001Mr rice we're ready all right I'd like to call the meeting of the pepper School Board to order for the January 24th 2023 if we could all please rise of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with other teachers justice for all this channel Clemens Ms batiskey here Mrs blondgren here Mrs Chicken she's going to be participating by phone Mr cormack here Mrs Cullen here Mr rice here Mr Russell here and Mr worms thank you first up we'll start the public comment according to policy 903 public comment which is limited to three minutes should be directed to the presiding officer rather than individual board members District employees or members of the public confidentiality and privacy rights specific comments regarding particular individuals must be communicated
002privately to the school board and superintendent via email at esdschoolboard at pennridge.org first up we have Laura Foster can you come up please name and municipality please hi I'm Laura Foster I'm from East Rock Hill Township I speak on the news of a 118 curriculum committee meeting or that meeting from last time the pieces of information about the sheriff for those community members who are not scared about America's history um the rest of you can open your DeSantis Abbott Playbook and turn to the section on Civics to follow along at the last curriculum committee meeting there was presented an overlay of the Hillsdale College 1776 curriculum into social studies it is documented that these recommendations came from the board despite our board president stating that board members do not suggest curriculum some people may ask
003what does this curriculum look like let's start by finding out first what Hillsdale College is so Hillsdale College is a well-known private Conservative Christian liberal arts college in Michigan apparently our school board has decided that um the number one ranked graduate school for education in the country the University of Pennsylvania which is right in our backyard does not suffice to look towards for curvil we need to go thousands of miles away of notes Hillsdale has been in the news pretty frequently based on the their president Larry Arn and his comments about ethnic minorities so in response to a state violation of diversity standards arms said that they were cited I'm quoting because we don't have enough dark ones has to be criticized for calling minorities dark ones he went on to just clarify that he
004meant dark faces so he clarified that for all this that's cool he also is part of the one of the teachers for the the social studies curriculum there more recently as an education advisor Governor Lee answered his thoughts on public education and again I quote the teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country you will see how education destroys generations of people it's devastating it's like the plague we are going to try to demonstrate that you don't have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it all of this Foundation came to 1776 curriculum some highlights include saying that the Civil Rights Movement is quote an extreme ideology that assaults and undermines the American principle of equality now I understand that this would be
005offensive to sensitive years to cover your ears this is racist this is racist curriculum that's trying to be played into our social studies curriculum I know that these comments fall on death beers that's fine but I'll make a suggestion to you um how about you stop wasting the time one of our teachers try and insert your Christian fundamentalist Dogma maybe you should run for a Christian School next time and stay out of the public schools unlike The Man Behind the social studies curriculum I'm glad that our teachers are educated and that when presented with the absurdity of curriculum like this they can see through your extreme fundamentalists motives thank you [Applause] Hello Ross McLean in Hilltown I love the idea of the Middle School baseball that was discussed last week it was said that we
006can afford it I expect this will be explained further tonight if it costs say six thousand dollars for the 60 players that would be about a hundred dollars a player I think that's great I like the idea of jobs coaches referees bus drivers and groundskeepers I know we have issues with the bus drivers uh some parents even offered to drive which is a great idea uh the problem that I had was at the end of a five-hour meeting it came up that the intro to Art would go from twelve dollars to Fifteen dollars this is the cost out of our pockets and art design with Ceramics One and Two from fifteen to twenty dollars it was presented with little discussion and no objections how many kids take art a year we have roughly 600 per
007grade level so at six thousand dollars you are paying for the entirety of the student costs I would like to see the board eliminate the student costs for our classes we can afford it okay the Hillsdale College 1776 wow you stole a lot of my thunder here this is uh so they are accused of brainwashing their students so there you go um and I know that the overlay which I don't understand what that is um it's free where did it come from uh did it get discussed other than last week in an open meeting for review prior to vote like all of the curriculum okay so kids are about to sign up for fall classes and you want to change the social studies from the four to three as a mere factoring professional I know
008that workers today need all the history and social studies they can get that's coming from an engineer the world is smaller every day we need to understand our geography our religions and so much more to work with the diversity of others in every profession engineering all sciences and more so with our skilled labor I think we need to rethink this change and go back to the four credits I object to changing the policy 119 to opt in versus opt out I think losing more facts about performance in the school and in particular how children are being treated is obnoxious and you need to stop doing these things to protect your own ideology over the Health and Welfare of our students and how it has spilled over into the community and press lastly I agree with
009uh Joan that we should revise the policy 903 I mean imagine your name but I do agree we may want to make that revision thank you next up Leah rash Leah rash Hilltown Township I'm speaking towards the policy committee uh in particular just how policies are developed I was watching the central black school district on their similar policy will be 21 I've got the number around removing Pride Flags Etc so a lot of this team passion from students and teachers um being ignored by the board um but one person in particular really stuck out I'm going to paraphrase what he said but he was working with someone who graduated from Central box Who currently works at Yale's education studies program they have a PhD there and they were talking about the cultural Wars in education
010which is right where we are this is a cultural war on in education the question is why liberals win the cultural Wars even when they lose the election it was found that conservatives succeed in cultural wedge issues to Rally their base and win elections but they always lose the cultural War when they were asked why the rationale was because they've already lost by the time an issue is picked up it's already a lost cause they're fighting for the world has moved on and that really resonated with me because when we've heard other children speaking in our school the teachers very patiently explaining their jobs to all of you their light years ahead of you and the kids in this school are light years ahead of you and you can catch up you can catch up
011by doing some very simple things in particular around your policies you do need research to back up movement that you're making it shouldn't just be your idea or what you feel there should be research behind it you need valid examples not just things you've heard you can share those examples with the public I highly suggest you do and it should be systemic not just one or two so I've had multiple questions to the board for months now around evidence while that a neutral classroom supports inclusivity evidence around how many children participated in Day of Silence how many parents had issues with it and I've gotten gotten a single response from any of you around this if you're making these decisions this is the information you should have and then it becomes a real discussion and
012not just I don't know politicizing what you think school boards are not supposed to be partisan but they have become very partisan your job is not to parent or be the spiritual leader of this community your job is to look out for the students in the school you should be up to speed on current research current educational practices and you absolutely have to trust your experts I there's been a division recently but it's because you're a castle on sand good luck and moving on that is all for public comment moving on to the presence report any year always brings new ideas new challenges and many new opportunities I believe any of those challenges brought before us are within our reach we continue to share good ideas which become great conversations and ultimately become success for
013our students in District our main goal should be to provide success successful career Pathways for each student we should be focused on the choices that we can give each student the goals they can focus on and the option to redirect those Pathways to another if they so desire one of those shared ideas that blossomed into a great conversation is block scheduling all members of the exploratory committee had the opportunity to visit with surrounding districts to hear from students teachers and administration the meetings with surrounding school districts along with the exploratory block scheduling committee have given us a lot of positive feedback at the final exploratory committee meeting it was unanimously decided to bring glass scheduling to committee for further conversation there are many positive things that will come with block scheduling one of the biggest
014advantages I can see is a student-teacher relationships it was clear to me that those relationships were better because of the extended time spent together in class every day they were not rushed through class forced to digest seven classes of material each day follow-up hours worth of homework all to be done again each day the rest of the week the students seem to be less stressed more focused on their classes and have the support to follow their individual pathway I am excited looking forward to that Community conversation in February there are a lot of topics on our plate for 2023 those who come to mind staff negotiations continue fiscal responsibility alongside our numerous facilities projects policy and curricular conversations and most importantly putting our students first our students should always remain the vocal point that is
015my report thank you and all to the super tech support thank you Mr rice thank you Mr McCullough good evening everyone first we'd like to make you aware of our all new share your PSD great initiative it continues to Showcase students staffs and programs we introduced it last month the beginning of the program but it has really taken off over the last 30 days or so as you can see from the examples on the screen we've had dozens of community members and staff members that have written in to share their PSD great stories whether it's an inspiring or heartwarming story or a creative Outlet or community service inside or outside of the school day people are telling those stories through this program just want to remind you to take a look at those on our
016social media as well as our website and also you can fill one out in a share your psea great form it can be accessed from all of the school's web pages by clicking on the bottom or the top of the button on the top of the page every few weeks we update and share a couple of those stories through our social media next we'd like to recognize and congratulate some expressive impressive students who have excelled outside of the classroom by participating in state playoffs and or competitions during The Fall season as we call your group please come up to be recognized and have your picture taken first up tonight is our 2022 Pennridge High School state championship marching band under the direction of Mr Kevin Fair the marching Rams won the Yankee division with a
017score of 95.1 that is the highest score in program history and is also the highest score ever in the Yankee division topping a record that had been held by North Penn since 1989. let's congratulate the band foreign [Applause] reward this brick one two three now I know this isn't about me but one fun fact is I was an assistant band director in 1989 and was there and North Penn was one of our uh competitors and they they basically kicked our butts that night and they were one of the best marching bands I'd ever seen and District beat him so congratulations [Applause] and coached by Miss Audrey Anderson who's not able to be here tonight at Mr Jason Lawler this team [Applause] a year they were also a state finalist for the third time in the
018last five years they like the even numbers in 2018 they were the state runner-up in 2020 they won the state championship and in 2022 they again were the state run around them they also had been named Pennsylvania girls soccer team of the Year let's congratulate the soccer teams foreign [Applause] next is the men's soccer team coached by Mr Pete palmen we had a really good fall soccer season that's for sure the boys soccer team had the first state playoff birth in 25 years and their first state playoff win over Abington Heights that earned them the Intelligencer newspaper Team of the Year an individually Shane Velez was the league MVP made Pennsylvania All-State All Region All-American was a Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches player of the year for boys soccer and was nominated as one of the Gatorade
019Pennsylvania Player of the Year let's congratulate the men's opportunities thank you again next is our Women's Water Polo team coached by Mr Jacob Ryan she's Champion they also participated in one the Beast the Beast tournament which is the largest water polo tournament on the east coast and that's the first time in program history they finished third in the Pennsylvania state championship tournament which is the highest finish in program history they had six student athletes who perceived the All-State Addie Burgess and Ali ricardy for steam All State Emily Myers and Caitlin Cuthbert second team Allstate Ava Bessie and Lexi Holt's third Team all state and Coach Brandt was named the water polo co-coach of the year for the second straight year let's congratulate them [Applause] okay foreign cross country team coached by Mr Bill Smith we
020had two student athletes who qualified for the PIAA state championship in Hershey Ashley Landis finished 22nd and Nora ridding who finished 52nd let's congratulate [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] accomplishments from the World of Sports we need to congratulate both our women's volleyball team and our tennis teams who won the league sportsmanship award to their performance and actions throughout the season congratulations to all of our students foreign [Applause] is School Board appreciation month and we want to pause to thank our school board members for their service dedication and commitment to the Pennridge school district and their community our nine school board members spend countless hours each month for viewing information for meetings preparing for meetings attending meetings reading emails and attending school and community events did I mention that they are volunteers the Pennsylvania School boards Association
021estimates that members across the state spend on average 14 hours a month on school board matters and that doesn't include the conversations that lands us or on the sports Fields I want to say thank you to this board for their dedication to the students staff families and taxpayers in Pennridge and to present them with a small token of our appreciation the ram cutting boards that you can see above were designed and created by our students in Mr Andrew Katie's Advanced woodworking class as part of our award-winning stem program it is an amazing craftsmanship and you should see one when you get a chance many think that they are too nice to actually use so let's thank our board members thank you all thank you deductible these are beautiful I was going to hold one up
022I didn't realize they were up on the screen but it is very nice thank you it was neat to watch them come together in terms of the different steps they did in terms of pressing the wood and then engraving in the RAM and then adding the epoxy and adding the topping it it really is amazing town that I don't have but they did a nice job last thing for my report I'd like to recognize a donation of 500 made by Mr Gary Schiff who is also a volunteer to bed Mister Elementary School to be used for academic Endeavors that's it for the superintendents report and we'd like to now have the student report thank you Dr Bolton and you so much my thunder regarding student athletes and it is hard to follow the accomplishments of
023our students in 2022 but student councils already hard at work for many amazing events to come in the new year to conclude last year we did collect over 360 cans for our canned food drive which was an amazing accomplishment ahead we are busy preparing for our annual winter ball which will happen on Saturday February 4th so we encourage all high schoolers to come out for a fun night under the Northern Lights and many of our other annual Traditions such as Mr penridge are already hard in preparation and we also have other surprises in store for the community thank you Mr John thank you Mr protectable always does that he still has done it from a lot of us all right moving on to the consent calendar I'm going to make a motion to approve the
024consent calendar items a through H think of a second please thank you um comments questions all those in favor all right any opposed motion carries and Ricky is on Ricky's on the phone he's on the phone okay motion carries 9-0 and then we have moving on to activities with Miss chicken I'll do that that's a little awkward on the phone uh so obviously the notes for the January 18th meeting are um attached two action items first is an approval of the revised 2223 District school calendar and a motion to approve that the calendar is updated based off of the weather date that happened on December 23rd the day has been forgiven for students students currently in Pennridge are scheduled for 182 school days they're only required 180 by state law so the first one can
025be forgiven they'll still attend 181 school days and so that means one day was added on at the end of the year for teachers in terms of staff development but it has not changed the last day of school for students at this point yeah you can't make a motion can I make a motion to approve the revised 2022 2023 District calendar could I get a second please thank you any comments or questions in regards to this CNN all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries 9-0 the next motion is for the 2023-2024 district calendar uh it is attached again it follows the same Rhythm as our calendars over the last few years the first day of school is always determined by when Labor day is Labor Day is still in the first four
026days of the year it's September 4th next year which means the first day of school will be the last Monday in August which is the 28th uh the normal holidays and breaks during the year currently it's hard to believe with leap year obviously and one extra day there uh tentatively the final day for students would be June 5th and the final day for staff would be June 6th with 182 student days work into the calendar I'll make that motion okay I have a second then any comments or questions all those in favor all right opposed motion carries nine zero I just want to thank Dr Robert check and the Act 48 committee for all of their work on the calendar all right so I appreciate that the next activities committee meeting is scheduled for Monday
027February 6th okay next up we have curriculum Miss blunder okay all right there are three action items the first is uh to make a motion to approve the following curriculum Improvement proposals a through G I'll say bushes sorry okay oh any questions or comments what was that on which which are H or G a through GT okay good yeah yeah okay uh others in favor opposed motion carries nine zero and the next election commission to approve special the special education plan second um comments or questions all right all those in favor all right post motion carries 9-0 okay and the last item is um I'd like to be motion to approve and increase in student calls for the following are courses a intro to Art From twelve dollars to Fifteen dollars and B Art and
028Design and Ceramics One and Two from 15 to 20. a second but questions and comments I just make I don't want to make a comment as to what this is since there was a public comment specific to these are fees uh we have a small number of courses that are consumable heavy and so our courses Tech courses uh where you're using a lot of supplies and consuming them for projects and so there are costs associated with that that the students incur so this is not a cost that we're paying additional to we obviously are providing all the supplies in the teacher and those types of things these are costs for the students there are some in middle school and some in high school for again the consumable heavy courses thank you others questions uh oh
029there's a favor all right suppose Russia carries nine zero okay and that's it on the next curriculum committee meeting is scheduled for Monday February 6th moving on the facilities Mr cormack okay thank you Mr rice I want to move forward with approval of agenda for the original agreement number zero zero three motion to approved end of the original agreement between the Pennridge school district and Reynolds Energy Services Inc for Energy Services data September 21st 2020 in the amount of 115 980.61 cents second got a motion in a second any comments or questions others in favor aye aye opposed motion carries 9-0 your approval of agreement for project management Services motion to approve agreement between Perry School District and Reynolds Construction LLC doing business as site Logics construction management for construction management services for 2023 site
030work phase two operations Department garage salt shed projects and the amount of 474 500. second good motion and a second any comments or questions all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero as a motion to approve the agreement between penrith School District site logic Consulting Engineers for civic Pacific engineering MEP engineering architectural Design Services for 2023 site work phase two operations Department garage Soldier projects in the amount of 320 300 300 and 258 dollars which has been made and seconded comments or questions all those in favor aye opposed motion carries nine zero this is an easy one a motion to accept the purchase and installation of playground equipment at Seiler Elementary School by home and School Association bush has been made in second Aid comments or questions just want to thank all
031of our parents home and school associations this is obviously the one on the agenda but all of them do significant work at our 11 buildings and I just want to show our appreciation for them um other support uh all those in favor but she carries 9-0 last we have a motion to approve obsolete items a through H listed below a second bush has been made and seconded comments or questions others in favor opposed but she carries nine zero our next scheduled meeting is February 13 2023. thank you onward to finance gonna make a motion to approve the contracts a through J below did I get a second please motion of the second any comments or questions all right oh there's a favor aye all right all those opposed motion carries nine zeros approval of Student
032Activity motion to approve Student Activity account listed below High School class of 2026 and it's a new let's go could I get a second please second get emotion and say comments or questions all those in favor opposed motion carries nine zero the next facility finance committee meeting is scheduled for Monday February 13 2023. 42 personnel there has was not a Personnel meeting but there is one motion and it's the the motion to approve tender recommendations for Teacher Amy rossetter and Lauren Smith do we need that as a motion please I'll second it the motion and second any comments or questions others in favor aye opposed the next Personnel committee meeting is also scheduled for Monday February 6th funds policy displacements there is one policy on the agenda for first read and that policy is the
033policy 137 home education programs based on feedback from some board members there were the only concerns that um uh the only concern that I had heard had to do with the line which shall be approved by the board under delegation of responsibility and so I'm wondering if we were to remove that line would that um you know we got to build consensus that everybody could approve this policy yes okay then I will make the motion to approve this policy um but remove the line which shall be approved by the board under the delegation of responsibility section um first page it says delegation of responsibility so we have a motion you get a motion I'll second that so now comment some questions tell me some questions you're taking out the one degree which shall be approved
034by the feeling okay any comments questions oh there's a favor opposed or she carries 9-0 okay and that was the only motion for policy um the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for Monday February 6th onto the IU the space please okay thank you I have to warn you my report is a little bit long today so bear with me I can't imagine that um another shop um but there's so many exciting things happening um the the main thing that I want to um just review at the board especially since we have a lot of uh newer board members and the IU budget process can be really a lot to take in at the beginning um there is a programs and services budget which is really the only portion of the budget that we all
035approve at all of the sending districts across the county and that's really where you know when when we're all funding and that money goes in this is what we're funding other the IU pulls in money from other places to fund other things and has other projects outside of that but the programs and services budget is really where our money goes and so that will come to our finance committee meeting and we will all have to approve that budget here and that gives you an idea of when we're sending our taxpayer dollars to the IU those are the things in that budget that we are funding the other things that are done at the IU are funded in other ways um aside from if we are you know sending a student here or there for for
036different things then we we pay for whatever other services we directly contract with them for and those also appear on our agenda and we vote on those here um I just I I was curious about the history because I know we haven't raised there's two different funding uh there's two different formulas for funding the programs and services budget so I just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview there's there's two pieces to this um the one formula includes payments by each member district irrespective of its size there's no increase in the amount of each District's contribution over last year's amount for that funding formula the other formula is determined by multiplying a fixed dollar amount times the number of student enrolled in the district as of October of the prior year the
037dollar amount used to determine used to determine the cost per student contribution is 4.80 per student which is an increase of 25 cents per student all revenue received from direct purchased service will be primarily used to provide instructional technology and or instructional materials and Research Services respectively for the intermediate units member districts I I got some information on the history of that amount because I know that that student rate has not been increased in a long time and I wanted to know exactly how long that period of time was it's actually 12 years but it's got a more interesting history than that so I wanted to share with you um that from the 1996 to 1997 through 2009 to 2010 school years the rate was five dollars and 20 cents per student in 2010 to
0382011 the rate was reduced to five dollars and five cents per student in 2011 to 2012 the rate was reduced to 4.55 cents per student the rate has remained at 4.55 cents until this proposed budget in 2324 so that's 12 consecutive years of flat rates for the 23-24 budget the proposed rate went up that 25 cents that I just shared with you and that rate adjustment reflects a trend of declining student enrollment in Bucks County so when you think about that you're spreading that out by the number of students and then the number of students has decreased significantly that's why we're seeing an increase in that rate in 2010 to 2011 when the rate was five dollars and five cents per student the budgeted enrollment was 92 213 students equating to 465 676 dollars in
039contributions per student to the budget for the 2324 budget the budget projects student enrollment of 82 656 a decrease of 9557 students county-wide at a rate of 4.80 equating to 396 749 in contributions per student a decrease in contributions to the budget budget of 68 927 dollars the programs and services Team Works to adjust the budget expenditures accordingly each year in collaboration with the district stakeholders and generates additional Revenue to support the budget throughout entrepreneurial efforts so they do pull in a lot of money from other places to supplement that as well and so that's usually how you'll see that the budget keeps increasing but the amount that we pay doesn't because they're able to pull in money from other sources to be able to cover that so this is something that uh we'll be
040reviewing again at the finance committee but it's probably helpful to have this overview now and um I can circulate that to people ahead to board members ahead of time too so you can start to go through that programs and services budget so it was we went through the preliminary process at the IU then it'll come here all of the individual districts will vote on it and then it will go back to the IU and the IU board we'll do a final approval of that budget but um we'll be next to approve it here at Pennridge um but that's a question sure what happens if we don't approve it like has that ever happened or is this pretty much a um I am not aware of an individual School District No Yeah well a little bit
041more than that but um we probably have to have an executive session or five about that no I'm not suggesting we do no I'm not sure it's a good question I I think probably the best scenario would be if there were um different things that people were concerned about in the budget to bring those things back and have that conversation and hopefully try to get to a point where you know um something that we can all live with um you know and when you look through that budget you'll get an idea of what we're funding with with that money um so uh while I'm on that topic of uh I think I'll go into the next piece that kind of ties into the budget a little bit um there have been conversations um circulating about
042um a certain issue that was um you know kind of being addressed with the right to no request and it was a question that had Arisen at the board at the IU board meeting so I wanted to kind of share that information here as well and help provide that information for the community um so uh the Bucks County Intermediate Unit is the coordinator for Region 8 education of Children and Youth experiencing homelessness uh which is which the acronym is equia um so it serves five counties Bucks County Montgomery County Delaware County Northampton and Lehigh counties um as the coordinator and Grant holder the Bucks County Intermediate Unit is really the facilitator for that organization and so they're the ones who apply for any grants and facilitate that money to those other entities that are associated
043with ekia and um through that process they received a Federal Grant from the it was an ARP homeless one Grant and there were some documents that were circulating online that had been obtained through a right to no request dealing with rainbow libraries that had been purchased with ten thousand dollars of the eight hundred seventy thousand dollars from that Grant um so those uh those those documents that were circulating online were internal documents those were not documents that ever came to the board I actually had found out about this through community members and then I was trying to look up and get more information because I hadn't heard of the rainbow libraries until that came up so I was able to get a lot of this information to be able to answer those questions so but
044this is this is my um I just want to be clear that this money was a Federal grant that they had applied for with those specific category with specific categories and then that money was facilitated to those um those other entities none of the libraries went to any bucks IU or sending District facilities all of them were sent outside of those entities and again that was Federal grant money none of that was taxpayer dollars that was contributed again our taxpayer dollars go through that programs and services budget not to any of these other things but based on by the nature of how we approve things that wasn't something that came to us other than um approving a grant for ekia and you know not the specific breakdown of that um and so that's something that
045you know we'll be seeing more detail on and and we've had a more recent Grant where they were able to provide more details so that we can make sure that we have that kind of information um I hope that hopefully answers some questions by tying that to the programs and services budget might help with with understanding where the money is coming from as well there were a couple other things I just wanted to share um so there's a secondary transition options and resource fair that was held uh 22nd annual secondary transition options and resources Fair it was open to students with special needs their families and Educators interested in learning about navigating the transition process of these students to Life After High School and representatives of organizations offering accommodations for those with special needs were
046on hand with information on post-secondary Education and Training employment independent living and Community Resources Legal Financial life planning and more having an opportunity to speak with these groups directly and have questions answered offers the attendees a chance to learn about options and plan for their Futures so that's another service that parents can find those options through the through the Intermediate Unit there's a travel training with project search the project search bucks student interns went to Philadelphia for travel training designed to prepare them to safely get to and from their future places of employment Philadelphia provided a wide variety of travel experiences from Reading Mass Transit schedules and taking the train to using walking maps to make their way through the city students address busy intersections with lots of lights and signals to safely to safely
047dealing with high vehicle and pedestrian traffic at Reading Terminal Market they learn to identify and locate vendors while selecting menu items within their budgets travel training allows the interns to increase their self-sufficiency independence and safety uh there's also career-ready books which connects Bucks County students through their schools with local business and industry as a way for youth to learn and experience future career options aligned with strong future employment opportunities there's a lot of different uh activities and things going on and resources for um you know for community members I will have them but you know it'll I don't want to be here all night you guys about all of them so I'll have uh Mrs Chenoweth was kind enough to attach some of the documents for us in the minutes from last month so I'm
048going to see if she can also attach the awesome news which talks about a lot of those different opportunities and activities that are going on and the last thing thank you Mr Mercola uh just to share there are some steam camps that are going to be uh that are going to be happening at the Fab Lab over the summer so some great opportunities for kids to register to do some of those activities um I was able to send my daughter to one of those with uh building a robot so she was really excited about that it was great it got to tour there they really have a lot of great opportunities for students to learn all those different steam activities and they now have a lending library as well that some of the the sending
049districts can access so that City districts can obtain some of that equipment and bring it to bring it to the district to do some of that training here as well but there's some it's kind of small but kind of gives you a breakdown of all the different courses that are being offered and we'll see if we can circulate that through our social media as well so that parents can register for that and that's my report the next IU meeting is scheduled for February 21st I actually have some questions or comments about the IU report if I may the information about where those you know who funded the or who was running the program for those rainbow libraries wasn't actually something that needed to be obtained by right to know I was able to find it
050myself on the public information the budget the finance information at one of the IU meetings and in it you can see that the item that the organization that was working with the IU to provide those books was glsen which is a political activist group and regardless of whether it's Pennridge taxpayer money or not I think that it's important that if we do something here in Pennridge which we have said we don't welcome political activists into our schools which I think is appropriate we shouldn't have relationships that we support in our outside organizations such as the IU so that was I think the issue is that um it doesn't matter also where those rainbow libraries were sent I think again if we say in pen Ridge that we have some standards by which we want to
051you know stairs we want to hold ourselves to for what's age-appropriate for children and that we're not going to have our children subjected to things here in our buildings we should not support those things to be sent to children in other locations so I just want to you know make that comment to say that when we have Representatives whether it be at the IU or at the tech school those representatives are supposed to represent the interests of the Pennridge School District uphold our principles and really carry through what we do here so I would appreciate um if if we could make that something that we do going forward and be mindful of it it's not just with this particular libraries thing but there were issues throughout the whole covid debacle with mandates that came down
052and there's too many details to go into but that was another time when the IU was making decisions and I always want to make sure that what we do in here at Pennridge that should be what our representative carries over to the IU carries over to the tech school and that we hear about things from the tech school or from the IU beforehand before they're voted on um so I'm just pulling the tech school in now because that's the next report and I don't want to repeat myself but in general terms I'd like us to Make a Better Effort to have better communication about what's going on at the tech school and at the IU and allow the sending board to be consulted and give input so that we can have better outcomes on those
053two boards and I'd also like to renew my request to have the IU meetings being broadcast because as difficult as it is for people to come to our board meetings here you can imagine that it's even more difficult for people to get down to Doylestown on a Tuesday evening to go to the IU meeting so I think it would be good if they could broadcast their meetings the same way that we broadcast hours um I did pass on the suggestion about uh recording the meetings um but I didn't really get a lot of uh I'll have to follow up because that would obviously be a decision that will be made across the uh the Hawaii Board of the the 13 different sending districts um you know as far as what you're saying with something being
054approved in advance um the grant that was voted on if you read the motion and the attachments there is literally no mention of that organization or rainbow libraries or anything like that it talks about Ikea it talks about serving the homeless and it talks about you know things that apply to homelessness um if I can pull it up and read it at the next meeting I don't want to take a lot of time but I can read you exactly okay so um that power you know that paragraph that was there it did not mention any of those things but I'd be happy to read what the grant said that's what was approved um in advance I think what you're referring to is after things get approved there's a business which is really just a long
055um uh eight point font uh bills list of every charge from Amazon to everything that goes um that goes through and that's after a purchase has already been made that's when um you are paying the bills for things that you already agreed to do in the first place and in a long bills list there's a charge in there that lists um g-l-s-e-n and ten thousand dollars which I found um again after this whole thing was was brought to our attention I didn't even know honestly what that organization was or what that charge was for but you're talking about a bills list a bills list this was a year and a half ago um the bills list just lists every single charge that's ever been you know there's no way of knowing what all of those
056charges are where they're going um we do the same thing here and we approve things in the bills list all the time and I'm sure that if you went through and looked at in fact I could go through and show a lot of things that were approved over the last seven years um you know that again were charges that you have to pay the bill so there there are definitely charges in there that I think if you looked at them later you would say that's not something that you necessarily would have agreed to to charge in the first place um but I won't get into those examples so well with all due respect though I just a few months ago we had conversations about library books and there were comments made about how our employees
057for example need should have caught this or they should be more responsible they should so all I'm saying is that the standard that we hold others to that we hold ourselves to and it was publicly available information and in general terms I would appreciate it if our representatives to outside boards that we send carry over what we do here to those boards now it's known maybe a year and a half ago you didn't know what glsen is but now we know and there's currently some associations that the IU has with you know an organization that we decided to remove from our list of referrals because nothing could be verified about how they protect children's identity and their physical safety so that's the rainbow room and it's it's in the news right now now it's national
058news because you know some of the questionable practices there so my point is that we need to make sure and now you know we here at Pennridge have said we want certain things not to be you know certain things not to be done in our schools coordinating having relationships with relationships with political activists is one of those things and you know now that I remembered um to mention the rainbow room I would appreciate if the IU could do the same thing that Pennridge has done which is to stop referring students from you know the IU that come through your system stop referring them to that organization until and unless we can get actual straight answers about the practices that they employ to protect children which we are all responsible for doing in any Youth Organization
059in public schools private schools you name it and for some reason that organization will not provide that information so I think that the IU should consider seriously if you still have that relationship which I think you do that you discontinue it my my understanding is that the IU does not um send kids to the rainbow room or have a relationship well there I don't I don't know how current I mean the last thing that I was that I saw was from 2020 so I don't know if you still do but certainly at that time there's an email where a student is referred to Marlene cray who is the Rainbow Room founder director what have you so you know if there's any sort of referrals happening again I would just appreciate if that's looked into see
060if there's any current relationship of referrals going on and the IU should take action to end them I'm also interested in the request to have the meetings recorded I attended the last one and it is a little more complex to get there in that particular meeting started 30 minutes late so it made it difficult so and they are on soon so does it seem like it'd be a matter of pressing a broadcast button or something if we're recording showing some publication also Sarah um I know you were going to say that you've already brought about Megan but some of the other requests that they're asking board members can email as well to the IU so that might be helpful to instead of not just you recommending it like Miss columns to key if you guys
061want to email I think that would be helpful too maybe to try to get it going and I just um I know some of the concerns in the community were that it was taxpayer dollars so I think that's a good clear up and I just want to say that in this you know like lessons must be learned for all of us you know at all ages and I feel like this is a moment where it's like looking back I asked myself if I was a representative would I have caught that so it's always something good to just take pause and moving forward just something to you know make sure that we continue to look into and do our best with our time and things like that could we just get confirmation then that we can
062deal with the IU directly and not through our representative on the board because it seems like it would go through our representative as opposed to all of us emailing the IU so are you suggesting I'm sorry yeah I'm just saying it might be helpful like it can go through every representative but as well as getting others like I don't know if there's a plea person I don't know if there's another person besides a representative that would help to send an email to just the more voices the more recommendation I don't see why that would hurt I would only think that that would help well perspective and email the board I'm also passing on those concerns so it's up to you if you want to follow up and also make it clear sure it's because it's
063from outside coming in I thought the IU was was somewhat Limited in only providing you know support for special ed or students that we couldn't support within our own district and so it surprised me that that the IU is involved in a lot like they're even all the way to to supervising homeless shelters I would never have thought that so there it'd be interesting to have a full account of what the IU is doing to some degree to know you know why why are we involved why are we sending somebody and also when we looked at our what was provided at the the one meeting our students that are going through the IU I guess continue to go down right so we're bringing those in-house and that's intentional on our part so the the money
064that it would make sense that the money that we're sending to them is going to decrease because we're trying to meet those students needs more in-house here right what year I think what you're missing is this is based on the total number of students we have not the total number of students we're sending so this is different than if you're purchasing a service like say you have a kid who has a hearing impairment and you're sending them to the IU for for those Services you would have a you would be paying for that student for those Services which is separate and outside of the programs and services budget the programs and services budget is really the different school districts paying in for common services that are offered and the way the funding formula is designed
065is based on the total number of students you have in the district not the number you're sending there so that's helpful to know right yeah because as a decreasing are thinkable but it may be helpful for at least it would be helpful for me and maybe I'll deal with this outside this meeting but to get an accounting of what our money is being used for so that if we're sending the same amount well we're having less and less kids but we're getting charged for all the students that we have within the school district then it seems like there should be a reduction for what we're paying in because we're not getting all that unless there's other services so like for example if we were sending let's say we were sending 200 kids to the IU
066last year and this year these are crazy it looks like I mean it's 18 it's what it says this year well last year was 27. okay so so you're only paying for those 18 you're not paying for those 27 you're paying for the services that those kids are have are obtaining but that's a separate thing than the programs and services budget where you're paying a rate for everyone so I guess that would be helpful to know what is what encompasses what are the services that are in the programs and services and that's in the budget you're going to be approving but it's going to come to the finance committee meeting next so you will get that budget and that breakdown and see everything that is being budgeted for in that budget but it sounded like
067we it's almost like a similar to what the tech school was this is they presented it was an unbalanced budget last time we said can't you balance the budget if you're going to present it to us do we have any say in the budget that get this comes to us or is it basically you know accept this we've put it through I think this is what Ron's point was you know the other thing I would like to learn more about the IQ too maybe I don't think this is the right place but I think they provided no I mean they've provide a lot of help to our school in so many different ways I'm not sure I understand it very well I know you do thank you but uh maybe we can because if I
068get a budget that has all this on there I really can't I interpreter and see what's bad and what's good in the budget well I know nothing about what they're doing so if there's a way for us to learn more about what they do I yeah and I think one way to kind of help you understand the different things that the IU takes on is you know they look for needs in the community and then they find ways to meet those needs and then they find ways to pay uh for those needs being met so for example in our area there we didn't have the Head Start providers and Pre-K accounts providers and so the IU um you know basically got accredited to do all of those things and applied and was able to get
069those accounts through the state um and and the federal government and so those things get funded through the state through the federal government and they're the ones who um who run those programs and those things we don't pay for those are the things that either paying for with those government funds but it's it's things like that you know like different Adult Services they basically whenever there's kind of a need a county-wide need they look for okay how can we help serve service more people and how can we you know how can we pull in money to pay for us servicing more people I think it's what they do is great I'm not trying to minimize that I'm just wondering what their relationship is with the school district and how you what are the services that
070they're providing that we have to provide and therefore we need to pay them to provide it because we would otherwise be providing it so I think it's great that they're involved in all sorts of different things you know to some degree but I just think there needs to be some clarity as to what our funds are being utilized and that's this so this is the what our funds are used for which is what you're going to see which I can email all of you which is the breakdown of this is what those funds go to and then the other funds that come directly from us are on a per student basis of different programs that we are utilizing and kids that we're sending and then it's the cost of that particular program for for that
071group so we'll make sure that the February finance committee when that budget is presented tries to separate those two different funding trades because there is some confusion in terms of different ways that we pay the IU and the services they provide so we'll try to get a pretty condensed list I've also taken some notes and I'll make sure we've got the Dr Hoffman to discuss some of the other issues that we're discussed today yes Uncle Bucks County Technical School Mr Corbin but thank you sir I got three components to my presentation tonight the first one is about looking at the students and how they Excel congratulations to Mr Kozak he is our welding fabrication instructor Evan schoffer Connor Sheehan Nick Bolton software placed second in the Pennsylvania skills District 11 fabrication welding fabrication they literally
072had a project that was hand delivered to them they had to open it up and actually build for the first time looking at diagrams which was a a hitch cargo carry that goes on the back of a car so the global welding and bending of metal and so forth interesting enough there was five industry professionals from Ingersoll Rand and jgm USA which were judging the the competition the students actually took second place and each student received a three thousand dollar scholarship kudos to the gentleman and their Professor second Layla Cotter placed in the Pennsylvania form show she placed second in Showmanship and third place and obstacles for our first year senior age group in a form show so congratulations to her this is a little unusual but I think it's worth worth talking about Jeff
073and Michelle James received honor honorary Keystone degree at the PA Farm Show again to Convention Center the parents had three upper bucks Tech students children who were in Keystone degrees Abigail 2023 Anna 2022 and Dakota in 2022. so there's a family that is really stuck together and worked really well with the vote tech school so congratulations to them next are placements I do this every month I think it's really important that we understand that our students are out in the workplace Hartman Inc Sellersville Family Dental but the um mechanical Valley B excuse me Ciocca Collision Air Force buy shop dairy farms J.R Bromley and b z bkz contractors all have students in their shops uh which are looking to expand their educational knowledge in that particular field and last but not least the January student
074of the month uh Miss Isabella Emily is a student in our Healthcare careers program and a senior at Pennridge High School Emily is a first honor student and received outstanding level one award in her program she's surveyed as the skills USA vice president skillsusa District reporter Emily is OSHA and CPR first aid certified has earned many certifications to prepare for the health care industry and after graduation she plans to pursue a career in a registered nurse so congratulations to Emily and we did have a little blip because of the way these schedules were put together I want to report on a December student of the month Cole Anderson Cole is a third year student at the megatronics program well-rounded student place two placed on two ice hockey teams he serves as co-captain at the Pennridge
075junior varsity and is a valued member of the team club he also serves as the USA skills representative for the past two years that is my report thank you and our next meeting is Thursday February 16 2023. thank you Mr President well to the Village Community Education Foundation good evening the Pennridge community Education Foundation group met on Saturday January the 7th the group's main focus right now is planning for a lovely evening the fundraising and recognition opportunities so that is scheduled for Tuesday April the 25th just 90 days away which goes quickly when you're organizing and planning the Pennridge Community Education Foundation website is linked to the Pennridge website and if you go to the community button on the main ribbon there you can navigate to Community Education Foundation website last week an email went
076out to the community asking for nominees for the bcef friends of Education that award will be presented at a lovely evening nominees can be teachers coaches administrators support staff or members of the community who have enhanced the education of students through hard work dedication or longevity so those nominations actually close on January the 27th which I think is Saturday so that's coming up and again that will be presented on April the 25th at the Sellersville theater I did miss the next meeting is scheduled for Thursday February the second thank you I have a question on this and just it just ties in with what we learned at the IU recently but the the Community Foundation what what do they provide back to the school district itself like financially what is the Community Foundation so there
077was some discussion about scholarships that they fundraised for and then award back to graduating seniors at the end of the year there's a handful about that they fundraise money for do they also do grants for the teachers many grants that they apply for we approved some last year that that's the biggest money all of the money that is raised through the PCF comes back into the solution and I think that's really important because we had this a lot of and it's just for the community as well as confirming what my knowledge is which may be limited but we see a lot of advertisement for private schools and the eitc so that you can designate your income tax to stay local with if you chose to to send it to a particular private school that you
078wanted but the eitc can also be sent to Our Community Foundation correct so we so as opposed to sending our dollars your personal income tax dollars to Harrisburg where they distributed around the state you could designate to go your eitc your input your your local I'm sorry your state tax your income tax and have it go to the foundation and then it would say local within our Pennridge Community which is a pretty huge deal yeah so we should probably make sure that that's enough so Mr Mr Russell just um to to be clear it is a it is a big deal and it is potentially a source for those people who are interested in doing stuff the poor people start sending us checks the eitc program is usually it has to be tied to a
079particular project that is qualifying under the eitc regulations so for instance my school district did a TV studio and you know solicit people to to especially businesses who were interested to provide money for that qualifying project I would encourage Ms patiki and the bcef and the board to take a deeper look into the eitc credit um pretty sure Mr dobbert is writing furiously because it takes money off of his of his budget and look at projects that would qualify to get them qualified because I do think that there's an exceptional amount of potential in that if it's aligned with you know kind of the right project or something that's interesting to people so stem technology things like that if that makes any sense no that would agree um I know that they this is something
080that when I back when I was going to the PCF meetings it's something that the pcef group has wanted to pursue for a long time but they need help so this is again another opportunity for people in the community if you want to join pcef they're eager always to have new members how does that budget come I didn't get that part about how it comes out of our budget like we were not saying is is that if we if there's an eitc project for a new TV studio which would be built in the school and supported by monies raised by pcef for that particular project it's something that Mr daubert doesn't have to pay for does his budget and so I don't know Mr Glover well I know well enough to know that anytime you
081can offload an expense to somewhere else he's okay with that he even occasionally cracks a smile about it so I'm all for that and that's what I think that that's that's I kind of wanted to provide some context for it because I think Mr Russell is on to something and I think it is worth um considering more comments questions all right thank you you're an old business sale business actually I'd like to make a comment of old business luckily our meeting isn't going too long so last month the board approved by a five to four margin the reduction of credits and social studies from four to three this changed our 50-year tradition of requiring four credits of social studies for graduation four is also what the vast majority of other schools in our area require
082we also made this change despite a massive outpouring of support to vote this down in past controversy surrounding this board we've always had two sides to debate asking advocacy Dei were all significant issues and the public was divided by what we should do however the social studies debate there was no other side the students the faculty and demonstration the parents and others in the community all asked that we use a board to take a pause sort out the entire graduation requirements this included a petition signed by over 1 000 residents of conditions run by the students that had almost 200 signatures and an overwhelming emotional response during our public comments section on last month's board meetings the entire Community was aligned behind the idea of slowing the process down and doing it right despite all
083that feedback five of our members ignored the evidence and proceeded to rush this through Angling provides policy approved by the board at the last meeting was new to four members of the board and was communicated to the public only at the time of the meeting when someone left a copy of the new policy of the anxious to the board meeting the public was completely blindsided it's not a good example of transparency since the policy passed I decided to look at the reasons for why this should stand as a new policy despite many opportunities the only response was through public comment during the meetings the only reason to pass this that I got was enabling our students to have more choice in their career pathway in the school this sounds like a great reason right if
084you give them more choice and kids can focus on what they want to do in life and take courses that are more appropriate to their success there is however one problem with that theory it is the fact that we're dealing with teenagers whose thoughts and actions don't always align with our views maybe just maybe our students don't have the same motivation that we do as adults maybe their time they reach their senior year they are more motivated to get out of school than to add on more additional optional courses maybe I don't see this as an added benefit maybe they don't even know what they want to do as a career as it turns out not everyone in high school was as driven as we would like take for example the benefit we give to
085our seniors we offer the prize late arrival the early dismissal option sure you're familiar if they have a senior if you talk to seniors who haven't they're very excited about it happening who doesn't want to sleep later or get it out early from school so I asked the administration how many students are lucky to get this opportunity that's one way to learn that 72 percent of our seniors have that option 72 percent 60 percent of those could take another half credit course 60 percent of those 72 percent could take about 60 of the students could take another half credit course in their senior years but they choose not to that's right they have the choice to take an optional course already and they don't take only 60 to 60 percent of them so now we're
086giving another uh students another credit of choice and it sold to us that they have to take these credits and just can't do a study hall that is also not correct the average graduate of Penn Ridge has over 26 credits when they graduate our requirement is only 24. to 14 and a half of those credits have a limited Choice which leaves nine and a half credits that are completely up to the student these options they have this of course does not apply to the technical school who choose to use their electives to go to technical school most will meet that minimum easily and will take most of their required courses before your senior year or by the end of the first semester this will actually give seniors an option to skip their elective if in
087the first and second semester and you've got the great option of late arrival in the early dismissal uh with 72 percent of the students already taken one of these I think it's a good possibility of the bill yeah this will happen so we all although we were told that more choice is such a great idea there's no evidence that the students will use this additional choice in reality this will most likely lower standards and within our rankings which no one wants there are other reason why this decision is a mistake there's a current problem where a student can take a course and drop it without payment currently you can drop it at any time with no repercussions next year I believe it will be you have to drop it in the first week so students
088could register for course which they're required to do driving and then not have to use that credit for graduation because they have enough so we need to realize that these students sometimes are more focused on enjoying their senior year than taking advantage of a more Choice option and now in addition to this we are proposing to reduce our American history from two years to one year to accommodate this additional Choice does anyone really believe that this is a good idea I think we spoke about it earlier on top of that we recently had a meeting to discuss the merits of going to Block's schedule which Dave talked about in the meeting those who surveyed other schools we were overwhelmed by the positive aspects of this in fact we had no negative abuse and I understand
089we're moving forward with discussing this in general so if we switch to block scheduling according to the administration they'll have up to four more credits of choice of electives because they they obviously get that with block scheduling so that would easily suffice for the proponents of more Choice without sacrificing over one year of American History or one end one year obsessions it and I know they can optionally take it but kids don't always take what we offer equivalent and obviously from an unbiased Observer at last discussion at a committee meeting there are tons of more questions and answers about what we should do for next year we misled the public and how much it would cost we don't have a plan for how each student will meet state requirements next year and we're losing out
090on one year of American history in the process to summarize since everyone except the five bedroom Flipboard is against this policy for reasons the policy seem to make no sense and will cause our students to Performance or drop I believe in its Powerman that we reverse our decision a high functioning board should always realize its mistakes and correct them the public demands it for members of the board still support it will only hurt our students and our community in the future what really shocked me the other week is how the board listen uh to the public and makes decisions based on their on the opinion of the public that happened last meeting when the public showed up and enforced and asked for Middle School baseball the board promptly supported the public what the public demanded
091I don't understand why we didn't do that for social studies much like baseball when an error by the umpires made we now use instant replay to determine the decision was not correct and fix the error I asked the five members of the board to reconsider this decision based on both the Public's response and the other facts the facts that I've mentioned tonight I hope at least one of the five of those who voted for this can see the huge negatives this presents and has the wisdom to allow the right people the experts and the experts in our Administration to take the time to do The Graduate graduation requirements correctly I believe our students and our community deserve this thank you um rather than rehash this I don't see anyone in the room who hasn't already
092heard everything that we've all said I'm just going to refer everyone to the minutes that were approved tonight from the December meeting where I thoroughly explained this in detail as the policy chair and put out the facts regarding this and ask Mrs Chenoweth to link under old business to um to those minute you know to that piece of the minutes of what I've said so that it's clear if people are looking for it won't rehash so so what is uh is anyone disagree with what I said I mean is is there a reason to go from four to three besides more Choice which we will have a lot more of but I know we usually don't rehash things but this is truly important decision to just walk away from it I know the community is
093100 behind us and that just bothers me that when we ignore that it does bother me too that people say the community that it's the whole Community um but I will say this um I think you said some comments that are again not completely accurate with your statement that were taken away um an American history course which is absolutely not true um the American history courses are staying in effect um 8th 9th and 10th and then keeping the world with 11th I will also say that you can't say out of one side of your mouth and not you specifically but in general that everyone wants this and then say outside the other side of your mouth that when given choice they won't take it that doesn't make sense I'm just saying you said it you
094said everyone wants this so you can't you can't have both everyone wants this but given the choice they won't take it and then um I wanted to bring it up I I it didn't come to me when we discussed Middle School baseball because you're right we listen to the community and we all agreed to have Middle School baseball but you can't compare apples to oranges and wear its apples and oranges is if we don't move forward with Middle School baseball we take away that entire opportunity for our boys to play they don't get to play at all there's no opportunity going from four social studies credits to three they still have the opportunity to take four social studies credits not taking that away and that's about anybody else want to say anything about why they
095still support us a community here I just it is apples and orange I mean but you on the one hand you're talking about academics the the actual education of the children which is our primary responsibility and we listen to and look I've wanted Middle School baseball since the first time someone asked for Middle School baseball years ago that's not the point the point is that we had one night of public comment and yes everyone was very you know emotional and wanting this thing and yes if we said we didn't want to look into it they wouldn't be playing but to say that this does not impact our students and could impact them negatively is just completely inaccurate it will impact 100 of our students and even the email that was sent out with the inaccuracies
096about the cost it was stated that we did this because 20 percent of the students go to Tech School well it's not clear that the tech school students we had some tech school students that spoke to us it's not clear that this benefits them anyway because they already have space in their schedules and when we set a goal to do something to improve our educational offerings for the school our goal should be let's do something that's great for a hundred percent of students let's not just single out groups and some of the students it was kind of sad to me that some of the students picked up on it and said please don't pit us you know kids that want to take AP courses against kids that are in the tech school don't do that
097tell us and I agree with them they shouldn't be pitted against one another as competing groups but again to say that this doesn't impact our students that it's not going to change anything it's not going to cost anything those statements are inaccurate and simply pointing back to inaccurate statements doesn't really address the problem again I'm just gonna it's frustrating when people continue to put out blatantly false information and the the facts the facts are clear we've gone over the facts you keep suggesting that people have space that don't have space and you're saying you don't want to pit people against other people but literally you want to deny opportunities to a specific group of students because you're afraid other students may choose something you don't think they should choose and again to Jordan's point what
098are you afraid of if everybody wants it they're not going to choose it everybody can stay because it's actually there actually are changes we talked about this at the last meeting there are changes that are going to be made that has been established that is a fact and as far as these I'm not afraid of students not choosing social studies I mean if they if they you know I I think that you should take four years of social studies there's a lot of value in it we wanted to add content it doesn't make sense to me to to cut it out but you're not doing something to benefit 100 of the students you're in fact doing something that's targeted at a specific group of students which we could have addressed by simply offering different diploma
099options which other schools do and it's easily accessible to the public to see it online I found those examples myself schools right in our local area that offer different diploma levels to tech school students and home you know the sending school students that can be done that could be done right now today we could do that that was an option that would have taken care of the problem in the interim while we prepare the block scheduling that we all seem to agree is a great thing and will alleviate the other problems that we have and when you say that it's not true that these children the students already have choices in their schedule I mean it's been asked and answered on a number of occasions we've asked if tech school students currently can't fit in
100their credits if Dr Bolton has shown us the percentages of students that currently have space in their schedules so those are facts and I'm not going to belabor the point but I do think that Ron did make a good point just because something is done doesn't mean that with the benefit of time you can't look back and say you know what maybe those scores of people that came and talked to us from all different stakeholder groups maybe there's some Merit and listening to what they have to say taking the option of how we can fix this immediate problem right now today and allowing the block scheduling to come through and fix it permanently one comment all the briefly that that week when we were looking at the district data report was a reminder of how
101many students are enrolled in a tech school and it's about 20 percent of the high school population and I remember when Mr wurz was appointed a couple of board members commented on appreciating in his application that he talked about looking at the 80 percent of the students and not not overlooking those and only focusing on some of the smaller groups and it seems like this decision the graduation requirements decision is focused on the 20 of the the high school population so I was reminded of that last week anything else on a new business all right moving on to public we do not have any public comments for sign up for the second part of the EP announcements our next scheduled our next school board meeting will be held Monday February 27 2023. I will make
102a motion for adjourner can I get a second second thank you Mr Thomas let us know in the live streams off