Crawford Central School Board (Mar 28, 2022)

001i'd like to bring tonight's meeting to order uh roll call please lisa mrs here miss burnett here miss chapman here mr merritt here mr miller here miss palmer pickering yeah mr rose here mr smith here okay can we stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance of the united states of america and into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i would like to make note of executive session march 21st 2022 for contract negotiations and student discipline um at this time we will have public comment regarding any of the issues on tonight's agenda so what i'm going to do there's quite a few people signed up to speak regarding those that i know that are on the agenda so i'm just going to start as they

002you signed in and call your name up and please state your name and where you live and what topic you wish to discuss so we'll start with kathy graham okay [Music] my name is kathy graham and we're from french creek township i'm mainly here to see how the vote goes tonight for our township we're changing to the new method i was hoping to be more towards the end to see how it goes but that's mainly why i'm here is to see what decisions are made tonight and where we go from here and i might know more by the end of the night okay thank you ken all right [Music] i have an edna devore or ed devore is is that on tonight's agenda what you wish to speak about uh no okay then we'll get

003you at the end of the meeting and i know amy out oviatt is at the end of the meeting um [Music] legay is that am i saying it correctly lindsay good evening uh i'm looking at lindsay and i i'm employed by uh public bus service i retired in 2018 and as september 18th i came on board to be a bus driver first off it is very hurt for all of us drivers that the board wants to give a contract to ggnc bus company which is 118 miles away in washington pa hubbard has been a part of the medieval school district for 40 years fulfilling their contract year after year and for a few million dollars she wanted to cover to the bus curve but he was a shortage on substitute teachers and he was able

004to give them a pay raise a substantial pay raise and there's a shortage of bus drivers if you don't know that all of us drivers working for hubbard which is a taught top-notch employer who treats us all very well and we are he treats us very very well and we are very happy to work for him when we have bus issues with a child or multiple children jeff with a good reputation that he has with the principals and the teachers usually get this issue taken care of in a timely manner if not the same day the very next day will the new owners have the same positive results the main things are the children's attitudes is really what is an issue we all have our doubts and the end results are you will lose drivers

005as many like i am our retirees and working for just a little extra money we are currently short four drivers and jeff has had to combine routes run combined routes himself to ensure the kid kids get to and from school on time and safety safely excuse me i'm pretty sure the board does not know this is happening the new owners have the same success and not knowing the amigo area this answer is a simple in my opinion no now you have a problem pa's yearly average bus driver salary as of february 22nd is 23 000 a year we have a buses substantially lower and we would like more but we all know it is what it is so if g g and c cannot exceed our current salary by 30 including trips many drivers including

006myself will not be returning for the 22-23 school year right now there are a host of drivers that said they will not be returning during next year if the board awards g d and c or even christ must service the bus contract so now you have another problem a bus driver shortages we all know that it's impossible to hire new bus drivers since there's a shortage nationwide including crawford county nobody wants to drive a bus because of children's behavior again you have a problem so have you heard of hearing have you heard saying we are family well that's what we are at hubbard bus we are family so in closing we would like the board to reconsider this decision on awarding the bus contract to gdnc or trice bus service and consider awarding the contract

007to have a bus so that we can be part of the community transport your kids for the next five or years longer thank you thank you next is kim laird [Music] hi i'm kim laird i'm also from meadville i'm also employed with hubbard bus service what we would like to know is um mead bill you're re considering the bid for meadville what about cochrane cochran's part of crawford central too um maybe it's because you got a board member on that drives for huckerton i don't know and then is mead bill's bid the same as cochran's bid as far as wages go as far as anything goes that's what we'd like to know thank you [Music] nathan davison [Music] your school board members and members of the public nathan davison and i'm a driver for hubbard

008bus service i'm here to speak to about a few issues along with my fellow school bus drivers i'm not sure how at seventy dollars a day that we are supposed to survive on that weight rate you know jeff wanted to give us more money he wanted to make the wage fair you gave your substitute teachers a raise but yeah when he come to you all you gave us nothing you know how hard it is to live on fourteen hundred dollars a month it's impossible there's a handful of us that drive that aren't making it that are going to lose their vehicles that are losing their apartments or houses because they can't simply can't make it i don't know if you have a new company coming in and none of us are going to drive for

009them obviously for even less money i don't care if they're new buses you know that's if there's nobody to drive them it's useless but i think you really need to think about that [Music] that's all i have to say but i really hope you take this into consideration thank you [Applause] now i had two other people signed up to speak but i'm not sure if it was about tonight's agenda or not xavier rios is it about tonight's on tonight's agenda okay could you come forward and tell us what it's about please [Music] my name is javier rios currently i'm a disabled person that i work for hubbard as well i came to this uh wonderful city five years ago from san diego california you know and i love this town you know i love my

010fellow workers you know i'll let you guys know and uh i just want to say thank you for letting us talk and and let us let you guys know how we feel you know bottom line is i'll speak for myself but if you see this group here as legacy said we are family we care about each other and with that care we care about the children that we bus every day you know i have a wonderful i i myself was told this year that hobby you're going to have this route because these kids are out of control okay um they're bad you know and for me to be able to be part of these kids is life when i see them come up to the bus and i give them a smile and say you

011know what it's a good day let's have a great day today you know i have call i have i have a bond with a lot of my kids on my bus you know and god's always told me be kind loving and caring you know and that's what i do with my kids on my bus you know who this this company that's coming in today or who who you guys might vote in to be the next bus out company um they're going to have a hard time finding bus drivers we have a group of bus drivers for meadville and i and i look around here some of you guys don't know but some of these people here some of these drivers here have been working for hubbard company for over 20 years over 20 years we

012don't we don't talk about that you know the situation would cover now one time has this board ever told us thank you for busting our children have you ever thought about that what about us i am i could get sick really bad i took my i i did my vaccines but i continue to come to work and bust my children because i know that i will get them to school and back safely i care about this company i care about jeff jeff takes care of us we are the lowest paid bus drivers in this county you look around and you do your homework and you find out how many how much people make and these other different counties and then you look at what we get paid and yet we still come every day every

013day to come and bust our children i call our children because that's who they are when they get on my bus they're just like my kids are you going to find bus drivers like that and i'll tell you and i guarantee you all of my bus drivers here that are sitting here today today that's how they feel about their kids their safety comes first you find bus drivers that care about your kids my kids have been here they've gone to school my grandkids have been here and i trust my bus drivers and i'm so grateful for that i know i have three minutes but i just want to let you know you know what we are united we're going to stay united as a family as bus drivers for this company and i hope you

014guys look in consideration that this is what we do thank you thank you [Applause] okay ron i see you're signed up to speak is it about tonight's agenda roll call is part of the agenda i would say it is so roll call did you say yes okay i didn't hear you wrong um uh an anonymous blogger created a blog titled kinder for nightmare for is the number four to look into candidates who were running for local elections now they have started blogging on some other issues including city council land banks and school board a few days ago there is a blog saying scandal on the school board about elise palmer's absence posted on there is 1949 act 14 section 319 i'm not going to read all of it because of the time attend meetings if

015any person elected that blah blah blah shall neglect or refuse to attend two successive regular meetings of the school board blah blah shall neglect to refuse act in their official capacity the remaining members of the board may declare their office as director vacant um regular meeting definition the best definition i could find it's not defined in the act but regular meetings are regularly scheduled meetings set on a particular day such as second tuesday of a month special meetings are a special meeting of the board that are not regularly scheduled so then it was also posted the minutes from the meeting and we have the reorganization meeting which would be a special meeting monday december 6 uh in in attendance elise palmer was here but that again is not a regular meeting a committee meeting january

01618th members present elise palmer was regular board meeting monday january 24th elise ballmer absent the committee meeting on monday february 21st uh members absent elise palmer uh regular meeting monday february 28th a member absent elise palmer and committee meeting on march 21st absent elise palmer and again tonight she is absent so it seems according to a social media post she had time to go to a poetic evening on march the 5th 2022. therefore i'm asking the board to amend tonight's agenda to include declaring miss palmer's seat on the school board vacant per the act that allows that is being 1949 act 14. thank you [Music] okay we now will move on to student representatives um cochraneton junior senior high school i'm let's go ahead if you want to speak come on please okay that's what

017that's what i was straightening yeah i'm sorry we're gonna have you next we got one more public speaker i thought he had signed in to speak and that's what i was trying to straighten out thank you my name is larry mcknight i too am a driver at hubbard and as you heard my co-workers speaking about this what's going on they've already mentioned to you uh about the pay increase they've also mentioned to you about their willingness to drive how much we like our jobs and we enjoy it one of the things i like to mention is that you know you're talking about the salary or saving money and you may be doing that but you're putting your children's lives at a risk as stated earlier we all care about our jobs we care about the

018children that we haul when you're you're bringing people from out of this area in the wintertime they don't know this area they're on back country roads with our children our roads aren't always plowed in the wintertime when they're getting up and we're getting ready to take them to school our people are from this area they know this area they know the weather the quality of drivers what are we going to get what are you going to get when you bring these this new company in are you going to get uh for the pay that they're offering are you going to get drivers that are qualified anybody can get behind the wheel of a vehicle or a bus but are they qualified to be behind the wheel we are trained we take training we are updated

019we get physicals we make sure our boss makes sure the state makes sure that we are qualified also we make sure that our equipment that's part of my job as well as driving is i help them work with the mechanics we have two great mechanics they keep things running for us are you going to do that with another company are they going to have mechanics when that that really care if we can't afford something jeff comes out of his pocket for it okay um jeff as they everyone stated is an excellent boss to work for he's done things for the community that people don't even know about buying gifts for children who the bus driver may have heard that this kid's not having a good christmas he's helped us out personally it's more than just

020bringing a company in you want a company that's going to be a part of your community that's going to be a part of the kids that ride that bus as you've heard people state we are part of these kids lives we're the first person that they see in the morning and in many cases the last we know a lot more about these kids than i would even say some of your cys workers and your other healthcare people that work with them they talk to us we build rapports with them and with the families i understand what you're trying to do but is it the right thing to do and i just want you guys to think about it and look at the lives that it's affecting it's not only affecting us as workers but the

021kids you're going to have total strangers on driving our kids and that could be traumatic to some of these kids who we are the only people that other than parents that they speak and talk to so i want you you really appreciate it if you take the time and think about what you're what you're wanting to do if it's because just the money i i don't see that you know i don't understand and i think they've mentioned it i don't understand how they can even come up this far 100 some miles on 50 some miles and even compete or tell us if they're going to increase our pay have newer equipment on what you're paying them that i'd like to see that happen i mean with everything being positive you know i can tell you

022that uh the sun is gonna shine tomorrow but you won't find out until tomorrow gets here and that's what's gonna happen with this company i believe that once they get here they're they're making promises making everything nice and rosy but when they get here and their drivers that they may bring up excuse me mr mcknight just can you wrap it up in a minute because we're after three minutes okay thank you so my point is this i want to see the company stay here i think a lot of people want to see the company stay here for the fact that it's more than just a company it's part of the community thank you thank you now is there anybody else that would like to speak about tonight's agenda before we move on okay no i'm

023sorry that's okay thank you okay so i'm kendall i'm from cochran i'm just going to tell you guys a little bit about what's going on so our boys varsity volleyball team participated in a tournament in meadville this past weekend and they placed third they'll be going to another tournament in york pa this weekend our baseball team scrimmaged cranberry last tuesday the boys will be playing cash on wednesday and at youngsville on saturday our softball team had a successful scrimmage against titusville last tuesday the girls are continuing practices this week and we'll have a scrimmage on at gerrard on friday the juniors and seniors of stem go on a field trip this week they'll be touring the acute precision aerospace inc for the entirety of the day and our ntma club has their first regional competition

024on saturday this week which they've been prepping for all year they'll be competing with four different robots on four separate separate teams throughout the day and are hoping to take home take at least one team to the top three our school events we don't have a lot going on right now but we figured out a couple things for our american heart association fundraiser we're preparing to um to do a couple small projects to gather change and other bills student council is planning to hold a clean out your console activity throughout the next few weeks we will also be doing a pay to play in the cafeteria and a competition to see which teachers can raise the most money i'd also just like to say on behalf of everybody at cockerton i'd like to wish mr

025merritt a very happy birthday thank you happy birthday kevin yeah uh amigo area senior high school kaden miele and megan willis [Music] hello everyone okay um starting with upcoming events on april 2nd meva will be hosting the robobots as kendall mentioned before where schools around the area will compete um with their robobots that they made um and then april 13th we will be having meet will be hosting its annual school by dodge ball tournament students from each grade level will put together teams to compete and the winner of the tournament will get to play teachers in a final game and some events from march match key club hosted a blood drive and on the 22nd and this was their second of the school year and students from mass traveled to franklin pa this past thursday

026and friday for the regional pmea festival which is of course a choir festival uh so we're for sports smash senior griffin bizzell traveled to hershey for states and brought home a fifth place finish so and then olivia philbrick also a senior traveled the states for swimming finishing 17th in the 100 backstroke [Music] uh also our boys volleyball team opened their season on friday with a match against northeastern which we won 3-1 following the match on saturday meadville hosted its annual invitational tournament where local teams came to participate as well as teams from shaler north catholic northeastern hempfield and bishop guilfoyle meadwell ended up losing in the finals to schaeler after going undefeated all day middle's next match will be thursday at home against cochran the tennis team started its season but they have not had

027any matches yet and as you can see the weather is not participating for outdoor sports baseball opened their season with a scrimmage in pittsburgh against shaler on the 17th and the bulldogs fell short of winning which and then they played at home against gerard and won 9-2 our softball team recently got back from their spring trip to wilmington north carolina where the fields here are unplayable they were able to practice outdoors and do other activities with the team there on the 20th they traveled to pittsburgh to play in a scrimmage in the dome against maplewood and both jv and varsity won their games and we're just looking forward to being at all our spring sports this season and finishing the year off well thank you for having us thank you hey we'll move on to

028approval of minutes be it resolved at the board of school directors [Music] oh i'm sorry names chelsea ostercamp and isabella thoresen [Music] at miami finishing up the third quarter and are ready to close out the school year with our best effort the girls and boys volleyball are beginning their seasons the boys started strong by placing first at the cochran tournament friday and the girls kick their season off today at maplewood the mams track and field began practicing on march 21st 50 students are on the team the team has one dual meet one tri-mate and three invitationals the first competition is a dual meet april 6 at franklin and the season concludes on may 17th at the mcdowell middle school district meet student council collected items for sailors on the uss bainbridge the items were picked

029up by the medieval lions so they can receive their items in time for easter student council had 30 share marks and gave out prizes to winners for st patrick's day we also hosted a disney week and the students had opportunities to dress up in music news the jazz band is traveling to perform at the maplewood high school and cash jazz festivals this week okay thank you very much now we'll move on to approval of minutes be it resolve that the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the following minutes the regular board meeting of february 28 2022 in the committee of the whole meeting of march 21 2022 and i need a motion thank you coming second thank you jeff questions or comments all in favor opposed motion theory of order

030though just a point of order when when would it be a beneficial to entertain a motion to amend the agenda to discuss the vacancy of our existing board member i imagine tim would that be at the end of the meeting or uh my mic is on it uh you have a uh under item 10 there's another public report comments right that's what i was thinking if a if the board wanted to entertain a motion that is when you would need to amend the agenda okay um if you were going to ask for a motion one way or the other i would like the opportunity to give you some legal advice in the executive session prior to that occurring okay exactly thank you yeah that's what i thought [Music] we'll move on to committee reports melissa

031burnett curriculum please yes result at the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the second and final reading of the jewelry and metal smithing curriculum for grades 11 and 12 and media area senior high school um and i still move in the second place kevin can she or she needs to speak to the mic because they couldn't hear her in the back though questions or comments all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously okay we also have the first reading of the following curriculum of foods one two and three grades nine through 12 at cockerton junior senior high school and the html and web page design grades 12 through 10 10 through 12 and demeanville area senior high school no motion or anything as neat as the first reading we'll move

032on to transportation delwood please result at the board of school directors the crawford central school district here i approve schedule k number 456 bids for transportation service of the medieval attendance area for 2022 through 2027. i so move and i need a second second melissa thank you questions or comments i have some questions um so based on some of the things that were discussed uh by the members here uh the community um is have they proposed um potential positions that will be offered to the current hubbard bus members will there be positions there will be positions available then my second question is uh is there going to be a location in crawford county such as a bus garage like hubbard house of course they would have to have a depot here that's what i feel

033we would not i heard that in one of the questions in one of the statements today um and then uh have they disclosed a rate of pay that they would be paying it is in the contract but obviously we haven't approved it yet so but we we feel that once the bus drivers understand what that pay rate is obviously going to be fair okay [Music] any other questions or comments i would just like to make a comment i mean we dealt with jeff on numerous occasions over the last two years on extending a contract renegotiating a contract and just as much as last fall we were sitting down and even going out of our way to accommodate additional fees monies to him to bring in other drivers if he would need them which was going

034to cost us as a district additional monies over and above the contract it just got to the point where and i believe mr mcfadden was in favor i mean he didn't want to sit anymore in the negotiating that we opened it up for a request for proposals and i know when i sat in that meeting when we were meeting i said there's things that can happen an outside company can come in and bid although i didn't see one of the nationwide contractors like student transportation of america that has a general consensus of coming in and they've been super low to get a contract and then they know you five years later but i told the board i said or jeff could bid himself out of competition and i know he kind of had a plan

035in place of what he wanted to do i don't know how much he told his employees what he was doing but from what i gathered was he was looking at yeah maybe acquiring new buses which the formula and matt you can correct me from wrong favors a reimbursement rate on newer equipment than it does order equipment and now we're at this point where the bids have come in i believe there was a potential of seven we bidders bid we have the the christ company which is currently outbury and albion we have ggnc which is currently working out of washington pa and i'm not saying these are their headquarters these are where they're currently working that they were checked with references and of course hubbard here in meadville when i look at a total expenditure of

036anywhere from 10 million 40 thousand dollars with ggnc to hubbard bidding fifteen million twenty five thousand three hundred ten dollars over the five years to me there's a major discrepancy with even the guy in the middle with twelve million seven hundred thousand i can't fiscally sit here and i and i'm hearing what you bus drivers are saying and i know what you're saying you've worked with these kids you've worked with the families you know the families you are part of our district i understand that but where do we come up with five million dollars plus over the next five years when we're going to be working very hard on cutting expenses and i'm not sure we're cutting ourselves that we're going to jeopardize the safety of our students when the you see one two three

037four five six components went into the total evaluation score hubbard scored 71 percent and this is all public record you can find on the website price came in at 85 percent ggnc was at 91 leads made to believe our criteria was the criteria was met and judged not only is ggsc the lowest bidder but they had the highest score and she put it up on the screen so i know change is is out there it can happen [Music] i only hope that when ggc comes to town people give them a an amp opportunity to go through his interview service look at what they have and if you're not happy you're not happy but fiscally i'm in support of awarding it to ggnc you're making a big mistake are there any other comments from them i

038i have a comment um thank you for coming this this means you guys care thank you for transporting our children i see no reason why this group couldn't work for another company and the only reason why i'm saying that is jeff's had a number of chances to negotiate a deal and he didn't i know what loyalty means i spent over 20 years working for a company here in meadville and when it came time to cut costs they didn't care who they cut i'm just saying you guys have a great opportunity to work for another company and still remain being a family but if this company it's not even though it's about wages it's a butt yeah and we're and we're not going this is this is for the board to discuss now so there are

039any other comments from ourselves this is silly are there any other comments i do want to make one more though one more because the lady had talked about um and it's relevant to this the cockard in contract with girardi's it's a separate contract their contract is up the end of this school year and i believe our administration has been or will be meeting with them on renegotiating their contract if the terms can't be met we'll be reposting that busing contract as well for proposals for the fall but that is something or they can negotiate the same thing that jeff was offered an extension of his contract another year and then we'd go for maybe another contract with gerardi's or at that point we would go out for uh proposals so it's there's two separate contracts

040and that's how it's been and i don't know how that ever came about for the district but two private carriers and that's how it's been but i wanted to address that before you left thank you anybody else all right we have a first and a second all in favor opposed motion carries seven to one ryan it was we'll move on to jeff rowe's approval of financial activities resolve the divorce school director of the crawford central school district hereby approves the following financial activities the treasurer's report for january thank you [Music] thank you [Music] result that the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the following financial activities the treasurer's report for january the financial statements and the payment of bills and iso move second okay kevin questions or comments all in

041favor opposed motion carries unanimously um i think i asked jeff for for a moment here i want to talk to the board after after the presentation last week i was curious about the comparison between the board members assessment in mrs cline's house and i was wondering why that gap exists okay and and i wanted to have some clarifying questions and i started digging into it i called this i called the assessor and i want to just share with you and i'm going to go back to the mic folks i just want to share with you something sorry to deal with that i wanted to make sure we understood that formula because it didn't make it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me and i too was understanding yes we should move in the

042direction that we talked about but lisa can you just put this up for a second so when i look and i saw the comparison between the board members and mrs klein's home i went and i talked to our business manager and i was like i don't understand how does this get here how does it get to that point does that make sense how does it the gap exist and i started digging into it so lisa go to the next slide and i want i want the board to understand there are some there are some some theories that you have to understand that goes into this formula kevin i don't know when you were looking at looking into this if you came across this but number one is that the theoretical underpinning of this theory is

043common level ratios is the annual establishment of the assessed value to the current market value so you have assessed value and a market value okay now the key to understanding the difference and what makes it tick the lever that pulls it is that and ron you said something that triggered me when i said i'm going for clarifying questions you remember when you said well geez when a house sells it should be reassessed right or or when it's built they're not reassessed right exactly but i was thinking that when the comment we were going back and forth so the base year the base year is the only time that your assessed value and your fair market value equal that's important because as that separates we're going to get into understanding why the formula is different that's

044crucial so the crl basically measures how a county's base year assessment compares with the current real estate valuation so what your base year is and what it sells for makes sense so the so in reality the bigger the gap between the base year and i'm going to show you something about the base year the bigger the gap in the base year right and the market value the less we can compare homes from different counties the bigger the gap in the base year the less we can compare the compatibility of homes in different counties i know it sounds confusing so why why do we have to see or it's because it becomes a mathematical way that counties avoid the effort and cost of computing reassessment annually so rather than having to do a reassessment each year

045they do a clr [Music] it's designed to to create a level playing field now i'm going to show you this go to the next slide there were some things some questions that came up and i just thought wow if that question came up then there needs to be some clarifying so let me give you some demographics in the first slide i just simply give you the population of the nine municipalities that's what that slide is that's the population of the ni the nine the nine townships municipalities okay on the next slide if you take a look at it because some of these things start to play in the median household income of the crawford county these are the nine municipalities this is the median household income which ranges from 36 thousand to sixty four thousand

046okay just demographic information okay the next slide is the median household value meaning what the house is valued at and that's going to be different than assessed value okay you can see that that ranges from 81 000 to 150 000. now here's uh okay one more demographic i just put it in here because when i was digging into this it all leads you down this hole where you have all these variables the percentage of home ownership in each municipality you can see that the home ownership ranges from 39 percent to about 91 percent home ownership okay and you know right i'll get your questions i promise you so here's the interesting thing if you go to the next slide and this is what mrs graham was talking about right when you take this slide the

047base assessment the base assessment is the year of 1972. so from 1972 to 202 mercer county was paying 33.3 assessment everybody with me so far then in 202 what mrs graham was saying they went to a hundred percent a hundred percent assessment on fifteen thousand base year that's important to keep in mind on the base year okay so if you i want the board members who can take out your calculators on your phone and anybody under the sound of my voice with a calculator phone you can join me i'm not saying only the board members can do this i want to show you how your fair market value becomes calculated because the crl is designed to give you your fair market value right and your fair market value is every every year the county takes

048it and they say if if crawford has 11 homes they take the middle number and they say that that's your fair market value okay and then they create a cll clr number okay so let me show you how you get and this is this is publicized on the website as well so if you take a fifteen thousand dollar home okay fifteen thousand times six point four nine that's the c l r of mercer anybody want to tell me what they get 97 350. that's the fair market value price of a house in mercer county now okay but no no i didn't save your home i said the fair listen to what i'm saying before hold all your arguments everybody can beat me up at the end i promise you i'll take all the questions all

049right that's the fair market value in mercer county that's not me but no jeff that's that's the only value they use is 1972. that's why i just said to you go back to the theory the base year is important they don't that's it that's the year they use 72 72 so if it's worth 15 072 the only time it's going to be taxed as a 97 no no no no i said 15. it's taxed at 15 but the fair market value of what the house can be sold for is 79 it's 97. you got me now thanks take that same 15 000 home multiply it by 4.13 [Music] fair market value of a house in crawford county same assessment right now let me just flip it to the next i'm going to show you something

050how do you get the same assessment it's 15. just using the base just use the 1572d you're just using the same base right now i'm going to go to the next page which is another base kevin i'll show you okay i'm just doing apples to apple right there okay so now go to crawford and you look at a 15 000 home assessed but here's the difference kevin show you the difference how they get that different the re they reassess in 1985. the base year changed not reassessed they did a re because no there has not been a county-wide reassessment they did a re-base year assessment okay but but not reassessment okay you just want to clarify a base year assessment yeah but they did an assessment which made that 15 000 reassess kevin would you

051agree to 42 000 and then 75 percent of it that's what they did i'm gonna take your word on that okay i i know what you're saying yeah i'm saying well let's say they're telling me it's not true then that's fine but that's what they did that made that assessment go up to 42 000 and then they took 75 of the 31. makes sense okay so that difference what i'm just trying to point out i want the board to understand this i i'm not i'm just pointing out that difference in base year that gap is what creates the difference okay now if you go to the next page and i'll just show you this real quickly and this is how they make up for the differential and i know it's hard for you guys to

052see it up there i don't know if you can but the differential is if you take if you take the current assessed value in crawford county which is 4 54 and you divide that by the current assessed value in mercer 96.1 and that's in the formula you should come up with 0.57 that's the differential between the two so when you compare a home in crawford you can't compare a thirty thousand dollar home with a thirty thousand dollar home right if you in that on that chart if you take and i'm just going to show you how the formula works on that chart if you take a 30 000 home in mercer and the tax is 2883 i believe it is right and then you take a thirty thousand dollar home and crawford where the taxes

053one six three four right now if you did if you were to take 8 3 times 0.57 does anybody do that 2 8 8 3 times .57 1643 1643 and this and that property in crawford is taxed at 1634. now this is i'm just showing you how step works take it took a long time to figure this out 16 34 divide that by the 16 43 you should come up with 99 step is saying that those two values the 2883 and the are equivalent in the sense that you go back to one base year versus another base year and that's how the formula works i'm just showing the board how it works i'm just i'm not trying to tell you anything i'm just saying it took some time to understand why that formula works so

054go to the next slide and i'm going to shut up and take questions all right i got two more slides i'm going to take questions so if you are at least a backup to the next one back up right there if you take a home at 25 000 in crawford it's going to be equivalent to a home value of 14 fourteen thousand two hundred fifty dollars and if you look at the two taxes it's going to be about ninety nine percent equivalent equivalent you follow what i'm doing there and so that's why it's hard to compare when the difference was one value of a house was 24 000 versus another it's not going to be apples to apples that's what that step formula does it takes it and makes it apple to apple okay and

055so go to the next one lisa what i just want the board to understand is that the next one if you look at that what we're going to do is take out the equalizer and level everything out the key is i want you to to see this you're going to take look at where it says fifteen thousand because that is the most success close to the assessed value in mercer county you're going to put in that new step ratio and divide it that's where you get that 74 000 well according to the new step formula you can only take 75 percent of that your your now your new assessed value it's 55 000 on what's what used to be an assessed value of fifteen thousand are you guys following me there so your assessed value

056because you just leveled it out has now set a fifteen thousand dollar home that's what's gonna hap and i've been trying to figure out is that what's going to be on your bill because right now if you look at your your bill it's going to say 15 000 then you do it times your for for for you're going to do the millage divided by a thousand that's that's how you get your dollar amount so now if you do that then that assessed value has to change to 55 because you've taken it out you've taken out the the equalizer you're taking out the equalizer in the in this so if you i don't lisa do i have one more on there i think i wanted to just show this if you look at assessed and then

057you look at that's going to be the mercer county is going to be the fair market value and the fair market value now we can only take 75 percent of that new step number that's where you get that 55 now if you take you if you take the 70 the 97 350 divided by the 55 mercer county is going to be taxed on 57.3 percent of their fair market value and if you do the same thing to crawford the 60 you take the 55 18 divided by the 61 950 they're going to pay 90 of their fair market value on the assessed value from the assets value so i after figuring this out i just and there were some questions that came up and i started reading more the pennsylvania school code provides three options

058for school districts to reside that reside in multiple counties right to levy taxes the primary method used by the majority of the school districts across the state is the current method used by crawford central school district the reason why and this was a question that came up that's why i was curious about it the reason why 98 of the school districts utilize this methodology is because it takes into consideration variables such as the common level ratio the base year assessed value the fair market value the sales values of properties sold in the previous year to equitably assess the taxes right in fact the two percent that use the alternative method approximately 75 of them have similar now here's where it works if they have similar common level ratios and very close assessed base years but

059remember the further they get apart the less likely you can compare if the the further they get apart the more you have to use a formula to try to equalize it out and so i just wanted once i went through that and understood it a little bit more and started saying that that that is really very interesting because that is the way we're looking at it is equal as opposed to equivalent right that formula takes all those things in consideration and try to equal it out so i just wanted to share that and there were some questions going up ron you have one and i think i saw somebody else well mine is more of a statement you know it is not reassessed on sale but anytime you apply for a building permit or a

060demolition i can't do for mercer county but in crawford county anytime you apply for a building improvement or demolition permit is reassessed so i guess my question then comes down to are the properties that have been reassessed are they using this multiplier and so somebody that never improved their property that never was reassessed as using the same so they like the 1972 number that you're talking about jeff you know or that some people using that number and somebody built onto their house two years ago and got reassessed and now that same multiplier is going against that property okay so here's what i found out ron when i asked that question because the question i asked according to what you just said and the question i was confused about i said if i build a 200

061000 house right now in the city of meadville what is it that says that right that's the question right it goes back to 1985 base year that is the base year of what they use i don't i don't know the answer why is so so that's equitable with everybody else but i asked that question question specifically because i was confused because i was thinking like kind of in the same line um you know well why wouldn't that be changing over every time somebody added on whatever and you i heard you were shaking your head saying you added on your assessment went up but your assessment went up but it was still based on 1972 evaluation now that is i don't make that up i'm just telling you what was shared shared with me when i

062called because i was just thinking the same thing why wouldn't it just be valued at two hundred thousand dollars could you explain how that happens how what happened how you take it back to 86 or 70. because remember what i said to you that the the base year is the most important thing that they use in this common level ratio i don't know is there a multiplier times current is it does it look at inflation yeah every year every year um i think i have it here somewhere hang on in my paperwork every year okay so i had to read this thing on common level ratio but every year this real estate realty transfer tax of common level ratios is put out okay and what they do is they they are the people who calculate

063in every county based on your sales and your base year that your county is using because every county is using a different base year okay for example your 200 000 what is what does that look like at 72 it's 72 i don't know the price but but if you if i was to go build the house at mercer according the way i understand this they would go back to 1972 for my assessed year if i was to build a two a two hundred thousand dollar house and crawford they would go back to 1985 as the base year of assessment right which means they would do something for that number would it be less presumably my assessment would be lost obviously you can look at the simple yeah so it's basically reverse inflation right yeah so

064um so a two this says two hundred and twelve thousand two hundred and twelve thousand dollar home would be assessed as seventy five thousand in 1972 and 1985 uh it would be a two thousand two two hundred and twelve thousand would be assessed as a hundred thousand in in crawford county so mercer would be seventy five crawford would be a hundred for the same two hundred thousand dollar house i just wanted to once i started digging into it and reading it and realizing that's what that formula does that that formula does so i can i can almost guarantee you you can use this mathematical formula if you want to find the equivalent assessed house in mercer to crawford if you take a 20 000 and you can do it on any number take a 20

065000 home multiply that by the assessed value multiply that by 0.57 it's going to give you the equal assessed value of home immersive and if you do and if you walk through the formulas you're saying no it won't why not i don't i don't believe that a house a five hundred thousand dollar house in meadville would be the same as a two hundred thousand dollar house in mercer i don't believe that now now understand assess value right back to the base year that's how that formula works out okay i just wanted the board to know that any questions um because like i said as i started listening to that and looking at it and i was like okay this is this is pretty interesting because the formula is designed and like i said if counties

066have similar base years like i'll give you a prime example where that that works very well if french creek wasn't in the in there everybody's base year would be very similar would be the same exactly and the crls would be very similar so the gears the ones that were that were on that list and i'll get right to you sir i see that ones that were on the list they had very um six out of the eight had very close and i don't when i say very close by list there were like eight schools that were using the alternative that's the list that you guys provided yes sir sir thank you for your your background on this is very helpful um the question i have is you talked about up here at um 75 level

067then you mentioned a 90 level is it the boards proposed that that's when it's which this year go from 75 to 90 oh no sir that was just those are just examples that i have in this spreadsheet no absolutely listen there is no proposal here i was just sharing to the board i can answer that that they assess what you're talking about you're asking if it's going to go the 90 that he's saying or in his example no the counties set that uh assessment rate right um mercer county went from the 33 and a third or whatever it was to 100 back in 2002 crawford county has stated the 75 percent and i had just raised that question to commissioner wiederspan i was asking him as to who sets that assessment rate is that a

068thing that the school board can do on a school tax basis and he said no that's usually handled by the county commissioners they set that rate so um if they wanted to go to the 100 as mercer county did it's at their leisure they could go and say okay next year we're going to go to but would i see that happening now okay thank you but but if i understand it correctly the 75 percent and the hundred percent are not as impactful as the base year of assessment that is the key because when mercer county went from the 33 and a half to 75 percent i mean to 100 in 2002 their clr came down considerably it's just over the years that gap has gotten greater and greater between the assessed value in crawford county

069versus the assessed value in mercer county because of the base year that's the key the base year is the key which is why [Music] i think which is why if you talk to the people at stem even i believe ben said the same thing from the school subsidies county-wide reassessments would and some can correct me if i'm wrong but county-wide reassessments would make that a bigger or a better playing field when you're looking at 1972 really basically both of them 72-73 but you're looking at crawford county which re whatever the term would be reevaluated the base year in 1985 brought ours ours up compared to a county-wide reassessment i mean i mean that's the only answer i can give you i mean well well the action kevin what happens is your crl is an attempt

070to not have to do an assessment every year right right and what you can see is what gm was pointing out if you look at mercer county there it was extremely high was it was 9.35 9.9 10.8 and then the following year that year that they split or whatever they did it dropped all the way down to three okay and so what that says in those years remember i said they take a median in the county something a lot of maybe 11 properties all i keep using 11 because it used that middle number to help establish this and that is what determines your fair market value okay and when that spreads that's what causes the differential to to increase as well so i just wanted to bring this to the board's attention did i see

071somebody raise their hand okay um i i didn't want to do all this algebra in front of my math teachers out there i don't want them calling me tomorrow morning but actually once i started reading the stem thing and i started understanding it really is mathematics and math balancing numbers that's really was and so they came up with a formula to say that these rate these these assessments are different in different counties and how do we balance that out so if you take a very similar household number and you and you multiply it by that point by the clr you're going to get the fair market value but if you take the tax number and multiply by .56 you're going to get a very similar number to the number in crawford of the same assessed

072value so this whole problem could take care of itself they just eliminated property taxes so i i just wanted the board to hear that and understand that question do you have a question ryan yeah so i mean i'm just i might be misremembering and that's fine um but the median household income for french creek is reported here is 64 000 a year and i remember this 18 000 number from the first time we went i don't know where that where we would have i would have gotten that off of like when we went to the sites that were available unless i'm missing something i can double check the number which one the household income right yeah the median household income i didn't i i'll double check the number i could i could be wrong i'll

073double check the number and the median home value of 150 yeah those all would have come off public sites but i'll double check okay i'll double check which one the median household of french creek media household income and french free yeah it's 64. okay it's listed as 60. yeah yeah and i'll double check it and the other uh ryan so i just make sure i get the notes was it the median home value of the value of 350 000. yep okay all right and that medium home media is that which value is that yeah that assessed is that so those were fair markers yeah for your market values fair market value mr washington just to clarify uh based off of ryan's question um so this uh median household income that would actually being how they

074have a lower population if they have like one or two people who are in a higher income bracket that would make that number seem higher than what it would compared to i'm not sure how they i can check into it but the but the reality that could be that certainly can be yes but you got to remember that still what we're still talking about what's driving this formula is the base year assessment that was just that was just demographic information that was just demographic information and the reason that demographic information came to my head ryan that i heard somebody saying like well what do you mean 500 552 parcels what do you mean and i thought well geez maybe that needs clarifying that's why that demographic stuff i appreciate that i just think i must

075be misremembering something i i also just wanted to answer holly's question that it would i think the mean would be thrown out by a couple of people but not the median at the moment right the median is just what they they would just list all of it and say this is the middle middle number of all of so all of all the salary of all the south of the whatever 400 i wrote it down right thank you ryan you're right okay mr washington yes 788 oh sorry yeah question on that now you say the base value between crawford and mercer i'm listening to what you're saying but when you look at the base value and i don't know the numbers with me tonight wasn't looking for this to come up but when you look at

076the base value of other municipalities in mercer county when we were doing comparison at the township building for those going off what you're saying tonight sharon farrell all those are way higher okay as well because they're in mercer county right but french creek is still paying a way higher rate than sharon and fair on all of those so based off what you know i'm not saying that what you're saying is not true but when you look at those municipalities they're based off that same thing because they're mercer county but we're still paying way more in french credit township i i don't know what sharon knows but they this is a county-wide uh um i'm not sure what you're saying but i know that i mean the base the base year of assessment in mercer county

077for every municipality in mercer county in 1972. that should be the base year for everybody right i agree with that but when you look at the school tax end of the back with us being in crawford we're paying way more than sharon farrell because they're they're compared mercer county to mercer county right this is mercer county to crawford county and that's where the base level year makes a difference we're we're we're in the wrong court we need to try ma'am this wasn't an argument about fairness i was just showing them how the formula works out i just have to vote on it right i was just showing how the formula worked out i have a question on on the on the formula when when they do the clr or the step or whatever it is

078since french creek township is in in our school district is it are is each school district lumped together as they take property or is it done county budget is done county by county so and that's why you get different crl anything that sells in mercer county affects the value in french creek township when they do the crl it's not since they're not in them they're not done by themselves because they're in that county they're in that county they're in that county just like everybody in crawford county whatever cells in crawford county goes to crawford county and they're going to use it when we talked earlier that was whatever was in crawford central effect no no this is county memphis except for the because okay so yeah that's what i said it is it is a

079county that's a county level it's a county level it's a it's it's a county level um i speak as a taxpayer not as board secretary um tim is that allowed i don't know tim give me a legal absolutely okay would you please go to the podium state your name and address then hi my name is lisa pittner and i live at harmonsburg road in meadville and looking at the fair market value um and i just want to clarify so if i sell my home and we'll just take the lease amount 15 000 assessed value if i sell my home in crawford county approximately i'm going to get sixty one thousand nine hundred fifty dollars give or take if they say if they sell their home in mercer county assessed at the same fifteen thousand dollars

080they're going to make almost 35 000 a little over 35 000 dollars more on their sale of property than i am in crawford county is that correct based on fair markets fair market value prices and as you notice as obviously as the assessed value climbs that's a huge huge difference and that's just because of the base level of assessment right i just wanted to make sure i understood that correctly thank you so i just didn't i just if i had that knowledge and didn't share it and then later on somebody comes back and say well didn't somebody look into this that's how that works so i i just felt that i should share it so what do we do about the resolution well you you have a you have a resolution that has not been

081read yet and so i mean i guess we could is do people feel they have enough information and understanding of the information or do you feel like we need to table it and let all this information [Music] be absorbed and then we can always reconvene we i mean we don't have to wait a whole another month if we really want to vote on this resolution i mean we can could we not tablet him and have a special meeting in another week or two correct okay so like you have a you have a motion on the agenda it has not been moved it has not been seconded um so you have all the options available to you so you can go to approve deny table or men personally for me holding another week or two is

082not going to change my mind one way or the other i'm in favor of going to that option we've talked about and i'm prepared to vote tonight for that i guess i am too and i guess by robert's rules we have to have a first a second to even discuss it don't we result with the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves for the district to move to the taxation method of a23 for the 2022 and 2023 general fund budget and iso move i'll second that okay and does then are there any further questions or comments yeah i i guess my question is sorry i don't know if you can hear me i guess my question is with the new assessed values under the a23 plan on the last slide the

083last column under new assessed values it looks like the district will be poised to lose a great deal of assessed value yes correctly wait say that again under the uh assessed value using method 6672.1 there's the last column is the new assessed value number and so if you compare that new assessed value to the crawford county and mercer county values that the new assessed value column is less than both of those columns right even the new assessed value is less than the current crawford county value oh it's it's less than the fair market value it is not the assessed value is fifteen thousand for everybody oh i was missing this that's the assessed value that fifteen thousand assessed value is for crawford county and for mercer county whether wherever you reside right so what you're

084seeing is then everybody's assessed value becomes the 55. now if you go back to the fair market value of the homes you'll see that that is being displaced over it's being displaced over into grumpy county okay so this 74 418 would actually be the fair market value of that 15 row am i reading that this is not the fair that that came out that is spread out that's just all of the yes that's the step number if you go back brian to one more one more this this one yeah right there if you go to the 15 000 column what you'll see is 15 000 and then you see step ratio see that number you have to take the 15 000 and divide it by the step ratio number that comes from the department that

085gives you that assessed value number of 74 000. now we can only take 75 percent of it so then you take that 75 percent then that's how you get that 55. so that stead number is the number given to us each year but french creek would still be at 100 because they're immersed no no no everybody will be this way now okay yeah everybody will be busy but when tron was talking about the 57 and the 90 percent if you look at the fair market values then mercer county people will be paying at about 57 of their fair market value will crawford central crawford county will be paying at 90 of their fair market value okay because it took the equalizer out because the equalizer comes out that makes the tax equal but the equalizers

086of the property values are taken out right so i believe that you guys are discussing if you um you have a uh you have a motion on the floor that has been we have a friend second probably second and i've asked are there any other comments yeah i mean i guess my comment is that i i felt like we were helping people with a really low assessed home value and income and now i feel like the information that has been provided shows the opposite of that that we're helping people with high incomes and high home assessed values through this process and so i would like more information about that personally before i vote on this tonight because i'm not sure where those where those two values in my head come from and i know that

087that's not happening i know that we're voting on that now but that's where my head is at so you you're saying you need you would have rather tabled i would have rather tabled that's not what's happening so i will vote no on this because of that i think but i i just want to make sure i clarify for you um that neither one of those demographics have anything to do are big pillars in the differential i just would have assessed year you're right yeah right yes yes associated so even if i come back and tell you they're correct or they're a little bit different that really doesn't have a whole lot to do that was just painting you know demographic information it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the balancing or rebalancing i

088mean if i understand it correctly and it is i mean i that's why i think there's a whole lot of information out here that that everybody needs to assimilate if i understand it correctly the formula that we have been using equalizes the difference between the base level assessment across the two counties so it rates the property values equitably so in general you have a fifteen thousand dollar home assessed in french crete valley because crawford county was reassessed in 1985 base year it's almost a 50 percent difference so that equitability factor is being taken out and now they're looking at the formula that the last formula if we move to it just looks at taking all those properties that are fifteen thousand dollars here fifteen thousand dollars there and trying to level it out without looking

089at the equitability of the property values so you have the first one takes you have apples in crawford county oranges in mercer county i like apples and i like oranges but you can't compare the two so what the first formula that we have been using tries to take those oranges in mercer county and turn them into apples so we're rating them equally now the tax doesn't look like the same but it makes it apples to apples this last formula will take those apples and those oranges and not make either one they're going to make a line but the lime in crawford county is different tasting than the lime in mercer county by almost 33 percent and that burden is being transferred to crawford county that's the best way i can explain it in my understanding

090it sounds like i want to drink so this is where we're at on this we have a first and a second so i guess tim if i'm correct we need to vote that would be the time to call the question if there's no further comments okay are there any further comments all right um yeah let's take a roll call vote just so it's clear no miss burnett no miss chapman no mr merritt yes mr miller yes mr pickering no mr rose yes mr smith yes it doesn't pass i believe that would be a 508 vote that would require at least five affirmative phones to pass to do we have a special meeting let me just check one thing here yeah so section 508 of the school of the school code says that the affirmative vote

091of the majority of all of the members of the of the board of school directors um shall be required to among other things levy and assess taxes um i would be my opinion that this would be um a vote related to this that is set that levying of taxes uh and it'd be a 508 vote which would require five affirmative votes in order to pass so motion fails so the motion fails all right can we bring this back yes that's what i thought so could we under section 10 on the agenda oh you need to discuss it again oh well yeah to talk about a special meeting and maybe what more information we might need before that right so that would be the timer right now the board would have the ability to reconsider the

092motion that was taken it would have to be moved by an individual who voted in the effective manner so in this case it would be a no and it would require three quarters or super majority of the board to approve the option to reconsider and then you would put it back on the table for reconsideration if you're going to do the same motion so for tonight or is he he's talking about can we just bring this back for like let's just say like are you even saying like at a committee meeting for discussion for further discussion and then bring it back onto the agenda under section a2 this was option three there were two others given the the research and stuff that you showed tonight that might be more effective at leveling this out and

093we weren't considering any of those we were just considering this one right now right and so i guess that's so you know what that's i mean it's that's an entirely new subject that's an entirely new motion yes but if it if we come back to this would be the best one then somebody that voted no would have to make up motions at the if we have a special meeting to do that which it seems to me with the time crunch that we're going to be under we're going to have another meeting before my opinion anyway i don't set that into a policy or agenda but all right so i just want to get this clear before we move on so do we need to make a motion in order to further discuss this or can

094we just further discuss it and then after that if we want to put it on the agenda we can correct you want to have another if you want to have a special meaning for the purpose of discussing it you would schedule it in the same manner that you schedule yeah we don't necessarily have to turn this all into emotion no action is necessary to to uh have that happen that would be the board's just your discretion okay and then if this if they wanted to have a motion they can at that special meeting have a motion to at the next meeting to do something right absolutely that's what i thought okay everybody comfortable with that we'll just set a special meeting and move forward with this in with more information so we don't have to

095do anything with that tonight correct okay could that be public absolutely absolutely absolutely i mean set up the next monday night but we don't have to do that through well we have to get out notices don't we yeah but we we will do that but we don't have to do what i'm saying we don't have to do this on the agenda okay okay we can do that immediately tomorrow morning and get it out okay all right is everybody comfortable with that and you said next monday well no we'll send it we'll send it out okay all right resolve the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the 2022-2023 northwest tri-county intermediate unit budget and the total amount of 65 98 126 thousand five hundred forty one dollars the board further approves

096the total member districts contributions to the general operating fund zero one zero and school improvement services fund zero two zero budgets of the intermediate unit for the 2022-23 fiscal year for one million seven hundred and ninety-eight thousand six hundred eighty-one dollars with individual member district contributions as determined by the pennsylvania department of education and iso move and i need a second okay okay delboy thank you questions or comments all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously result that the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approve schedule l budgetary transfers and amendments and iso move and i need a second second questions or comments all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously moving on to personnel approval of um be resolved that the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby

097approves the 2022 2023 school calendar and i need a motion so move second i couldn't hear who was it was brian and then okay brian melissa questions or comments all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously first reading of revisions to policy 249 bullying cyber bullying and there's attachment one and no vote is necessary be it resolved that the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the waiver and stipulation involving student b and c respectively and i need a motion so moved kevin in a second jeff what was that holly okay right holly questions or comments all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously be it resolved at the board of school directors of crawford central school district hereby approves the following personnel schedules schedule a b c d e f h i

098and m and i need a motion kevin in a second melissa questions or comments all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously okay i do have a question though that i raised earlier about amending the agenda for the discussion of the missing absent board member some reasons like what just happened tonight that i think it's beneficial we have five board members okay do we need to move to executive session tim okay i i just i just need a free three minutes to give you some yeah i have some questions and then if you still want to amend the agenda to have that discussion i just asked you give me that opportunity yes thank you we would move to executive now and come back and finish the meeting okay yeah that's correct right because yes you could

099say yes yeah so okay cause there's two people that talk we have to go okay oh we're leaving for the executive session okay um with regard to what we broke um for session for executive session after being advised by our solicitor we do have a plan of action in place which will come to fruition in the near future um okay so now we are back to public comments okay do you have any more further no let's get to the public okay so um public comment and first is ed devore [Music] um yeah i'm ed devore i live out in west me township i went to school in the crawford central school district and i was a teacher for 30 years before retiring from a school down in central pa so okay um critical race theory

100is one of several subsections of the broader critical theory developed by the neo-marxist frankfurt school which criticizes western societies as a way to undermine their legitimacy promoting various categories of oppressed versus oppressors to replace the old economic categories of proletariat versus bourgeoisie in order to instigate a communist revolution that would never succeed under the original marxist paradigm the various component critical theories are also influenced by postmodernism a relativist philosophy that claims all knowledge and truth is subjective perceived and determined by the individual denying objective truth exists they begin with an assumption that all our society systems are hopelessly biased i.e racist homophobic patriarchal etc due to the power base in place when created needing to be criticized deconstructed and replaced with power structures in line with their desired ants only personal perspective group identity politics

101and power matter truth is not as a student in this district martin luther king jr's i have a dream speech resonated with me because i recognize the self-evident objective truth that people should be judged behind the content of their character rather than the color of their skin critical race theory now tells us that his dream of a colorblind society where success is based on individual merit alone is somehow racist it identifies with civil rights movements to cultivate an air of moral legitimacy while criticizing them for not being radical enough i can't imagine a more racist concept than crt it teaches black children that no matter how much they learn how hard they work and how much they achieve they'll never succeed in reaching their true potential because they'll always be an oppressed victim and it

102teaches white children that regardless of the condition of their individual morality they are inherently evil racist oppressors because of their whiteness derek bell of harvard law coined the term critical race theory but it's never been limited to college law classes like other critical theories it's spread throughout higher education and is already filtered down through secondary and elementary schools it may be introduced under different titles or in bits and pieces crt material is often listed in the references and resources for covert additions to curriculum schools using 1619 project materials in their history curriculum promotes crt through historical revisionism intended to discredit america's founding as being rooted in slavery rather than its declaration of independence in 1776. when the many historical errors in the original new york times series were revealed by reputable scholars they were forced

103to admit it was an opinion piece rather than investigative historical journalism still it's taught as if it were valid implicit bias trainings and tests are tied to crt and other critical theories the notion of implicit bias is unscientific starting and ending with the assumption that everyone has a subconscious bias for or against members of different identity groups you have about 10 seconds to wrap this up you're at your three minutes i i notified ahead of time and was told that if i did that five days in advance i'd have five was he on the list lisa i didn't have him on the list i noticed i think i notified you i sent an email not me me or heart music what's your name ma'am jan philippa yeah i'm pretty sure i sent an email through

104the school's website i'm sorry i did not receive it well i i have like three more paragraphs short paragraphs can i just continue and finish okay all right um yeah the notion of implicit bias is un scientific starting and ending with the assumption that everyone has a subconscious bias for or against members of different identity groups thanks to the unjust intersecting power dynamics that allegedly structure society and that these presumed biases can be rooted out and corrected since the same person can take the same implicit bias test on two separate occasions with totally opposite results their reliability is suspected diversity inclusion and equity programs are aspects of crt and other critical theories these terms sound noble egalitarian and virtuous until one delves into their definitions and implications according to critical social justice theory in its

105view diversity focuses on physical and cultural differences based on its conceptions of privilege and marginalization it then seeks to privilege the marginalized and marginalize the privileged in order to redress the imbalances it imagines in society there's the diversity of appearance that demands conformity of thought inclusion traditionally means welcoming everyone however in critical social justice usage it means welcoming groups considered marginalized while excluding and silencing groups such as straight white males that are considered part of the supposed systematically systemically oppressive power structure equity sounds like equality but has a very different definition in critical theories whereas equality means that citizen a and citizen b are treated equally equity means adjusting shares in order to make citizens a and b equal equity is a kind of social communism the intentional redistribution of shares not along lines of

106existing economic disparity but as a form of reparations in order to correct historical injustices as they've been determined by critical theories the school's mission should be advancing academic achievement for all its students not political indoctrination and i included a link at the bottom i used for reference and there are other links to other sites that you can follow from okay thank you thank you for your uh amy oviatt so um okay so amy oviatt you all know me from naval three kids um last week i mentioned the loss of classrooms in our district and um i was very happy to look on the website and see openings available for teachers to bid on who have lost their classrooms however there are classrooms in the primary grades that have been eliminated taking them from three to

107two we always had three classrooms per grade in the primary level this year in first district only two kindergarten classrooms with 25 students in each one a fourth grade teacher is retiring and her position is not being filled as of now which means next year there will be there will be 28 or more students in the two classrooms each these decisions affect not just our students and teachers but also our community which seems like the word tonight community our students according to the 2021 pssa results they are historically underperforming teachers are pressured to teach to test not to teach to learn higher number of behaviors in classrooms interfering with school and learning experience kids in second grade this year never had a normal school year never they are behind socially and academically we have students

108falling behind who need extra help we have kids right where they need to be and we have some that are advanced who could use a little bit of a challenge three classrooms is ideal for this situation where will our kids fall with only two how do we plan on catching our students up in the learning that they have fallen so far behind it our teachers why are our teachers choosing to leave the profession a study from alliance for education found that the top reasons for teacher dropout is there are so many mandates and expectations that the flexibility and time necessary to build a real learning environment does not exist the study found teachers feel the classrooms are untenable due to behaviors there is not time to deal with them and then the learning and teaching

109environment suffer our teachers are trying to teach 20 to 30 different personalities spanning multiple socioeconomic and functional backgrounds students function at different levels of academic and social ability adding more will not help behaviors need to be dealt with but due to mandates and schedules and workloads behaviors are treated as a non-priority how can this be when it is the behaviors that are causing the learning and teaching environment to diminish making the classroom more difficult and now the behaviors are at an all-time high choking is a silent killer in our classroom and with 25 students to one teacher how long will it take for a teacher to notice how long will it take for the nurse to get there if we're lucky enough to have a nurse in our building that day yes i am aware

110there are studies that say that as long as there are a high quality t-shirt in the room class size does not matter what would those studies show now after covet so you reward teachers with a higher class size so focab is really good at his patrol and we do we give him more space to patrol sounds great yeah he'll probably do a great job but if he's on point a he's got to get to point b for for a call it's going to take them longer to get there our teachers are good and they can get there but how long are we willing to give them to try how long are we going to let this go and let our kids keep failing sorry i lost my place our community our schools and our community

111reflect each other the better our schools the better our community will be our students aren't just numbers in the classroom our students are our future contributing members of our community they are future nurses teachers carpenters electricians doctors accountants if we don't address the poor academic performance and get our kids caught up this will have long lasting negative effects in our schools and in our community in the next five to ten years i want to know why do we bus kids that belong in one elementary school to another it's because there's no room for them so class size does matter apparently i want to know why in the high school it only takes 12 kids to create a classroom but not at the elementary level our website states that our student teacher ratio is 12-1 what

112classroom in elementary does that exist in when our students are failing academically and socially when our teachers are seeing record numbers of behaviors inside the classroom when our teachers are burnt out from the last two years how does eliminating a classroom causing higher class sizes benefit anyone how does this benefit our students how does this benefit our teachers how does this benefit our community and speaking of community this meeting i think took a lot out of everyone and it's kind of deflating because i saw all of our community members here fighting and every single one of them were shut down does anybody feel community anymore because it doesn't feel like it's here [Music] okay any other public comments i was actually on the list probably anticipated that it was a hubbard bust thing because i

113happened to be bus driver alan shaffer but i wanted to wait until after i heard what the reactions were to their governments you notice they all got up and walked out i went through the loss of the contract at fcca where they lost the head start program and i watched you know the panic the various phases that those drivers and mostly teachers went through i want to make sure you understand this is very different than that there they gambled that all the people come flocking back they got about 50 percent of the people back but they didn't get them all but that was okay for them they were able to handle that because it's a much broader spectrum that they can draw from social people with social sociology degrees psychology degree you know a lot

114of people can step into some of those roles here you've got a bunch of people who are largely senior citizens they are only able to afford that because they have social security or other supplemental income this new company i'm just going to say it now your attitude or your impression and your pencil pushing approach to it while noble from a dollars and cents perspective is going to bite you that's my prediction you are not going to believe me so that's fine but mark my words they're not going to get hubbard bus is going to stay in existence maybe you didn't factor that in and they're going to keep 25 or so percent of the best employees so all that's left of the pool is the other three quarter percent many of whom have already signed

115a piece of paper as did i requesting the school district not to pass our personal information along to this new vendor we know where they are we can go find them but they don't need to be calling and soliciting us like what happened in my previous example i can't predict in a one-to-one basis but i can tell you that you saw half of the drivers here tonight and the other half that didn't come it was only because they had other obligations already ahead of time so don't under don't underestimate the sincerity of what these people say this wasn't just an expression of community this was an expression of intent that you will be seeing as will many people this this is not a problem that's localized to your school district this is the entire 79

116corridor we're some of the lowest paid drivers in that entire corridor the comments that were made here about how jeff was less than agreeable in some of the negotiations i am privy to most of the numbers that you and he discussed and what i know is that you had requirements for new buses which are absurd no and no sane individual proprietor is going to do that so you're obviously pushing toward the sort of the corporate approach and this company you've chosen has a lot of investors involved they also have a shell corporation that when your solicitor decides to sue will go okay and a year and a half two years from now when they've proven that they can't provide you with the drivers you're going to have a big issue because you can sue them

117all you want that's not going to get you any drivers so just some food for thought i personally am retiring so this is a there's no skin of my back sir you're at your three minutes i appreciate it thank you very much for listening thank you are there any other board comments at this time okay then we resolved it being no further business this meeting is adjourned at 7 38 and i need a motion melissa second jeff thank you questions or comments all in favor meeting is adjourned you