Committee of the Whole: June 12, 2025

001Good evening and welcome to the Southeast Delo Board of School Directors Committee of the Hall scheduled for Thursday, June 12th, 2025. Dr. Sanchez, committee reports. Good evening everyone. Yes, Madam President. We are going to start with Dr. Gibbs Tapper. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me now? Okay. No. No. Yes. It's June. So, um, special education department has some items that we're asking for approval for. Items one, two, three, um, is asking for ESY contracts to be approved for students who are attending various schools. The first item is for one student to attend HMS school for the ESY program. That program runs from June 26 to August 1st. The second item is for ESY again for one student to attend a program for the Overbook School for the Blind. That program runs from July 7th

002to August 7th. Item number three is a ESY contract for LWIN. We have about four students who attend that program and we are asking for them to be able to attend that program from June 30th to July 31st. Item number four is a ESY uh contract for one student who is attending the Vanguard school. They're going to a program called the VIP program, vocational immersion program. This program runs from June 30th to July 25th. Item number five is also a ESY tuition agreement as well as a base tuition for the 2526 school year. This is for two students who are attending the Melmark school. Item number six is also for a the year enrollment for a student for the 2526 school year as well as ESY for a student who attends Vanguard school. That is

003one student. Item number seven is approving the base tuition agreement for a student to attend for one, two, three, four students to attend George Kruther School. And this is for the 2526 school year. And we also are asking for a student to be able to attend the George Kruther school. And this particular student during the 2526 school year, two of these students will need intensive support as a supplemental agreement. So this is in addition to their base tuition agreement. One student who also attends the George Brother School is in need of a onetoone staff. So there's a supplemental agreement for that student which is item number nine. Any questions of special education? Yes. Oh, I do have a question. Uh Dr. um for the um ESY students attend the HMS school and ESY is attending

004the Overbrook school. So I know about the Overbrook school. Um so that means you have what one student that will uh attend the Overbrook school. Correct. So that school is just for the blind. That is correct. Okay. And to approve the uh ES uh tuition agreement for the students for HMS. Yes. Um may I ask what is that for? HMS is a that works with students with multiple disabilities. They specialize with students who have cerebral policy. Multiple multiple disabilities. Disability. Okay. And the um I mean I know that um you had put this on the agenda. Yes ma'am. So um I'm just curious of the uh ESY You have four students for the ESY at the Elwin. I'm familiar with that, too. Yes. So, Elwin is located in media. They have a school-based program that

005these students go to throughout the school year. And all of these students go to these schools throughout the school year. But for LWIN, we have students that are going there for social and emotional um support. They work with an array of students. Some of them do have disabilities such as emotional disturbance. Some of these students do have different levels of autism. Um, but they have been in these programs to receive their education and they're making meaningful progress there. And as we talk, the ESY program just makes sure that they continue to receive all of the services that they receive during the school year, which is the um special education learning support. And a lot of these students are receiving a lot of related services, right? So, do they live there? Do they stay there or

006they they transfer? No, they're all day students. Okay. They're all day students and we provide them transportation to and from. So, is there um a teacher that uh provide them education? Absolutely. Um is it oneonone or No, these cla these classrooms are smaller. So some of the classrooms may have students in there that are six students, eight students. They are specially trained to work with some of the children that do have these severe deficits and have special training. Especially when we're talking about a students that it goes to like a school like HMS where they have special feeding instructions because they may have cerebral pausy or the children at Elwin if they have different um behavioral issues, they have behavioral management programs that are in place for them. So do they graduate with the uh

007uh the the regular students? Yes. So every student who actually the one student who we are approving um item number four the vocational immersion program the VIP pre is graduating this year from Vanguard school. However, this particular student was offered to participate in our graduation. All of our students are always offered to receive an a diploma from Academy Park. We invite them to any event that we're having as far as senior activities. A lot of the students will say that they would like our diploma and they'll pick that up and come, but a lot of them have their own community in their schools, but and they do have special graduation ceremonies for those at their schools. So, are um some of these uh students are they confined to um wheelchair. Yes. Okay. Cuz um Okay.

008Y All right. So, they're confined to a wheelchair and they come up to the stage and get their diploma. They have um special, you know, uh graduation ceremonies. Some of them will do. Um I know one particular student that we had um a few years back they were a special needs student and we actually went to the house um and actually Dr. Ryan myself Dr. Amler um and was able to present his diploma to him. We allow our students to stay in school till the day before their 22nd birthday as well. So that's really important because they're working on their IEP goals. So a lot of times when they turn 18 and they're technically in 12th grade, we allow them to defer their diploma, which is to say yes, you technically are graduating. However, you

009are able to continue your education and they can stay in school. So there are certain students that depending on their disability, they will bring the service to them, their graduation ceremony to them or they will have it right in their program. Okay. So you're saying that it could be a separate program for them to absolutely graduate because Um I was just um concerned that um I haven't you know seen any child that you know uh will come up on stage on in the wheelchair but I'm glad to hear that they are graduating you know separately. So um so far as uh Vanguard the uh tuition for students uh for Vanguard uh the program runs from 63025 to 7:25 25. Is that um a summer school session? Yes. Yes. Okay. and it actually runs in the

010same sync of our own ESY that we have here in the district. So our ESY for students that are receiving special education services in district starts on June 30th and runs until se Jul July 31st. Okay. So for the ESY, I'm just curious how um do you determine that they need uh more help? That's a great question. So the one thing is when we have the IEP meeting, the one thing we want to make sure is we look at the data points that we're obtaining on their IEP goals and based on their IEP, we actually look at the breaks that just happen naturally throughout the school year, such as Christmas break, spring break, and we try to get baseline data at that time before they go for break. And then when they come back from

011break, we test them on the same material. A lot of these students do have cognitive limitations. So, we notice that there's something called regression. And what happens is just hypothetically, every student's IEP is individualized, but just say hypothetically, we give a child, we ask the child what their ABCs are before they leave, and we are able to track the data to see how how far they know their ABCs. Just preliminary example, and they can say their ABCs from A to just say Y. And then they come back after winter break and now they only recall up to L. And we have to now retach them. not so they can lose skills over just that 12 day break that 14 because they need drill and practice they need consistency. Okay. So what happens is ESY is

012in place so that when the summer which is an extended break all the skills that they learn throughout the year we don't want them to just lose those skills and for these this population of our low incident children we want to make sure that they're also getting all of their related services. So if they're getting speech therapy and they're working communication skills, they have to continue to get speech. So, they could be getting speech three times a week for 30 minutes. And if you just take that away for two and a half months, they could lose their language. If they're getting occupational therapy services where they're learning to write or button or zip, if they don't get that service, they will lose those skills. So, and even with our children who also may have behavioral

013things, if they're doing counseling work and they're working on how to self-regulate and how to control their emotions, we don't want to have this huge gap in time without them being able to continue working with those professionals that are helping them make meaningful progress. Okay. So, are they different ages? Oh, absolutely. So, how do you program that? So, the first piece is they have to be evaluated by a school psychologist. They have to go through that evaluation process to determine whether or not they have a disability and if based on their disability do they require specially specially designed instruction. So once a psychologist has evaluated them based on that data that has been collected which is including a cognitive assessment, academic achievement testing, interviewing with parents, what will happen is they'll take that information and

014make a determination to develop that IEP which is that individualized education plan. Goals are developed in that plan based on all of the people that are part of that comprehensive evaluation. And so in that evaluation, working with the psychologist is speech, occupational therapists, physical therapists, counselors, and they're also building that IEP. So in that IEP, depending on what their needs are, we have to make a determination as an IEP team whether or not this child's needs can be met in the school district. So we always try to follow inclusion and we try to be able to educate them in their neighborhood schools. Most of the time once we go through that process we try and we try we have data that we're collecting we're observing and some children we know that their needs are greater

015than what we can provide here in district. We always try to exhaust our resources in the district and work through the continuum of special education services. There are certain children, especially low incident children who have significant cognitive impairments and significant disabilities that have to be educated in a special program. So out of our special education population, we have about 980 special education students. We have about 80 students that are in out of district placements. The remaining 900 students are in district being educated here on campus. Okay. So I I just want to ask you this question. U based on u things that I know that uh kids I mean parents want their children to be under the IEP uh because of their policies uh certain things that they can't um they can't the teacher can't

016do uh to them. Uh how can I put this? Um okay, for IEP student, if that student um miss um is that student going to be um punished for so for that assignment or if that student does um uh a skip class, you know, are would they be penalized for, you know, certain things? So, as far as special education students, I will have to say we are do have to follow and abide by the code of cond. However, when we have a child that is identified with a disability, we do and we talk to and train our our administrators to make sure that the administrators are at whether or not the behavior that they engaged in is a manifestation of the child's disability. Okay? So, if it's a manifestation of the child's disability and we

017know that for example, if a child has Tourette's, whereas they just have a vocalization that they may speak out and they may use profanity and that's a part of their disability and it's documented in their IEP. If a child is in our classes and we know that they have this documentation and they may blurt out a profane word, they will not be suspended because it's documented that it's a disability that they have and that's a manifestation of their disability. Then we're working as a team with speech therapist, communication therapists, and trying to make sure that we even medical trying to make sure that they're decreasing that. However, children, one thing that you brought up is that children are entitled accommodations and some children are entitled to modifications without having an IEP. And that's where Dr.

018Lori comes in talking about things such as panorama and talking about the multi-ter systems of support that we're putting in place because regular education children are entitled to certain afford accommodations and at tier different tiers even modifications without going into special education. So, we do want to debunk that myth that the only way children can get accommodations and modifications is by being in special education because that's not true. We have universal interventions and we have these tiered supports that we're putting in place through the help of things such as Panorama and being able to work with our SBIS and all of these different systems that are coming together to be able to offer all children universal interventions and if needed certain accommodations are documented in child plans to say that this child may need extended

019time. It's okay to give a child extended time if we know the child can do the assignment but they just need 15 more minutes. We're We're not going to take the paper from them and say, "You can't do this assignment. You failed because you missed these five questions." So, we do try, this is where we ask parents to make sure they come to our, you know, out our outreach programs and those different things that teach them about special ed because they are entitled to accommodations and at tier three levels of MTSS, even modifications to their curriculum. Where there's at times we can take things away from their curriculum if they don't know that skill, if they're getting an intervention to help them with some type of chunk of material, right? So, but as far as

020once they are d classified and a psychologist has said yes, a child has educational classification and they are entitled to an IEP. The IEP is filled with specially designed instruction. It is filled with accommodations and modifications. Some of those children do have different, like you said, behavior plans. Our teachers are required to follow behavioral plans and before they just say you're suspended or you're being kicked out of class, they have to follow those positive behavioral support plans, make sure they're implementing it. But we also have to at times tell parents and children that children do have to have to deal with regular natural consequences. So if a teacher has followed the positive behavioral support plan, given the child the accommodations, given them the modifications and actually fulfilled the SDI in that in that document, those

021specially designed instruction, the child may have to have a natural consequence and to understand that that is part of the code of conduct. Okay. So how do you determine that a child um may have this uh disability versus a child may not have that disability. So how do you determine uh these two because uh I'm quite sure that well I have gotten you know um you know information that some parents you know will do that for their child to get the easy way out. So, how do you determine them to how do you determine that? I think the biggest thing is that they have to be evaluated by a certified school psychologist that is PA certified as an educational specialist. Those persons are the only persons that are able to ascertain whether or not a

022child meets the educational criteria of having an educational disability. In this district, we have four full-time school psychologists. Um, we're We have we have three full-time psychologists. We hired a new psych school psychologist that will be starting in August and we also have one vacancy and we actually have two vacancies right now. Um so we have three full-time school psychologists. We have um two vacancies for school psychologist but one will be filled in September. And we also contract with a company called Aspire that the board has approved recently to allow us to have contracting services. I do think it's also beneficial that I myself am a certified school psychologist in add in addition to my administrative certification as well as a supervisor of special education is also a certified school psychologist. So we do have

023that skill set in our department. Okay. Um, I was just concerned about, you know, uh, parents that's trying to get away, you know, with, um, their children to be under the, uh, IEP program so they can, um, you know, not be responsible, correct, for a lot of things. So when have you ever had a situation where a child was not eligible for IEP? Absolutely. Absolutely. So if a parent writes a request, any parent is entitled to requesting for their child to be evaluated for special education services. When that referral comes in and that letter comes in, the psychologists are told to have a meeting with that parent and that child's regular education team within 10 days. Within 10 days, you sit down as a team. You ask the parent, "What is the concerns that they

024have? What are their concerns?" We look at their data. We're looking at the STAR data. We're looking at their curriculum based assessments. We're looking at their report cards. And we're look, the data speaks for itself, right? So if a parent comes and says, "I want my child to have an IEP, but we're looking at STAR data and we're looking at curriculum based assessments and all of these assessments are saying this child is on par or they're just slightly below." We may say to the parent, "The data doesn't actually constitute that we need to go into evaluation at this time." So a parent can request testing, absolutely, but the district has the right at that point to turn it down. If the district says at this time parent we do not feel as though it's appropriate

025for us to go into evaluation then we talk about now let's talk about whether or not we need to go into an intervention plan that's a regular ed intervention. Okay. And then we develop an intervention plan for that student and we'll say let's take a look. We're going to give this child 30 extra minutes of day of reading. We'll see how this child does. We'll come back and we don't just dismiss the parent. We'll say we'll come back within about six weeks and see how the child is doing. see how you see if he's reading better at school um at home and then again after the six weeks 12 weeks if the parent is like no I still just don't think he's making progress but the data speaks we will evaluate um if we tell

026a parent no we're not evaluating we do have to issue a legal document called a notice of recommended educational placement saying that we are not going to evaluate okay parent is required to understand and sign and say okay I'm going to trust the district to use their universal interventions and try to see if we can fill this gap in. If we come back within six weeks, eight, 12 weeks and we feel like the child is had making progress but the parent says no, we will do the testing because they are entitled to a a free evaluation from the district. And if the testing at that point reveals that no, this child doesn't have a disability, we issue the report and the child does not qualify and we call it a DNQ and we explain to

027the parent this is your child's cognitive levels. This is your child's achievement levels. This is what all the scores are. There is no presence of a disability at this time. Okay? And most parents are excited about that at the end and they say, "Oh, okay. I not as bad as I thought. Maybe I need to spend a little bit more time doing homework with them." you know, so it works out. One more question. Um, uh, for the kids that, um, they do have, um, uh, problems learning. Um, do you have problems with the parents that can't accept it? I think that when the district has to initiate that, we feel as though we want to go to testing. So the example I gave you before is if a parent came to us, God bless. But

028if we initiate it, I think it's a delicate situation. I think personally that, you know, we have to be a why we're concerned, what we think the benefits of is. Um, and parents do have the right to say no thank you. And at that point, we as a district just document and say it's the educational recommendation that we evaluate. We have concerns. The they decline, but just because they decline, they are still entitled to those regular education interventions through MTSS. And some parents will say, "No, I don't want special education. I don't want my child to be labeled or classified. I just want" and we say, "That is absolutely fine." So, we have a philosophy that working with our parents, we don't push them, we don't pull them, we walk alongside of our parents because

029it's a very delicate situation talking about someone's learning. It is. That's all my question. Thank you. so much. Thank you. Good evening. Hi, Missy. Good evening. I have a question. I feel for these kids more than anybody probably around here, but what I'm also looking at is I'm looking at the mothers and and dads of regular kids. I'm looking at the cost. Do you have a a system or working on a system that can recover more money from any accesses any anybody? So instead of it being 14,000 for a handy kid with disability to knock that down that we're getting maybe 9,000 for it. So the one I'm looking for more income. Right. So IDA which is the Individuals with Disability Education Act is a federal mandate at this time and they do provide federal

030funding. So when Mr. Butler is going through the budget he does talk about the regular education per pupil charge as well as special education per charge. So, one of the things if you notice, he does state that children who actually are identified as special education, we do as a district get about $48,000 per child, which is almost three two times what a regular education child is. So, that money is set aside for those special needs because they do know this is a very cost expensive situation. Um, in regards to billing, we do also collect access billing. So all of our related service providers, occupational therapists, speech, even the psychologists that are completing evaluation, um counselors, our social work, they're able to do something called access billing. And when they're working with those children for speech

031pathology one time a week or two time a week for 30 minutes, they can actually bill and we as a district do get a reimbursement from that. That's one one of the things that I'm looking for is how how is the district being reimbursed? Are there um other ways? I mean, I'm looking at the state of Connecticut. They actually went through something that I actually passed out on that their House of Representatives passed unanimously a 20 to 30% increase for students of disability and it passed the next day by two votes for the Senate. So, they've actually got a 20 to 30% increase in their income from the state. Are we doing anything to go after our state reps, our state senators to develop to get more money for our children? Mine is I want

032more money for these kids to have the access to be able to do what they need to do. Right. But we just can't sit back and say, "Well, okay. Well, it's going to be this." We have to be proactive. I would have to defer to um the finance office with that. But in regards to just getting information about that, the one thing we are very fortunate about is I had the opportunity that the allowed me to go to the woman's pasta um conference that just happened in Hershey, Pennsylvania state administrators and talking about the dismantling of the department of education. They were talking about looking at the pros and cons of this and it was able to shed a lot of light for the pros if this was to happen and one of the things

033special education funding was not touched. So we did in the room a lot of us were special educators and special administrators and we were like there are funding that's being cut thinking about this reorganization that's happening at the federal level and special education monies were not touched. There was conversation I know I know where they went and I actually know the person is still we were like thank goodness they didn't touch that and we did have a conversation in our roundts of saying we wish it was approved and we wish that we could get more but at this point it was not touched. So, we were thankful for what we have at this point. Yeah. The actually port hole was actually being built right now by a lady in the department of education through the

034Department of Education in Washington and they'll have all your money up and running like in six weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Gib. You're welcome. Dr. Ryan, please. Hello. Uh agenda item number 10 from where Debbie left off. Uh there are five expulsions on the agenda for two weeks from now. The first three are from a group assault on the way home from school off campus, but it was connected to campus. So we are able to discipline for that. All three of those students and their families have already signed expulsion agreements and their new schooling is on the way. Uh the other two, the two 519 dates, that was also a group assault on the way home that happened on our property next to the tennis courts. Same thing. Met with

035both families, the agreements are signed and both kids are on their way to their new programming. Number 11, we're asking the board to approve a contract with Criticare. Generally, criticare uh provides our substitute nurses for our schools. Either the nurse's office or if a kid who has a nurse uh and that person is out, sometimes they'll provide a sub nurse for that student. And number 12, we are also asking for a service agreement approval for deltat. Delta T generally provides our PCAs. PCAs are personal care assistants. These are some of the students that Debbie was talking about have adult support throughout the day, either in district or out of district. and we use this company to help staff that programming. Other than that, just to skip ahead, it's not an action item, but a heads

036up on the page four under non-aggenda items, the Delco Academy related service provider. You're aware that Croer has closed and that has had an effect on our Delco Academy students. Um, Croer was providing counseling support and what we call med management. The counseling support is being taken care of through Delco Academy. They're going to hire social workers to cover that uh piece of the pie, but we are exploring how to cover the med management. Um Delco Academy has a connection with a group called Aviva, which we're looking into, but quite honestly, we have some questions. Um we also have reached out and have spoken to both Hulcom and Child Guidance to see what they can provide, what the costs will be. So if we are going with one of them, you will see an action

037item in July to help cover the med management piece of Delco County. Any questions for Dr. Ryan? I just have one quick question for the criticare agreement. Would that also include if we need a sub nurse for the 21st century after school program? Did I say that right? Yeah, we could. They just charge us by when we get them. So, as long as we need it and sign off, we can get it from either there or uh Delta, but having the contract in place allows us to to pursue either avenue. Okay. And then they would just bill us for the cost of the time. Thank you very much, Dr. Ryan. Dr. Larry. Hello. Good evening. All right. Just continuing down. Um, agenda item 13 is a agreement with Matrix Networks. Matrix Networks will support and

038provide support for our telephone system that operates in our offices and classrooms across the district for a period of one year. That's the uh the MEL or the current provider of the antiquated systems that we currently have in our buildings. Number 14 is the agreement to replace 19 antiquated wireless access points. Those are things in the ceiling that allow us to get onto the Wi-Fi in our school buildings, classrooms, and our central office bus depot ever. There's about 19 that technology have confirmed are antiquated and no longer receiving firmware updates. They need to be replaced. Next up, um we have a agreement with the Delaware County Intermediate Unit to provide technical support and assistance for um district Chromebooks. There's two pricing tiers that we would use on an as needed basis. One for a flat

039rate of repair and one for a flat rate of cleanup slash firmware updates and whatnot. number 16, 17, and 18 are all kind of interconnected. This is a little bit of an exciting initiative. As you know, the district has been working hard over the last two years to rapidly modernize our curriculum frameworks. So, we have been partnering with the DCIU and I'm happy to say that that work with the DCIU for our math frameworks in grades kindergarten through 9th grade has concluded. So, our district students now have modern state-of-the-art math frameworks and curriculum and pacing in all of our elementary buildings all the way up through algebra 1. The agreement that we are putting forth is a step down coaching model. We would like to provide our instructional leaders, we've been working with our teachers

040for over two years now, and we've also been working with our building administrators to become familiar and comfortable with the expectations of our math frameworks. We now want to step down and start passing the baton to our teacher leaders, interventionists, and key support staff in those instructional areas for math. So this will provide coaching and professional development for our school-based instructional specialists, our teacher coaches and our interventionists in the building so that they can further become familiar with the um frameworks that have been developed and also support inclassroom instruction. That leads into the other two which are also very similar. We also have a need to continue to professionally develop our school-based instructional specialists. Our SBIS's are school uh Southeast Delco teachers who have assumed leadership roles in their building, but they're teachers by heart

041and teachers by trade. Those individuals will be supported by the DCIU and obviously us with gaining additional coaching and support so they can perform the responsibilities of their jobs by getting in the classrooms, supporting with instruction, modifying and identifying best practices and supporting teachers in our classrooms. And uh the last coaching session is for reading interventionist coaches SBIS's with structured literacy. Structured literacy is a term that's been around a while, but all of our district teachers engaged in who have a certain certificate have engaged in professional development with structured literacy. We want to ensure that those individuals that were identified continue that professional development so that they are confident to support our teachers with structured literacy. Structured literacy is a statewide um initiative. It is uh every individual educator in Commonwealth that has a specific

042certificate was professionally developed. So if you go to Abington or Chester Upland, you'll hear the same terminology about structured literacy. Moving on, next item up number 19 is a proposal from Edenum for a program called Ed Options Academy. So I'm going to bring up Mr. Silvin a little bit to talk about some of our cyber program modifications that we're really excited about. We wanted to add another tool to our tool belt when we're offering uh virtual cyber instruction to our students. Ed Options Academy is another option that we have as a school district to provide specific courses for students that may be very difficult or tricky to fill. um from our cyber realm. We currently have our provider of K12 who has been providing the majority of our cyber instruction. We're looking to create another

043model so that we can have additional resources to pull especially for difficult to fill subject matter. Next item up is an extension of the K12 agreement. We anticipate in coming back to the board later in the summer in the July session with a more formalized proposal for K12's services. This is merely extending the current agreement for students that we already have enrolled in cyber courses for one month as we finish up the summer session, the end of the obviously the spring semester and moving into the summer session. Next up, um actually really happy about this numbers 21, 22, and 23 are our schoolbased comprehensive plan process. Last year I you may remember in the August time frame very end of August we presented our school plans for approval from the board. Um there are three

044different tiers that our school plans fall under. Our title one TSI plans meaning that the school was designated with a TSI designation for a specific group. Our general title one school plans which applies to Harris and the kindergarten center which do not have a designation. And then our CSI plan which Park High School. I'm happy that we started this process with our building leaders in March of this year and we're presenting our plans uh well before the deadline of August 31st for consideration. Next up, uh we have a conference request number 24 conference request for Academy Park High School for a group of stakeholders to attend at the Patton Harrisburg. This is directly related to the school's CSI planning and their comprehensive monitoring that Academy Park High School will be partaking in for next year.

045That being said, that's a lot. Um, I would like to bring up Mr. Silva to talk more about two of our things and give a status update on our cyber program. So we have been discussing for a couple um for a while about the need to utilize our own talent and our own resources that we have in our cyber program. Um we have almost completely relied on K12 as a provider of cyber instruction and you've heard updates throughout the last few months about our work to bring that internally into the night academy building. Mr. Silva is the director of the night academy and the um the cyber program over for our district and we have been working really hard to make sure that we have a viable solution to try to incorporate and better align

046our instructional model so that our cyber program is not completely an offshoot. It is a connection to our standard curriculum that we have in Southeast. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, so I'll try to be fast because I have a couple for number 15. Are these things that our current IT department is not able to do? Yeah, we're not by no means are we saying that we're taking every device that is broken and sending it to the the IU. There's certain things that our internal technicians can in fact fix and they have been. If it's a screen repair, if a screen is cracked on one, but we have a part that's sitting there, our techs can do those things. There's just certain things that we have to farm out. We have to source it out. Well, because

047um so this is through 2028 and I see the service rates, but is there there's no max for this contract. There's no estimated total cost or cost not to exceed. It's we can obviously we can discuss if we want to add a do not exceed cost to it, but this is just a flat rate from the IU that's provided to partner school districts. We don't identify. It's hard to say if we need $5,000 in services or we need $20,000 in services. Okay. So, for 17 and 18, I see they both include the school-based instructional specialist. So, 18 is for structured literacy. Um, what other topics might be covered under number 17 for the SBIS's? So, that's everything. Great question. everything from coaching best practices, instructional best practices, um small groupoup instruction, direct instruction, using data

048to inform instruction, coming up with uh interventions for our students, like Dr. Gibbs Tapper mentioned in our panorama suite for students that are in need of additional support. These are all things that we want our our SBIS's to also be cognizant of in addition to the other parts for the math framework training. Okay. Okay. And then for number 19, it says contained within the proposal. So is that on the in the contract that we voted in in April for Ed Ed ad ed admentum? This is I'm glad you asked that question. This is separate. So this is a alakart proposal. We either can use a lot of it or we can use absolutely none of it. There's in the proposal you'll see alakart pricing for different courses and different um sections of things. We wanted

049to start with something to try it out to see how it works for us before we fully dive in and commit. So there's no commitment for us to even spend a dollar from this. Okay. So there's no um unless I missed it. So it doesn't say supporting document attached and I didn't I don't think I saw a proposal. So that's why I thought maybe it would have been part of the original contract because of that word contained. So is it possible to get that supporting documentation so we could prepare for next week? Of course. Um, and then also this may just been something I missed. 21 22 23. Did you say that we already received those plans? So, we our principles I'm going to give you a brief uh synopsis of the timeline. Our principles

050have been working on their school plans since March with their designated school teams. The Pennsylvania Department of Education was going to release preliminary data from the spring PSSA cycle last Monday. that was delayed until Friday of last week. We extended the deadlines um so that our principles had time to take that data, update their plans, and make sure that the latest data was available in their plans. Today was the deadline at 3:00 that principles had until to put their last bits of information into the plan. The PTE um site that houses everything was not available today. I emailed all principles that they would have until tomorrow to update that one last spot. And you will, so far I've already heard from four of the principles that they're completed their plans. So you'll have that in

051the email. So we'll get that. Is it? Absolutely. Okay. Great. All right. I just want you to know the timeline. So no, that was it. Thank you, Dr. Larry. That was great. No problem. Thank you. I'm sorry. Uh, Miss Perry, what number were you referring to? No, the last question. Okay. them. And I'm sorry my mic was not on. No, that's all right. I I just wasn't I I just didn't know what you was um talking about. You'll absolutely get those um two weeks to review and take a look at Oh, you're fine. So I do have a question uh for 16,1 17 and 18 of course. So with the math and the reading intervention um and the workshop session. So, does that mean that you going to be working with the um teachers, you

052know, to train them? Great question. The these are specific groupings of stakeholders in all of our schools, including interventionists, right? Coaches and schoolbased instructional specialists. All those people I just mentioned directly go into and support classroom instruction under the direction of the building principal each and every day. The thought of this is that we have trained and we have gone through training with all of our teachers, right? Our principles have gone through this. I have met with principles monthly about these. The next step is to make sure that our teacher leaders who are Southeast Delo teachers have the training so they can confidently go in and support guided literacy, guided or um uh structured literacy, right? math the new math frameworks that we've rolled out and general overall training for SBIS's on how to implement

053the math frameworks in our classrooms. Okay. So, I have been to one of your meetings with the uh principles and assistant principles. So, I mean I want to know how this worked. I know that you was training them to train their teachers. So, how does that go? Do you train them and they take the information to their uh to their teachers? That's exactly pretty much the model. It's one thing for an administrator who is completing a Pennsylvania Department of Education to go in and coach and support a teacher. It's another thing for a peer or a teacher coach. A lot of the things that we have done with our our teacher coaches in our buildings has been received positively because it is a it's a coaching model. It's not right a evaluative approach. It's how

054do we improve instruction? How do we make sure these practices are happening in our class? Right. Yeah. Because the last meeting I have been to um it was math and you guys did an excellent job. you know, scores was going up little by little, but you know, it was going up. So, um the reading intervention um so how is that going with our students? So, structured um literacy again is a term that's being used across the Commonwealth. It's in in a very very basic sense, it's the foundations of literacy. How does everything get put together to create a solid reader at the Reed Alliance um uh presser that we had at Sharon Hill? Not even today, but the one that we had uh about a month ago when we were all together in the STEM

055lab at Sharon Hill, I made a comment that it's critical that our children are at or as close to grade level as possible in the third grade. research and and studies show that every year that a child is below grade level in third grade, it becomes exponentially more difficult to remediate that loss. So, what we want to try to make sure that we're doing, we've put a ton of emphasis on math. And I'm glad you mentioned that, you know, you went to pop into one of our administrative meetings and we're focusing on math. That's exactly by by intent. The structured literacy will help our district teacher leaders, coaches, principles, and our teachers make sure that we are breaking down our literacy block now into those foundational areas that we need to move our scores up.

056Right. Okay. So as far as reading, okay, uh I always taught my kids and even with the kids when I um I read to you know the classroom, I always ask questions because reading is is like um they can read the words but can they comprehend what they are reading? So when I uh read to uh a classroom, I always ask from page to page to page, you know, um questions, you know, of what I just read to them. So are you guys doing the same thing? um reading because they are they need to know they need to comprehend what they are reading and that's where balance or structured literacy really comes into play. There are so many aspects of a true reader that it's not just reading words on a piece of paper. Exactly.

057I could read a bunch of words and I could accurately and fluently read those words one after another. But if I don't know what those words put together mean and I'm not able to pull that information out and and respond back in a way, then you're missing a fundamental part of the reading part. Right. Exactly. And that's where we have to make sure, especially with our younger grades, you may remember we got up and talked about a program called Sax and Phonics in our kindergarten, first and second grade classes. Saxon is strictly focused on phonics, phonics, phonics, phonics, getting ready for that. From there, we go into the fluency, right, components of that and then building comprehension, you know, and then there's a time around fourth and fifth grade when we stop trying to teach

058the fundamentals of reading and then we really start focusing on the fundamentals of comprehending what you read, understanding what you read, and utilizing what you read to inform other stuff. Okay, that's where it's a huge project, but it is but we have to we have to break literacy down now in these little compartments. That's where this is going to help us. One more question. I you can sit down like I for Mr. Silva. So um even when I was teaching my children um when they were reading and they may run into a big word, okay, but I get them to read the paragraph so they can understand what the big word means. So are you guys are helping the kids to do the same thing when we present any kind of reading instruction, the structured

059literacy approach will help exactly what you just mentioned there. Focus on vocabulary, phmic awareness, fluency, and comprehension. Okay, those are four and there's other things that I'm not going to get into now, but those four things are some of the biggest parts. So, yes, our teachers have to focus on vocabulary. They have to focus on the meaning of words, okay? syntax how those words you know work into yes into a paragraph and uh for our English language learners it's something that is very difficult for English language learners where English is not their first language to comprehend English English language in itself the English language does not flow as nicely as some of the romance languages and other languages very difficult for a child to come in and realize a word could have the same spelling

060but have four very very different different meanings. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. So I am I just want as a final thought I am very very proud of our district's work when it comes to improving our math proficiency and we're making absolute headway with that. Literacy is an area that we are absolutely making growth based upon but we have to focus now on the structured literacy approach and making sure all of our kids are as close to grade level by fourth grade as possible. Exactly. Well, you're doing a good job. Thank you. You're doing a very good job because like I said, I've been into your meeting with your um principles and assistant principles and what you taught them was it was excellent and the outcome, you know, proved that it worked. So, thank you. Thank

061you, Mr. Woke. And thank you to the board for supporting our initiatives. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Thank you. Uh very quickly, will we be getting updates on the stars assessment for the high school, what the overall um data has shown for this year since this was a pivotal year of deciding whether or not this was going to be effective for the the high school. I'm really curious in what those results show. And then I'm also like I'm hearing a lot of wonderful things for like the elementary to kindergarten through 8th grade and a little bit of ninth with the algebra one. I'm still not hearing a lot about what we're doing for the high school to improve. So I'm very curious as to when that reporting is coming through. That's a great point in the

062uh comment. We have talked with the high school team. There's multiple measures in STAR that we are looking at. There's a STAR algebra assessment and then there's the STAR enterprise assessment that um we have had discussions with the high school team about how STAR will best get the best data possible to inform instruction. The thing with math, we have to fix the math problem in the elementary schools and that's why we spent so much time on math in the elementary school. It is unfair and unreasonable to have a nth gra Academy Park come in without foundational math skills before they come into the high school because once we hit Academy Park in the ninth grade that's algebra they are algebra but some of our students when the star assessment is being provided to our ninth

063grade students some of our students are four five six years beyond. So, we have to build the math from the elementary school. Year overyear, you will continue hopefully to see increases as we go into Academy Park High School. And every year that we fix the issue in the elementary school, it will pay dividends in the high school because we're sending Academy Park students that are better equipped with the foundational skills to handle the rigors of algebra 1. So, right now we are districtwide. Our principles are looking at K through 12, looking at star data, correlating STAR data to PSSA. We do not have Keystone results yet. We only have preliminary PSSA data and our principles are correlating the differences between what STAR is showing and what the PSSA and then eventually the G. What I

064appreciate I do appreciate that the determination is that we definitely need to enhance the primary school curriculum, especially in math, in order to make sure that they're on level by the time they get to nth grade. My question is what are we doing with those who are already in ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th and 12th? because it almost kind of feels like the focus is we are so heavily focusing on improving the elementary school that we're not because it's almost like well you guys it's already a lost cause and I don't want to hear that's that's not I know that's not what we're saying but that but when the reporting is always focusing on the elementaryaries and middle school we're not and we're not seeing growth in the high school then I start to question

065what moves are we making for the high schools I think and I don't want to speak completely on the schedule roster change, but moving from a block schedule to a period based schedule, isolating our algebra one and creating a lab period for our Keystone trigger classes and ensuring that our interventionists are being developed and trained to be able to look at data and pull students that need support. looking at STAR and identifying students that are high basic, low proficient to make sure they a don't slip or b we can move them up are all parts of what we're trying to do with academy park. The algebraic um frameworks that were in the eighth grade model the ninth grade. So we are trying to expose one group of students in every one of our elementary buildings

066for algebra 1. take the Keystone in the elementary buildings and if they're not successful sadly hopefully we can get those numbers up they are taking and they're doing the exact same framework in algebra one in our high school. So there's been a ton of work with the high school administrative team looking at resources making sure that we have a solid period based schedule that will allow us flexibility to do a lot of things that you're talking about. Bottom line, Miss McGowan, we you're right. We have to fix the elementary issue. And I am proud that our elementaryaries are pushing students that are at the highest level than they have been in over three years. Now, with our new modified schedule, a focus on intervention, a focus on lab periods at our high school. I can't

067wait to see what happens with our high school. But I don't want any member of this board to think that 100% of our efforts have been on the elementary, and that's not the case. Yeah. No, again, I wasn't that that wasn't what I was saying. What I was saying was I want to make sure that we're not appearing in that way at all because of just the way the reporting comes out. But that that's all I was I have to give the Academy Park team a ton of credit. I have been with Dr. Ryan, Dr. Sanchez um in the principal conference room many many times this year. The methodical work that the team the team and that's not me or or Dr. Sanchez or Dr. The team has spent hundreds of hours in that war

068room looking at data, looking at individual kids and trying to map out the absolute best possible solution for next year. I have to also say that the high school team is a year ahead of other schools in the Commonwealth. They were unfortunately designated as CSI, but when we met in the very beginning of the year, Dr. Ryan, myself, and Mr. Sharon, we got right on this and the principal initiative in his building to make sure that we're not waiting for the state designation. We're starting now and the level just for the board's knowledge, the level that they are drilling down to individual kids to look at where they're scoring and how we can support them with the core curriculum or with the lab period is really, really, really interesting. It's the best work I've seen

069from a high school team so far. So, we're heavily focused on that and over time we're going to see some great things out of C Academy Park. The last time I met with you guys, it was all of the uh um uh the principles, assistant principles from all schools. So, are y'all breaking it down to uh meeting with um uh um the elementary schools? Absolutely. Versus the high school. We do instructional rounds for all of our elementary principles every month and our high school principal. We all get together, we go to a building, we go to classrooms. The high school did something very interesting. The high school brought in members. This is like the third year we've done the instructional round model where principles go into classrooms, right? High school principal Sharon, assistant principal Threadgill

070wanted to do something a little different. They asked if they could bring their core leadership team members and perform the instructional rounds. It was not evaluative. There was no rating that was provided, but we had SDA teachers come with us and go in with administration and observe instruction and provide feedback to their own peers. So that was a step above. I would love every building to get to that point. But yes, we are absolutely doing that. And then just in our updates today, I asked every building principal to look at the data that they're getting out right now. And this would go a little bit with with Miss McGawan's discussing when we get this data. It's not just we have this these numbers, what do we do with it? It's how are we impacting instruction?

071So I ask for every interventionist and every individual that we have in our building. We should be we need to and we will be assigning a group of students that they responsible for for the year to monitor their progress, look at the STAR data, look at the Keystone data, track their progress, and do everything we possibly can to make sure they're proficient when they retest. Is that quarterly? That's that's going to be a year goal um through something called the SPM that Okay. our teachers and our principles have to engage in. Thank you. Thank you. So, we're going to go to Mr. Silva, who I already gave a little bit of a of a welcome, who's led some incredible work at night academy to maximize resources but also ensure that our cyber program makes better.

072Thank you, Dr. Lowry. Good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to share updates to our programming at night academy regarding our K to2 cyber program. Commencing with the 2025 2026 school year, we will transition primarily from the utilization of a third-party provider for our core subject instruction to an in-house program for our students in grades 4 through 12. We will maintain partnerships with our outside partners to serve our cyber students in kindergarten through third grade as well as for elective courses or specialty courses that our older students need for credit attainment. Our staff has been hard at work this year preparing for this transition. For each grade level and each course within each grade level, we employed a backwards design framework, starting with the identification of the most important ideas and concepts we know our students need

073to learn. From there, we established assessments that demonstrate student mastery and ensured they aligned to state standards. This month, our teachers are developing the student and teaching activities that will provide the framework of what our students will do to attain mastery. Compiled the list of resources that will aid those activities, and this summer, they will work on the unit plans and pacing guides for each course. This transition to an in-house program achieves several goals of ours at Knight Academy to better serve our students. An in-house program improves our instructional standards in the cyber program and gives us more control over we want what we want our students to learn and how we want them to achieve mastery. Second, an in-house program ensures better alignment of curriculum with our brickandmortar programs across the district. This also

074allows our students and families who need more flexibility in their academic programming to still maintain consistency with our brickandmortar programs should there be a need for transition between the cyber program and our home schools. Finally, a move to an in-house program maximizes the talents of our highly qualified staff, allows for greater in-person instruction, supplementation, and support, and provides the opportunity for our students and teachers to develop the relationships that are so essential to academic success. I'm extremely proud of our Knight Academy staff who continued to perform their regular duties and took on the considerable task of developing meaningful and aligned curriculum to improve the educational experience for our students. I am also thrilled with the response of our students who genuinely seem excited to know that their primary instructors will be the same people they've

075already been coming to for support over the course of this current school year. Thank you to you, the board, for your support of this important initiative. We at Knight Academy are thrilled to move the needle forward towards consistent improvement and positive outcomes for our students. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, thanks much. I actually have a question, but that's not for Mr. Silva, but in regards to this, um, is there any chance within the coming months over the summer that the administration would be able to give us just preliminary information on if they think this will save us money and how much? Yeah. So, we we'll have continual conversations about uh new initiatives and the impact that it will have on the budget. There are no other questions. I'm not going to. So, there are two

076items in the non-aggenda items that need to be moved. Um the speak the presenter was not here available for tonight for the PBIS presentation. that will be moved to a future meeting. Um, and the office of strategic initiatives will provide a presentation during next week uh during the business meeting in two weeks. I'm going to ask Mr. Brother to present the finance item. Sure. Good evening everyone. So item C, finance. Uh some of these uh resolutions are traditional each year, but I'll go through each of them. Uh item one is but the list of budget transfers and that's to close out the uh 2425 fiscal year. Item two is to uh approve the agreement with uh Tom Josiah who does consulting work for the school district preparing our financial statements for the audit. Uh item

077three is uh the uh final proposed general fund budget uh for 2526. Uh I do have a follow-up presentation that I will go over, but I just want to uh point out a couple key features or key items. Uh the April 24th uh 25 uh resolution was approving the preliminary proposed budget. Uh that particular document called for 2.5% uh tax increase, revenue increase uh related to real estate taxes. Uh what you will have before you this evening is after refining some of the numbers, this will reflect a 1.5% uh tax increase. Uh you will see that uh in item three, the total budget uh revised budget is 14,147,585. Again, uh the millillage uh this current year is 32.0553. Next year will increase 1.5% uh to 32.5341. Uh item four is just a restatement of that

078uh dollar amount and the uh the millillage. Uh and again this will be effective July 1, 2025. Uh number five is to enact uh interim real estate taxes. Interim real estate taxes are on uh uh a new construction. Uh so wherever you see new construction, there are a couple properties that are going uh or being built down the street from us. uh and they will go into the tax roles and there will be interim taxes assessed to those properties when the property is when the construction is complete. It will not uh be uh interim billings or uh as that word may say interim building. Interim billing is when the property is completed within uh the fis a new fiscal year or a fiscal year. Uh the uh that was number uh five. Number six is

079for real approval of real estate uh real estate transfer. This is for properties that sell uh in exchange hands and there's a 0.5% tax that is generated from uh that transaction. Number seven is the homestead exclusion. Uh this is uh concerning the taxpayer relief. Uh you can see this is uh is item seven, but there's uh item A and then there's Roman no more one Roman no more one that goes along with it. Uh and this is uh revenue that's generated from gaming in the state of Pennsylvania. Last year uh the 2425 or excuse me the current year uh 2425 uh the allocation to Southeast was 3,283,657 and we had 5,880 approved homestead uh uh applications. Uh again, homestead applications are for uh property owners that live in uh the property. It is not for

080commercial properties or uh commercial properties meaning corporations or businesses or any property that is uh owned by someone that's being rented out. Uh this year uh the increase it has been increased in the amount of 494,717 to a total of 3,778,374 uh 40 cents. Uh and the applications uh has increased by 44. The approved applications are 5,924. uh that uh within under seven going to page five uh C uh you will see that that 3,000 uh excuse me 3,778 uh and the 5,924 approved applications will generate a reduction on those approved applications in the amount of $63781. Uh item D just shows the assessed value that's associated with that. So it will take 19,6429 off the assessed value of that of that particular property. Uh and E is just a further explanation. F uh is

081very similar. These are just traditional resolutions that have to be approved uh by uh state code. Uh item B under uh I'm sorry, item 7B, right? Um that has to do with when the tax bills are uh prepared that there would be and the option that uh residents or homeowners uh could make three uh installment payments instead of paying them all at one time. And this is just approving those those installment payment uh dates. The first one is August 1st, October 1st and December 1st. uh those amounts are uh of course divided by three. Uh but if you don't pay within uh by the August 1 date, then there would be a 10 a 10% penalty added on to that first installment. And the same would go if you uh were late paying the second

082installment, there would be a 10% penalty on that. And same for the third installment. Uh the penalties are not cumulative. They're associated with each of the installment payments. Uh then number eight is just uh the approval of the exonerated uh properties. Uh these are church properties. Uh number nine, uh this is if you recall there uh in the April meeting, uh Southeast voted on their selection for uh the member of the board for DCIU. So this year uh and this is 425 to 28. Uh this year Chester Upland, Innerboro, Radner, Ridley also did the same. And then when those uh resolutions are approved then this combined resolution has to be approved as well. Number 10 is approving me to be I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. No, the district has to it as well. Uh item

08310 is uh appointing me to be the representative for the Deliver County uh school district joint purchasing board. Item 11 is uh approving u uh budget transfers uh for the 252 2425 uh school year. Uh number 12 is uh this is engaging uh Conrad Seagull to provide actuary services uh related to the audit for Gatsby B75. Gasb 75 has to do with uh the projections and valuations in uh um the postmployment retirement cost uh for just that for the pension calculation. Item 13 is uh this is a traditional um uh resolution as well our participation and membership for the coalition of education exc excellence for the 2526 school year. Uh number 14 is the approval of the contributions to the libraries in the district. Uh it will be for Colondale Fallcraftoft and Sharon Hill. Item

08415 is approving Mr. Allen, director of finance to be the treasurer for the school district. 16 is the approval of uh 17 uh new vehicles and this is related to buses, transportation uh from Wolfington and the extension of uh two vehicles uh for the same period of time. Uh I have on here that supporting documentation is forthcoming. I hope to have this for um I will have it before the next board meeting, but I'm hoping next week I will probably send it out on a separate email. Uh 17 is uh engaging Donovan Group to provide communication services for this district. 18 is the approval to engage Cardinal Point for uh providing uh unarmed officers uh for the next school year. Uh this has an estimated cost of 204,000. You will recall that there have been

085previous discussions about having uh our own uh uh staff members. So this number is uh we're not anticipating spending 204. This is a backup plan uh in the case where we may need some substitute services. At 19 is the attendance of in this case three school board members and three administrators to attend the National School Board Association Cube Conference which goes from September 11th to September 13th of this school year of excuse I'm sorry of the next school year and my non-aggenda item is the 2526 general fund budget presentation. I have a question for number 19. Yes. Uh, when is the last date for a board member to decide whether they going to go or not? So, we um the early bird special is only till the end of this month. So, right after the

086board meeting at the end of the month, we have one day. So, we would need to have if we're going to do changes to the agenda, we need to make sure we Yeah. by next board meeting or before. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Butler. I do have a few questions. Um, I'll try to be quick. Number eight, um, is it possible for the board to receive a copy of the exonerated properties? And if not, that's okay. I just I'm curious if there were any major changes because, you know, I had a couple questions about a a specific prop couple properties. So, is can the board get a copy of that? Okay, wonderful. And then number 18, you stated is um this Cardinal Point contract will be for the next school year, but Miss Perry, question. So,

087what churches do you have a question about? I would really not like to like if I'm mistaken, I don't want to publicly name them. Um I do have email correspondents with you and Bob and Mr. Butler in the past, but I could be mistaken. So, I'd rather not name a particular organization publicly unless we have to. Okay. Can you just resend me that email then? Absolutely. Thank you. Um, and number 18. So, you stated when you spoke it could have you could have just misspoke or the contract could be wrong. You said that the Cardinal Point contract would possibly be for the upcoming school year, but it looks like the contract is for two school years. I'm sorry. Yeah, I I misspoke. So, are we going to do two school years? because I know there

088was another contract that we had discussed that we thought was going to be for one year and turned out it's for three. Um, so are we are we do we anticipate needing Cardinal Point for two years? And if we end up pulling out a year early, will there be financial repercussions? So yes, let's start with the last comment. There would be a different rate if we go to a one-year contract and this is for subservice. said the goal and we've been very very successful in hiring. I think we just had one position that we hopefully will maybe even able to do a bold change by next week. The the situation has changed as far as being able to recruit and and hire security guards. But if we for some reason we lose staff or there's

089transition, this is a way to make sure we have coverage. And it is at this rate if we do a two-year. If we ask them to change that to one year, there'll be a different rate. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Then we're going to go into agenda not agenda item. Okay. So, uh, everyone should have a copy of the, uh, PowerPoint presentation. Uh, there's information in this document that I've covered in pre previous uh, presentations and discussions. Uh, so I'll just go over it very quickly. Uh I will say that uh as I mentioned in uh my review of the agenda that the current tax increase uh that is being proposed is a 1.5% tax increase. The previous report showed a 2.5%. uh drawing your attention to starting with page three. Uh these

090are just the the the uh challenges that we have every year. Uh and that's chart of school special education uh retirement costs, transportation for special placements, salaries and benefits. Uh page four um same information the student enrollment the number that has changed is the charter school number u you will recall that I had that amount that number in the amount of 16,500,000 I've reduced it to 15,924,117 uh district staff remains estimated the same 651 uh and Uh the retirement rates are as listed. Uh page five, uh we have school climate support in the budget is still in there as a million dollars. Uh and uh charter school tuition, as I mentioned before, has been reduced. Uh and then we have uh professional step adjustment increases uh increasing $600,000 in this budget document. uh going to

091page six seven. Again, this was presented before, but this is uh what allowed me to uh reduce the charter school expenditures uh down to the 15 million. Uh so just looking at page six for all of the schools uh in the current year 2425 is estimated uh to be 14,591,944 uh 49 rather I'm sorry. Uh so again I had 16 million5 uh I reduced it down to 15 million 924 uh anticipating that we may have some more students to leave and anticipating that the rates uh the tuition rates may change uh and that has to do with uh being based on whether they're special education or regular ed students. Uh page seven and eight was a conversation that we had uh concerning uh whether or not cyber uh charter schools uh would have a reduced

092cost based on state level discussions. item uh page nine. Uh again, this is the last row. It just shows a 1.5% uh tax increase. Moving to page 10. So, in the current year, last year, we increased taxes 2 and a half%. Uh if you look, I apologize because I'm not moving my uh sorry about that. I just looked up saw it's on page one. Miss Perry, you were supposed to tell me. Uh, sorry about that. Wow. Uh, so on on page 10, this is just a point of reference. The first section is 2425. As I stated, we have a 2.5% tax increase last year in the current year. And in that last column it says the annual and uh index. Uh so the calculation from the state level said that we could this community could

093this school district could increase taxes uh to a maximum of 8.1 uh%. Uh again we did 2 and a half%. Uh in the lower uh box you will see 25 26 uh the calculations that we can increase taxes 6%. Uh going to page 11, uh it's just a reinstate re restatement of 2425, but in the lower section 2526, uh we're not going 6%, we're doing 1.5%. Oh, thank you, Dr. Sanch. I'm gonna keep my finger on this button. Okay. So page 12 uh this is where we have the local, state and federal revenues. Uh and also at the bottom of the slide we have the instructional expenditures. As I had stated uh both revenue and expenditures are the same amount,147,585. Page 13 is just a pie chart of what the expenditure categories look like. 45%

094I'm sorry, the revenue categories look like 45% is local, 51% is state and 4% is federal uh and other revenue. Page 14. Uh this is just a uh restatement uh based on uh object code which is employee salaries, employee benefits, purchase pro uh professional services, property services, other purchase services, supplies, property, other expenditures, and other financial uses. And again, the next pie chart just shows what that looks like. uh for the uh on uh on the uh for for the expenditures by object code. Going to page 16. This is the same dollar amounts but this is allocated by function code. Function code is looking at the total program. So this would be regular program, special education program, vocational technical, other instructional, higher education, those kinds of uh specific programming initiatives. Uh you can see that

095uh for instructional programs it's 76,438964. Again those the object code that had salary, benefits, purchase services, those th that breakdown is included in the these numbers but from a different perspective. Page 17 uh shows student activities uh and debt service again totaling $114,147,585. And there is the pie chart of what that looks like. And you can see which the way it's supposed to be that uh most of the funding should go towards regular uh instruction and education instruction. Going to page 19. This is just a restatement of 2425 and the impact of the 2 and a half% uh tax increase last year. Going to page 20. This is showing the 1.5% tax increase for 2526. Uh I've said this before. The first column uh the first section is looking at your if your property is

096assessed at $70,000. This is not market value. It's the assessed value. Uh so ranges from 70,000 to 240 240,000 assessed value. $70,000 for the next 365 days, the tax increase will be $34. Uh 240,000 assessed value. 365 days, the tax increase would be $115. Uh the section next to that currently a $70,000 home. The total taxes on that on that property is $2,277 peranom. Uh $240,000 assessed value. The property taxes, school property taxes are 7,88. And again, I just like to state that those amounts are not the market value of the property. So, typically the assessed value is somewhere between 70 and 80 uh 70 around 70 or 80% of the market value of property. Any questions? Mr. Butler? Yeah, I do have a question. Um, on page five, it says charter school tuition has

097decreased. I Yeah, the original that was in the uh the document that we approved uh April 24th had that number at 16,500,000. Right. So that means that um some of our children are coming back to our school. No. Um so last year uh full disclosure the amount that was in the budget was 16,500,000. Just anticipating that we may have some more movement where families make a decision to uh use to uh use the educational services from charter school. That didn't occur. and that you can reference back to I'm sorry the slides on pages uh six and seven. So that's the way it currently looks now on six and seven. So I felt comfortable to uh to reduce that number uh is still slightly higher but again uh I'm not I can't um this is a

098conservative projection. Okay. Okay. So we may it may be 15 million dollars uh this year. Uh, and there would be a windfall of $924,000. Okay. Uh, so this question is do um Dr. Sanchez um is it that um the district or anything to try to bring our children back to our schools because we have been doing an excellent job. So, I'd like to know, have you guys thought of uh anything that you can contact the parents so they would know uh it would be safe and and their children will be educated uh to come back to our district. Yes. About a month ago, Dr. Ryan and I sent out a communication to all of our children who are in cyber charter schools with intent intent to be able to invite them back. We've been working

099really really hard on the image of the district um and we're hoping that ongoing communication the other reason the other um and we Mr. Silva explained this earlier and Dr. Larry um our efforts to be able to align our our cyber program to the inside school is to again to also be able to have another tool to be able to entice kids back to our district. So we are actively working to bring back kids who are on cyber charter school roles. So uh may I ask um what is it that you're doing? Are you sending out letters or uh how are you contacting the um the parents or the uh guardians to let them know how the district is moving? So, we're send we already sent out a letter a mass mailing to all of

100those families, but we have we are working on a campaign that would include more than letters. Okay. It's just one effort. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Laugher, you have a question? You know, I'm looking at the same kind of question with the charter with the the question I have is we had these kids out there. You had made contact. That's actually excellent. Are we getting any responses and are you going to take and use Mr. Silva's what he presented tonight and kind of take try to steal some of them kids back? Exactly. Yes. And create revenue that way. Correct. So the goal is to be able to pull back the students that you see are are identified in the budget um currently as cyber students in other schools to come back and be part

101of our cyber program. Mr. Silva will have that direct responsibility to work on also figuring out ways to bring them back. What I'm looking at is then um our advertising people. We just did the thing up at Shan Hill with the reading. Um can we have a story put out like that so people can actually see what we're doing instead of just hearing. So, if you are following us on social media or visiting our website, we are if you are and I'm inviting people to um you will be able to see that everything that we're doing now is being advertised in various different channels. We have an Instagram page, we have a Facebook page, we have a um an app that we are encouraging people to um to join. We are sending media uh releases

102to newspapers so that they can run stories. This district has seen an uptick of um press coverage in a positive way and for the reason that we're discussing right now so that we can change the image of our district so we can share with them the great things that we're doing and hopefully be able to recruit people back. I mean, that would sound like a perfect um recruiting almost and putting the reading in there, putting the um the math in there. um especially with the levels going up. Um my favorite is vocational and science. I mean, I would love to see something like that because if you had a kid sitting in cyber school and we're not offering them anything in science or vocational, they may not want to come, but if we have something

103for them, then we can actually play with them and have a good time. Agreed. Thank you. Hi. Okay. So, Mr. Butler, I just hopefully have a quick question. First, I do want to thank you for your work in getting the proposed tax increase down a full percent. Um, nobody likes a tax increase, but I feel like these numbers are a little bit easier to swallow. And I just had a quick question about the Vision Academy number on page seven. I think it's also maybe on page five. Um, oh, no, page seven and page nine. Is is that for both Vision Academy locations? And if it is for both, would you mind just getting me I don't really need the totals money, but could you would you possibly to get me the enrollment counts by location

104because I'm just curious how many are at the new location that's within our district. So, uh I will tell you that there was a shift uh from the Lanstown location. um kids at the Lanstown location came to the Sharon Hill location if they lived in the district for the most part. But I can I can um I'll look at the invoice and can give you that information. Mrs. Wing. Good evening board members, administration, and audience. Um, I'm here to present the items on the agenda. On page seven, number D, human resources. We have three resations of classified employees. Those job titles are bus aid, groundskeeper, and secretary to the principal. Number two, we have one, resignation of a professional employee, which is the school librarian. At the top of page eight, um, approve the resignation

105of a classified employee that is a library aid. Number four, looking at approving the employment of five professional employees. We hired music teacher at Darby Township, a math teacher at the Academy Park High School, a special ed intensive learning support teacher at Sharon Hill, a special education learning support teacher at Harris School, and a seventh grade English teacher at the Harris School. Number five, we want to approve the employment of the following security employees. We hired nine school security officers and one pending um offer and they're all due to start on July 1st of this year or full time. Number six, we want to ratify. I'm sorry, Mrs. Willie. You said July 7th. Yes. What did I say? It's July 1st because that is the beginning of our um new school year. It says seven.

106Okay. So that will be correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did and I had coffee as well. So So number six, let's um So we want to just congratulate the department and um Mr. Resnoff and Megan Genta and human resources. They really worked really hard to secure all of those slots because I don't know if people thought that we can have it done by December, but we had it done even before July was here. So, kudos to them. Number six, ratify the employment of the classified employee. Um, we hired although we lost one, we gained and hired a lead uh groundskeeper. Number 10, approve the employment of the following classified employees. We hired a van driver. Um, two van drivers, one bus aid, and all three of them came from the CROER um what is that?

107The Croer job fair that we attended and um so we're happy about that. That was very successful in the team attending that job fair. The last one, we hired a non-instructional aid for the Darby Township School. Number eight, we have two change of assignments. Um we have a seventh grade teacher going to the eighth grade slot which opened up a slot at that school and another um eighth grade English teacher moving back to a supplemental teacher which opened up a um job opening at the Darby Township for eighth grade English teacher. Number nine, changing the assignment of a night security school officer to a academy park daytime school officer, which is number nine. So, just to conclude on page 11, we have another change of assignment of another um location of a school security officer.

108So, if you're looking at all of our vacancies, our resignations, and our new hires, we had five resigned, but from May 12th through June 2nd, we hired at least 20 employees this month. All right. So, currently we have 10 open SBA positions and two of those are two new positions at the Knights Academy, which is a science teacher, and we're looking for a middle school English teacher. And then the other remaining seven are which are hard to fill positions are our special education teachers at the high school. Okay. Number eight. Oh no, sorry. Page number 11. Number 10. Ratify the supplemental athletic contract for the following listed employee there. Number 11. Ratify the following supplemental contract for a the mentor program from January 13 through June 20th. and the person's name is listed as well.

109The teacher number 12 approved the following employee for professional ser pair professional services at educational service center during the period of June 30th through July 31st and the person is listed there. Number 13, approve the following employee for the ESY program at Delcraftoft School at a rate of $20 per hour to be paid by the general fund. The person's name is listed there as well. Number 14. Approve the following employees for the 21st century enrichment program at Darby Township School in the amount not take C7500. And we have four aids listed there. Number 15. Approve the Act 93 administrative compensation and fringe benefits plan in effect for a period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2029. Number 16, approve the appointment of April Kesler to the Delaware County Public School Healthcare Trust Board for

110the interim of July 1st through June 30th, 2027. And approve the appointment of Stephanie Woolly, me, to the Delaware County Public School Trust Board for the term of July 25 to June 30th, 2027. All right. So, non-aggenda items. It does say none, but I just want to make the administration aware that teacher assignment letters and teachers, they're going to be handd delivered to the principles to be distributed no later than June 18th. Any questions? um with the sign that you had gave me to put in my yard. I think these are the people that I um you know I told them to talk to you about this. So even with the security officers and um bus drivers, bus aids, do I get anything for it? Um if you would like to um be a member

111and you can look on our website, we have a lot of vacancies, you know, for aids monitors and if you want to come over and be an employee or a volunteer, we would gladly accept your service. That's all I could do is volunteer. No, but I do appreciate the fact that anybody that use those signs for marketing, they do help and they do help rebrand our district as well. Yeah, because um me and uh Miss Harris Johnson had their um sign in our yard and a couple of people had asked uh Miss Johnson about the position. Uh I don't know why they never asked me. And we still do need um plenty of bus depot employees. So hopefully those signs will continue to work throughout the summer as well. Oh, good. That's good. QR codes

112work. Yeah, they do. So, I actually I do have uh quick questions about um resignations and I believe I've brought this up several times now, so I'm gonna ask again. Okay, sure. Um how are exit interviews going and when can you provide the board with some data on exit interviews? I'm really curious who's leaving, why, what buildings they're leaving from. I'd really like to see that. Obviously, no names, but um in a form that we can digest to really understand why we're losing staff members. And I feel like now that we've gone through a whole school year, um I really think that information would be helpful. Like, would you be able to get that to the board anytime soon? Yes. Would that be in different sessions that they would get that information, Dr. Sanchez? Okay,

113great. and and then we can talk about it. But yeah, I can get that. That's it. Any other questions for Mrs. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Are you doing property? Uh we have on the agenda one uh property item. Uh this is in reference uh to the replacement of uh 20 gallon hot water storage tanks. Uh these are storage tanks that uh are not like the typical um hot water heater that you may see in your home. These are um very large. They're 120 gallons. Uh and they're at the high school and they're to reserve for just the building usage uh depending upon how much hot water is required. Uh the reason for the replacement is that the tanks are old and they started to decay and they're leaking. Um so uh this is just the

114replacement of of those those uh hot water heaters. Any questions for Mr. Brother? Yes, I don't. On the price is that for one or for all five? Oh, this is for all. Yeah. Thank you very much, Mr. Butler. Madam President, that concludes our Oh, I'm sorry. Safety, Mr. Patiently waiting. Good evening. I just have a couple uh items to go over that are not agenda items for the summer 2025 projects. Uh Sharon Hill strike replacements. Those are for badge access into the building. They were completed on May 29th. Kindergarten center intercom edition and card reader cover replacement was completed on 66. Delcraftoft access control editions, those are card swipes again to get into the building. additional ones. Um, those will be completed this summer. Um, they're just waiting for the equipment to be delivered and

115they're just waiting for students to be out of the building. So, in the next couple weeks, they'll be completed. Uh, the big project that you voted on a couple weeks ago, the NVR and camera upgrades, equipment um was ordered, was released on May 29th. Cameras arrived on 69. AES, the contractor that's doing the work, will work on each phase of the project throughout the summer. And there's an anticipation that they will be finished prior to the start of the new school year. I have the schedule. So, Academy Park High School, uh, the work will be done there June 20th to July 2nd. DTS 73 to 711. Bellcross School 714 to 7:16. Harris 717 to 7:25. Kenter Center 728 to 7:30. The Sharon Hill 73185. training. As Mrs. Willia indicated, we have new employees starting in

116July and their training will begin on July 7th and run for approximately two and a half to three weeks. Staffing, uh, as she had indicated, we have one spot open, which is for night shift, and hopefully there's an update for that by next week. So, I have any questions? I have some quick questions. Sure. One about something that's on your report, and then one that has to do with Colinale. Um, so for the training, are these trainings we'll have to pay for like Alice and all of that? And will us voting in the July meeting be too late? Well, Alice is districtwide, so they won't participate in that right now. Okay. This is for first aid, CPR, AED, and stop the bleed. Anything the board has to vote on. Okay. Um, Colale, no secret, there's

117a major police shortage still in Collingdale. Have they communicated with you at all about possibly getting us a se a SRO? No. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Resno. Madam President, that concludes the agenda. Thank you. We have one comment from um a non-aggenda comment from Miss Manson. Oh, I ain't up. What do I do? I haven't been up here in a minute. So, is it just my name? Please state your name. You have three minutes. Okay. Latana Manson. Um, mine is a non-gender item. Um, I've talked to you guys several times and I've you put it on Miss Johnson, the athletic director, and I'm not sure who she spoke with as far as having assistant coach or a middle school cheerleading coach for football season. I've had one in the

118past. Um, and then all of a sudden it's gone. It was told that she never got paid, which was not true cuz a contract came over. So, the reason I'm asking and I need to know as soon as possible is I just had tryyouts and my numbers were not like they normally are. So, and the reason being is we didn't have middle school football for the last two years, and that's because we didn't have a coach. The football cheerleading squad is the biggest squad next to we're the biggest next to football. So, football might have 60 and the cheerleaders, we're usually at about 25 to the between 25 and 35 girls. Now, I did get those. I I I picked my numbers, but I'm used to having about 80. the 90 people come out for

119cheerleading. I only had about 50. That's not normal. Even though, you know, some kids might be going to other places, I normally get more than that. And what I mean by my eighth grade numbers were my lowest numbers. Now, my 9th, 10th, 11th grade students, they came out, but my eighth grade numbers weren't as high as they usually are. Um, and it's primarily because they don't really know what what it's like to cheer for football. So majority of our sports are in middle school and they feed into our high school. We don't have that for cheerleading because you guys took it. Somebody took it away and we need it back. Especially if you expect for me to do competition this year because they're not ready. So when they get to me, I'm starting all over.

120It's like I'm starting with little league trying to get them to learn how to do certain things whereas if they were in middle school they could come back. Now the reason I'm saying is my assistant coach or one of my co- coaches Tiana she is the one that was doing my middle school cheer as well as helping me with the high school and the middle school would always come to the high school and cheer during football games. I haven't had that in two years, which means that's why my numbers are down. That which is why I didn't have as many numbers as I need. So, I need to know if I can if I'm going to be able to get a middle school b middle school football squad, not worrying about basketball. They have that.

121And that coach can choose which sport she wants to do. And she chooses to do basketball. That's fine. Basketball is not going to competition. That's not a competition squad. It's the football squad that does competition. And so I'm asking um can I get that this year? Let's not all speak at once, Miss Woolly. So, are you asking So, the question I'm asking, are you asking the board, are they going to permit middle school cheerleading? Is it either or? Like I said, I've had it before and then all of a sudden it went away. It was like, no, you they never had that. But I've had it I've had it for about six or seven years and then in the last two years it was taken away saying that that's not that's not something. And so

122then um my coach, she stepped back. She's going to help me regardless, but she stepped back. I'm answering her question, so I know my three minutes is up, but I'm just responding to her question. So she stepped back and so they needed um but my numbers are down and I need in order for me to have football has middle school football, field hockey, soccer, everybody has a feeder pattern. Cheerleading is the only one for football season that does not have a feeder in into the high school which is why my numbers are down. My numbers have always been high. These past two years, my numbers are low for football season and that's not normal. Dr. Sanchez, are you asking for a middle school coach or a middle school assistant coach? It could be a middle

123school coach. We have that. So that is in the So if it's a new position, it has to be negotiated with SDA because these are there is a middle school cheerleading coach position. Yes. But it's only like I said, she she can choose which sport she wants to do and she chooses to do basketball only. They don't middle school only has one coach and she chooses which season and she's always choosing basketball. And that's true because I was in middle school when they we only did basketball season. I'm saying I need a football one. And the reason why I'm saying assistant is because I can take one of the coaches that I have that's already there with me that knows the program that knows everything to coach it. I can't promise you that because these

124are SDA positions. Oh, that's so they need to go through the process and apply and interview and there is preference given to SDA staff. What I will check is to see if it's budgeted. If it's budgeted, we just need to make sure we hire somebody for it. Okay? If it's not budgeted, we have to make a we have to negotiate it with the SDA and then bring it to the board for approval. So, I will check tomorrow morning. Got to have my computer here to see if it's already budgeted. If it is, we just need to get it posted. Okay. Two years. That's the same thing you told me two years ago. If you want if you want to wait till after the meeting, you and I can Miss Manson, we'll meet we'll talk right

125after the meeting and we'll check together the book. Okay. Okay. Miss Manson. Thank you. Upcoming events and meeting. school board business meeting will be Thursday, June 26, 2025 at 7 PM. Committee of the whole um depending on the board members if we're going to have one or not. And so that will be posted. Um school board business meeting will be Thursday, July 24th, 2025. Are there any other questions or comments for this meeting? Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. We have an executive session. So, can you please leave the um room as soon as possible?