >> Thank you. Good job. Thanks, Aaron. >> My pleasure. All right, back to our I think that was the end of my discussion items and then well then I had >>

135all right for >> um I will also be bringing you next month our program of studies will be coming for approval next month just to give you a heads up that's coming um for approval tonight we'll have the comprehensive plan there were some minor adjustments made to that but for the most part it's very similar to what you saw and what was posted for the month. Um, we have guest speakers and presenters for all the buildings and um, I'm not going to read through those. They're they were listed for you. We have student travel. We have volleyball teams going and band members going to regional band. U, we talked about the drop calendar. We do have uh an item on there for spa which is the title one parent conference. We have a parent out

136a family out of Maplewood that we would like to send to that and that's a requirement for title one and that's paid for out of title one funds and we have the agreement for Bethesda all ed and that's an annual agreement for those seats. And then we're looking to add two courses, global science, the curriculum and course for that, as well as financial literacy, which we've talked about. That's a requirement as well for grades 10 through 12. And then we have one book that was donated to the Maplewood Library. And then that's all I have. Any questions? Okay, you ready? All right. I'm going to try and keep it brief for you guys. I just have a couple updates and then one one voting item for you tonight. Um on on February 6th, the district

137received our permit application from D uh for the chlorine contact modification um associated with the the water system project we talked about earlier in the year. Um we're doing some additional testing and analysis with uh our engineer Dyson Hall and then Moody and Associates um uh well drilling. Um that's needed in preparation for the second submission for our permit application. Um, this application is going to focus on upgrades to the system. Um, that system, the pumps, the wells, um, was put in in the late 90s and and like we talked about before, we need to do the project for a chlorine contact time, including the additional work um, for the rest of the system would bring it up to code and kind of um, overhaul that system, which has been in since the early 90s.

138Um we're the the permit modification system could take anywhere between 4 and 12 weeks. Um we got a quick turnaround on the uh first application. We're hoping for a quick turnaround on the second and then we would um we would be looking probably to go out to bid May time for a summer construction. Um and we would bring that to you guys at that point. Um, second item is on February 13th, we had a water mane uh, break in our parking lot. Um, it was the main water line that feeds from the high school down here to the elementary school. Um, we responded to it pretty quickly. We brought in Mansfield sanitation who worked through the night to get uh, the parking lot section of the parking lot excavated and the water line fixed. Um,

139we've met with our insurance carrier to see if any anything it doesn't sound like the initial repair is going to be covered by insurance. Um, but we've we've given them the estimate to replace the rest of the line coming into the building cuz it's um thin wall PVC schedule 26 that was installed in the '9s. There's not um a good gravel base. It was basically installed in dirt and then filled over top. um and there's no way to prove that there's not possible more breaks in that pipe. So, we would like to have the rest of that section of pipe replaced. In addition to that, we have a lot of parking lot work that needs to happen this summer um from that and around the campus. Um so, we're working with our insurance carrier to

140see what if anything is going to be covered and then start our capital planning for this year to to do the parking lot repairs. Um the item that you'll see up for vote tonight is um for the purchase of a maintenance uh truck. I have a couple handouts for you that I'll kind of run through. Um at one point this winter we found ourselves with four of our trucks in our fleet. Um we're out of service at the same time. That highlighted what I feel has been a critical problem that's been building in the district for years is that our our equipment fleet has aged to the point where it's not sustainable. Um, currently we have 15 trucks districtwide. Average age of those trucks is about 17 and a half years and the average mileage

141is 158,000 miles. Um, the first handout that you'll see that has is highlighted yellow is all of our equip uh truck fleet. Um, most of these vehicles were purchased used in various conditions and they were selected primarily to stay under purchasing thresholds instead of thinking about long-term durability. Um, the district mechanics have done a wonderful job keeping these vehicles roadw worthy. Um, we've done engine replacements, transmission replacements, full overhauls. Um but in my mind we've reached a kind of a critical point. Um to explore what the used vehicle market looked like. We did a public bid and we evaluated um submissions using a scoring matrix which took age, condition, price um and age, condition, price and mileage into account. Um none of these fe none of the submissions that we got in my opinion that

142would be the second handout um scored very highly enough to justify a purchase. Um the used market is very inflated right now and availability is limited. So it's just it's in my mind it's not a good assessment um to go that route. Um we did discuss the possibility of expanding that search radius. In this bid spec we did a 100 mile radius. Um, the challenges to do that would be travel, um, inspecting vehicles purchased out of state, getting them here, and then anything over $24,500 requires us to do a public bid anyway. Um, so we've obtained three quotes through Coasters approved dealerships nearby. Um, we have funding available in our maintenance budget to do this. Um, in my in my opinion, purchasing new provides a a full warranty, more predictable operating cost and a service

143life of 10 to 15 years with a trade in value at the end of its life. Um, this would in this would allow us to build equity and shift from a reactive spending model um to a more long-term responsible management. Um, tonight I'm requesting approval to purchase one new maintenance truck as I believe it's necessary and a responsible investment for the reasons I've given. Um, looking to the future, I see the need to get us on a replacement cycle. Um, my plan to do that would be, you know, working with Kristen as we start to lay out our budget for the year. Um, to purchase one new vehicle year, year after year and replace the oldest or the most worn in our fleet. Um, I think that will give us some stabilization and help reduce

144emergency repairs and prevent, you know, issues down the road. So, I look forward to any questions you guys have about handout or about about the quotes or anything in general. >> No, the price of use trucks are horrible. >> I've been searching all over Texas and Florida and >> Yeah. Not for you, but I've been looking too. But >> we looked as well. And it's just Yeah. It's the problem is to find stuff that has less than 100,000 miles. You're you're only talking 15 20,000 less than a brand new one. >> Yeah. We looked at a um it was a six-year-old truck, I think was one of the bids on there was the newest truck and they wanted $31,000 for it. I mean, and no one >> Great Lakes. >> Yeah. I won't buy from

145Great Lakes. in the first. >> So, I mean, we think we think this would be the best investment for the district. So, that's all I have. >> Those prices. >> Thanks. Yep, you're up. >> All right, I'm up. I will also try to be brief. Um so on the agenda you'll see our traditional uh reports every month. We have our treasures report of dispersements for your approval. Um there's only um one budget transfer on there and that's within the building. Um and then other items. Um these are annual agreements. So we need to uh seek approval for the IU5 budget. So that is the north uh west tri county intermediate unit who um they're you know overseeing all of us. we have to approve their budget um so that they can take it back and

146within that budget it is 78,99,222. Um our contribution that directly goes to their general um fund 10 in the school improvement is uh 54,469. So this is the amount that is taken directly from our subsidy um based on our pupil um count. So that goes directly to them. We don't even see it. If the state takes it, gives that directly to the IU. Um again, they're funded through us and then passed through from other districts. Um so we are seeking approval on that. Um the next is the idea agreements. Again, reoccurring agreements every year. These are pass through agreements from the IU5 to us. So they just uh got notified that the grant was approved. Um so we're seeking approval for the IDA part D which is $52,54828. Um we use that money for our

147learning a few learning support teacher teach teachers for salaries and benefits. Um the other is the idea 619 which is only $5,166 and that is used to offset a special education service um for the kindergarten students. Usually it's the speech. So those are the two items on the agenda for approval. Um the next item is not on the agenda for approval. Um we are in the habit of bringing you guys information and then we approve it next month. So we have been looking um really since 2021 for a time management solution. Um currently we have all paper process for time sheets. So we started this process again um we dabbled into it last year but we started again looking heavily in November. Um and we have found that our current uh financial provider has a

148time management solution um that is that'll work for our needs. Um currently we rely on 100% manual time sheet tracking. So they're done by paper. They fill them out or on their computer, print them, send them over to the business office. Um payroll has to manually key all these time sheets into the system. And then we have to cross reference between um the time management um the time sheets versus the absence sheets to make sure that they took a day off and that was on their time sheet. So it's a very manual labor intensive process. Um so with the system it would be uh a very you know our current process in it is ineffective. Um you risk payroll inaccuracies. Um not that people are you know writing things down wrong but occasionally it's it's

149habit. You do your time sheet and it gets sent. um we may have had a delay that day. If we don't catch it, it could possibly be paid. Um so little things like that. Um the benefits, it'll integrate currently with our current Prosoft system and we also use that for our our uh absence reporting. So that whenever you put in a day off, it'll automatically flow to their time sheet. Um which will eliminate that duplication of uh cross referencing and auditing. Uh it'll automate it and streamline it. It'll improve accuracy and time um time and payroll processing because again it's about two days just to enter time sheets. Um we have you know 400 employees potentially that could be entered um each time with your uh inner or extracurricular activities um along with our current

150people who um are time um it'll help with um analytics so we can pull those time sheets that will all be stored digitally if we need to run reports on averages and things like that. So it'll help with the data reporting um and for decision making in the future. Um adopting this system will align with the business office strategic goals and operation efficiencies and effectiveness. Um controlling cost by having more visibility with the reporting and provide accountability um from the employees all the way up. Um it'll help streamline all the processes. So the cost there's obviously an implementation cost with the software. Um so upfront it's a onetime fee of 9,160. Um, and yes, I've negotiated this several times and this is the lowest that we can get to after three times. Um, and then

151there's only an ongoing maintenance fee of$,525 every year. Um, with that maintenance fee, our our pro soft bill will remain the same for next year if we implement this. We are going to remove one module that'll replace and then this will replace that module. Therefore, our cost there'll be no net change for our bill. Um in the future um we'll just have that onetime fee of 900 or 9,160. Um we have looked at other ways of savings within our software cost. We've audited you know software. So that's where um you know we'll use that money that we've saved in other softwares to help pay the one-time fee um to get the this implement implemented. Um, if it's approved in April, it's only about a 3-week lead time to go ahead and set this up. Um,

152because we've already, you know, the backend works mostly done and how we have everything um, in our system. So, we can start tracking um, around May 1st. Um, we'll start with a small group, do a little test, and then next year we'll go fully live um, with the time management solution. So, um, the other item of business that I want to go over that is not an agenda item as well, um, is just the budget update. Um, so the budget is nearly complete. Uh, we're I'm currently making the final, um, adjustments to it, which are primarily related to healthcare cost. Um, they have increased significantly. Um, it's the primary driver of the current budget deficit that I we are at. Um so within our our healthcare trust we are currently 2,641,524 um to the negative.

153So this deficit has carried forward for several years. Um it's mainly from 22 23 um due to unfavorable claim years. We've had um high cost claimments that have contributed to this that we're carrying through which is um then reflecting in our rates for next year to try to get us out of the rears. Um claims have stabilized this year. So we're within a manageable projection of this year. Um but with the historical deficit that still remains in the trust. Like I said, it carries forward every year. Um, so I'm proposing that we use the assigned fund balance um, up to the $2.6 million to address the trust um, deficit. This is allocated in our fund balance. It's been assigned. Um, we have have not utilized it. I think we're at the point now we will

154need to take that money that we have assigned for the healthcare um, increases and pay that into our healthcare claims to get us um, at a level or at least a manageable rate. um going forward. Again, these are claims that have just they've been on there and they're reoccurring and we can't dig oursel out due to the past. Um but this year we're we're on track to to be right on schedule. Um it's a one-time expense, which is what your your fund balance is for. Um we don't want, you know, it's non-recurring. We can't dip into the fund balance for reoccurring expenses because then we'll be never catch up. Um so it's a one-time use of the fund balance reserve. Um and it'll help um the healthcare increase for next year. Um it was quite

155large again due to our deficit. So if we can pay off this balance, it'll help reduce that cost for next year um and make it a little more manageable. Um again, paying the lump sum would reset the projection for next year. Eliminating the debt now lowers the healthcare line item for next year. Um which I mean we're at 1.9 million um increase. So, this will help um get that back down to a more balanced budget for next year and then in future years. Um we're currently reviewing additional programs and incentives um within managing long-term health care costs, encouraging cost effective healthcare options, and incentivizing other insurance options for um the staff. Um we're seeking So, that's the the trust part. Um, so like I said, I'd like to dip into that. Um, we have rolled

156money into fund balance past couple years. Um, so that is my plan. I'd like to um, you know, work with our trust manager, say if we put in this much, how how does that affect our rates next year just to get that budget deficit um into into a more manageable state? Um, any questions, concerns on that aspect? >> Yeah, if we pay that 2.6 our balance, >> we would be at zero dollar balance. We'd be level. So, the money we're putting in our 14. >> I you you'll learn that I don't say things of our fund balance. >> You're not alone. >> Of our fund balance, what would our balance be? >> So, we would still be at 14. I can I will tell you the exact numbers. So, um rough. We're at 16.8 right

157now. We would take out 2.8. We do 14 14.8. So, we still have a a healthy fund balance. Um >> I Yeah, I just didn't know what we were at. Okay. Good. >> Yep. Yep. It's been assigned in there. Um I've I've been assigning that money in there for those healthcare increases again for this exact reason. Um, we're at a point now, I think, that we probably we've been trying to to dig oursel out and help with, you know, employee contributions and things like that, changing programs. Um, but we just we need to just get rid of this debt that we've been carrying basically for four years. Yeah. >> What do you know off top of your head what was our cyber payout >> last year? >> Yeah. >> Like $2 million. >> Yeah. um

158with the cyber reform again. >> No, that's not Press, >> but there was reform coming. >> Um well, we had that little reform last year or last budget season that they they passed and it was favorable. I mean, it's like 200,000, but it'll help us. I think >> um >> there there might be talks in this new budget. Again, the governor gave it in February. We have not received any updates yet, but they they are hopefully going to be coming here and then middle of the month we might have a better idea. Again, it's an election year, so we're hoping what we're hearing is the budget may be more on time this year than October. So hopefully we'll have another reform because you're right, that would definitely help and that would help with our healthcare

159costs if we didn't pay that much to outside tax. >> So the 2.6 6 million in the whole How long did that take to get >> that was from 2022 and 2023 basically >> four years. >> Yeah. So we've been carrying it over. >> So possibly it could happen again though. >> It's possible but this is where we stand today. We would be clean right now. We're ahead of about 200,000. We have a little cushion right now. We're I mean those are claims only through January. >> Um we're self-funded so we pay those claims as they come in. Um, but that would at least get us level >> to help manage going forward. >> Not to say, I mean, you know, healthcare is expensive and whenever you have catastrophic events, >> um, it was just

160a few claims that kind of put it, you know, few issues that put us over the edge. Um, not to say it can't happen tomorrow, >> right? Yeah. I mean, you can't plan for that. I just cur I was just curious on how long that's been. >> Yeah. It's been about four years now. >> Okay. that we've been carrying over that balance. >> Any other questions? >> But speaking of healthcare costs, isn't that what the 754,000 is going into >> That's correct. We funded at 2550 per person. >> Is uh how frequent do we pay that? >> Every month. >> You hear that? 754,000 in one month. >> That's correct. Again, we fund it at a composite rate of 2550 per person. Um, and that's per person that's on the the healthcare. So, it's around

161it fluctuates from 298 to 303, which is why you'll notice on those bills are slightly different. Um, but they're right all right around there. Anything else on that? Okay. Um, as far as the budget presentation, typically we do that at the April meeting. I am just uh seeking feedback. Do you want that at the April meeting or would you like to have a meeting prior to that to get that information? So like a separate finance meeting so it's its own meeting. So I mean you've seen how long tonight's meeting. >> I would recommend a separate >> Yeah. I would like April 1st is our >> That's the date we've been talking about. >> Kristen and I are both >> at our Kristen and I have um >> No, it's not. >> Our professional going for

162two weeks. So I'm one week, she's the next. So >> that is a Wednesday. Just so everybody know >> it's a Wednesday. We were going to do Good Friday is the 3rd and then Easter's Sunday. We were thinking the second, but I didn't know if people were going to be traveling and then if you're coming back from Easter, I didn't know that Monday the 6th. >> And then our voting meeting is >> is the 13th. So that would give you some time to get the budget, >> think of questions or >> whatever you guys want. I'm good with >> Okay. Hearing none. And then we certainly can have another meeting after the 13th if we need to have another finance meeting, but at least if it's its own meeting, we'll have more time for discussion

163and to talk about things. So, are we good with the April 1st meeting? >> Y >> like 6:00. >> Good. >> Okay. >> 6:30. >> Yeah. 6 o'clock is tough. >> Okay. Well, that's fine. I'm asking. Um I will get that advertised and we will get it posted on the website. We will be doing the budget. um presentation on April 1st 6:30 here at central office. >> Okay, >> that is all I have >> to speak. >> We'll move into the voting meeting. Um we have no registered citizen comments. So, we will move into uh nonregistered citizens if there's any going once. I think they all >> All right, we will move into the approval of the minutes. Uh I'll entertain a motion for approval of the minutes resulted school board approve the following minutes.

164February 9th school board meeting and February 16th special voting meeting. >> So move. >> Second. Motion second. Any comments or questions regarding the minutes? Okay. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. Motion passes. Policies. Uh approval. I'll entertain a motion for policy approval. Result that the penrest school board of directors approve the following policies. Policy 105.2 204 214 218.1 805 805 attachment and 805.1. >> So move >> 805.2 and 816. So move >> second hearing a motion second. Any questions regarding policies? >> Yes. Um on the policy with the if a student brings a weapon, it says that they will be expelled for a year. And I would recommend we change that to could be expelled for a year. In other words, some kid brings a pocket knife inadvertently. Um you know, a lot of

165our kids are hunters and that kind of stuff. I I can't see we would expel a kid or bring in a pocket 92 >> and and there's qualifying language later that says the superintendent can let's just change it to >> Yeah, I agree. Even though there's something after that >> Yeah, I was going to say don't, >> you know, I don't go by circumstances like that. So, um >> we legally required to have that language in there because I know that was a >> there was a what was it? Zero tolerance laws passed. Yeah, but it doesn't say that it has to be expelled for you. >> Okay. >> I don't Are you on there? >> Stepped out here. >> Okay. >> You hear the question? >> Yeah, I'm here. I just to be honest

166with you. Well, I could not hear the question now. Somebody could repeat it to me. >> I lost you. >> It's policy 218.1 regarding weapons. the need for a one year required one-year expulsion. Is there room for the board to have >> Yes, that is mand that's mandatory language. >> Then we say below that the superintendent can make his own decision. I don't >> Can you guys hear me? >> Yeah. The following comment is below in the policy we have superintendent uh you know liberty within that. >> Uh how can both be true at the same time? >> Yeah, that is true. Um, so 218.1 does have the mandatory expulsion language, but your superintendent can at uh, you know, his discretion recommend a downward deviation in that expulsion. And it's sort of like a sentencing

167almost um, if you think about it that way >> to have a little bit of discretion to um, deviate from that. If the superintendent does not weigh in, which uh I've had happen at plenty of disciplinary hearings, um or declines to make a recommendation, then obviously the one-year mandatory suspension uh carries through. So, yes, but that's that's how the statute's written. Um you know, I'm sure everyone will find it shocking that the Pennsylvania General Assembly made things more confusing than they need to be. >> Just disregard my comment then. Have we Have you ever followed Have you always taken into account some type of uh >> I have? Yes. >> Um >> yeah, we've had >> because I mean we've had it already. You know, we put out messages because of the kids. >> Um

168I'm not penalizing a kid, especially if they remember >> and they come in and do it the right way. Now, we've explained to the students how to do it the right way, too. >> That um and Jordan and Mr. Brian, I think it will be interesting going forward because now we have the new law where we have to make everybody aware >> and then we have this on our website. >> Um so that >> okay uh I have a motion to second. Any further questions regarding policy? >> Okay. Policy approval. Uh all in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Moving on to the education report. Uh as always we do like to do consent agendas. Let me know if uh that's an issue. Uh I'd like to entertain a motion for consent

169agenda of the education report items B through K. So move >> second. >> Motion is second. Any comments or questions regarding the education report? >> Wait a second. >> I'm on the education report. Item six. >> Item number six. >> Education report B through K. >> This is an athletic. So a comprehensive plan. >> You I think you had a question regarding comprehensive plan. I do Mr. Brian. That would be the opportunity. >> Number H. >> I don't think I'm going to change anybody's mind, but I was very disappointed in the comprehensive report, and I'll just make a couple comments. I would definitely not I'll vote to approve it. It does not appear to me like we understand why our kids are doing poorly in reading or math. We don't hold anybody accountable. We don't

170we don't say this is what's going on. And but yet we we say we're going to fix it by spending more money on technology. And if we approve it, there's an implicit bill of increasing expenditures for electronics. And up until tonight, I I appreciate the presentation that was given. I do see there's some value in electronics, but kids scored well on some of these tests long before there were electronics. So, we're signing up to a bill for increasing the amount of money every year for three years that we're going to spend on electronics. And I personally doubt that we can substantiate that that's really going to make a difference. So, I'm a definite no. And I have lots of other notes, but we're just waste everybody's time. Okay. Any other comments or questions? >> Is

171it is it in this the state that you would always put our attendance first like like we're saying look how good our attendance is but our scores are down here below it. >> It is the >> that's how they have it came through first in the way they do the >> it just seemed okay. Thank you. I I'd like to comment on that for a second. Um I guess if you look, we put it at the end and um of that document and the thought process is we need to be um on a recycle. Okay, we're going to talk about that April 1st. Um but from a technology perspective, I'll give you an example. Right now, most of our students are using um Apple Gen 7 or 8 right now and and some sixes and

172right now Apple's up to an Apple 12. So the the thought process was most districts come up and have a plan to recycle those like one or two grade levels every year. And so that that was part of because that's another aspect of the plan. >> I can appreciate that, but it really doesn't have anything to do substantially with with these scores. And like like he was saying, uh you know, we used to we used to have flashc cards and that kind of stuff and we still could do our math. And so we're pretending that this technology issue is what's slowing us down. And we talk about inadequate uh funding for technology. That all implies that we're going to spend more, right? I mean, if if if that's a finding that we're not spending enough

173on technology and we approve this thing, then that means in three years when our kids aren't doing any better, we failed unless we spent a lot more money on technology. And I'm not at all convinced that's our problem. >> I don't Fred, I think you're misunderstanding. >> I don't think I am. You said that last time. It says it explicitly that we're going to spend more on technology and that's part of the solution to our problem. It says that that but that that piece of the plan is because we have in addition to the comprehensive plan there are five additional plans at the at the back end of that plan >> multiple places. >> One of them is the technology plan. We were required to do a technology plan for the district. A special ed

174plan, a technology plan, an induction plan, a professional development plan. There were five plans that were required. The technology plan is one of those five plans. In that technology plan, the plan was to have a four-year cycle to replace devices. That's essentially the meat and potatoes of the technology plan for the district. >> So, if we say yes, then we have to spend that money. >> No, not at all. >> No, we don't have to spend it. But when the kids don't do better and we do this next report in three years, they're going to say, "And the reason they didn't do better is because we didn't spend more on our technology plant like we said we would." >> Right. Now, >> of course, >> they haven't done that before. >> Well, it's what it

175means. Why would you do a plan and then not follow? >> Because a lot of this is stuff that the state is requiring. >> Come on. I mean, not do it at all. >> If you cannot not do it. >> If we're approving something that we don't believe in and we're not going to do, then why are we approving? >> I don't disagree with you. >> Because I think it's I already expressed that to Yeah, we've tal >> I mean there's no money tied to that plan at all in the board. Last year we did not we cut in and we didn't purchase any of the iPads. All right. And we're going to look at the budget again this year and if it can't support but the danger is we have to test online now.

176So that's not an option anymore. We have to test. So now we start kids. You saw freckle. We're utilizing those same skills that they're learning in testing because we have to test online. It's not an option. We can't use paper and pencil anymore. So >> that's that's >> so there's certain aspects of it. So and and we're looking at multiple options. We're not just looking at Apple, by the way. I'm just using that because that's what we have currently. Um and so that's that's what I was saying. But this board can always say and Chris, we might come back and say we don't recommend doing that because we can't afford it. >> But we cannot table this because you have the date that it needs. >> March 31st. >> Okay. >> But but this this

177plan isn't influencing >> the budget or >> and we can say no. >> This board has the possibility of saying no. All right. If we can't afford it and we show you the budget numbers, we'll tell you no. All right. So, I don't think one equals the other. Well, Mr. Fred does. Um, well, I beg your pardon, but we say in the report that the one of the reasons is we have limited, these are quotes out of your report, limited staff availability, limited uh techn technolog technology deficiencies that are causing low test scores. I mean, that's what it says. And I don't understand. We did take, >> you know, what's the We took that out for I just read it. >> What page on the one that was just >> on page 28? >> It's

178right on. It's on 28. >> On the one that was just sent that was resent out or the one that was sent out the first time because we redid and took out two technology statements. >> I don't want to waste everybody's time. It it's it's really disappointing to me and it it's it honestly looks juvenile. it. If I were trying to do an honest assessment, I would go to the teachers. I would try to find out, you know, what's going on with the curriculum? What's going on in the classroom? Why are we not improving our test scores? But that report looks silly. So, I'm done. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? Here's what I'd like to do. We'll do consent agenda B through K exempt H, and then do a roll call vote on

179H. So I have a motion and second on consent agenda items B through K. >> So move >> motion second. Any other questions or comments regarding B through K? Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppos. Okay. We'll move to H. This would be resolved with comprehensive resolve. The Penrest school board of directors approve the attached comprehensive plan. Um the one that was on the website. Are we all clear that that's the one we're voting on? >> No, it's the one that was emailed >> the one that was emailed on live >> attached last week. >> Okay. >> That was emailed with your um >> newsletter. The newsletter. Got it. Um I'll entertain a motion for comprehensive plan 2026 through 2029. >> So motion is second. Any >> further comments or questions? >>

180Okay, I'll do a roll call vote on this, please. Item H. Miss Beers, >> yes. >> Mr. Bennett, >> yes. >> Mr. Brown, >> yep. >> Mr. Bryant, >> no. >> Mr. Chi, >> no. >> Reverend Custard, >> no. >> Miss Bennis, >> no. >> Mr. Dejakamo, >> yes. >> Mr. Storski, >> yes. >> All right, that's >> 54. Thank you for that discussion. Uh we now have facilities and transportation. Uh once again consent agenda items B through C. Result Press school board directors approve consent agenda facilities PC. >> Second motion second. Comments or questions regarding facility report. >> My only question was were these the only three quotes that came back? I guess >> those the three quotes >> that are on champion board random board. Those are the three that >> the three

181quotes are new. Yes. We did also reach out to Macandvas being that they're a little more local. They don't participate in co-stars at the Meatville location. They do at the Mercer location. So those are the only three quotes that we got for newest. Any other comments or questions regarding facilities? >> Are any of those vehicles driven homes to work? >> One. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Good questions. >> Okay. For approval. >> All in favor say I. >> Sorry. >> Real quick. Uh are those vehicles any of them used for personal use anymore? Yeah. >> No doctor's visits in Con Lake and stuff like that. That's all >> that I'm aware of. >> Are they being used for arrival to work at point A to be driven to a different campus point B? They

182are. >> Yes. >> Oh, >> for someone to come to work, get in a district vehicle, and then go to their where they're assigned. >> We have maintenance managers that >> leave their vehicle at their closest campus from their location. Yes. that was in place. We've talked about it. Um it was in place before me. We've talked about it. Uh there is times where it benefits the district where they're not coming right to their home location. They're going to a vendor to pick up parts. It's something we can discuss. >> Incorporate. >> Yeah. >> It's it's certainly something we can >> I think it's something we need to look at. the optics of it at least look bad, but there's probably a reason. Um, I trust you to it. Uh, >> I only have one.

183So, that's the three maintenance supervisors for each attendance area. I mean, that benefit was given to all of them when they previously added. I only have one that actually is utilizing that right now. So, something we'll look at. Okay. >> Okay. Any other questions regarding facilities and transportation? No, no. I think that's valid. >> Okay. All in favor of items B through C say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? >> Motion passes. >> Okay. On to financial report. I'll entertain a motion uh for the consent agenda items B through F of the financial report. >> So move. Second. >> Motion is second. Any comments or questions regarding the financial report items B through F? Okay, hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Motion passes. Moving on to personnel report item nine.

184I'll entertain a motion for the consent agenda items B through D. >> Second. Motion is second. Any comments or questions of the personnel report? >> Okay. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppose? Motion passes. Um I think Mr. Custard brought up a good point last week. Uh we have a number of retirees who have done cumulative years to the district and the board would like to thank those um president company included uh for your time to Penrest and to our uh communities and to our students. So thank you for that. The board recognizes that as well. >> Who's that? That's okay. Good job. >> It's been a long meeting, but I'm going to give a 30 second anecdote. When I had you for class, I was not doing an assignment and

185you called home. And that might re might have been the first novel I read cover to cover and I did it. And so I it was because of the call home. It's small things like that. >> And we need more of that. Debbiey's um you talk about getting results, one of the top one in the district getting results. So, we're going to miss her. All right. I'm not always going to miss you when we're having meetings. All right. But I'm going to miss I'm going to miss you teaching for sure. All right. So, >> okay, announcements. Uh the board had met executive session on March 2nd uh for legal matters and we also met executive session on March 9th for negotiations, personnel and legal matters. Um at this point uh we have any uh citizen

186comments on non-aggenda items. We allowed the speaker to go ahead which is probably a wise idea. Um >> yes. >> So I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. So move second hearing comments or questions. Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you.