10 24 22 PSD October Monthly School Board Meeting

001stand for the expand to swing the flag of the United States Mrs Spanish Clemens here Mrs blomgren here this is jaken here Mr cormack here Mrs Collins here Mr rice here Mr Russell here and Mrs in case folks didn't hear Mr cormack is away at a conference and so is participating by phone I'd like to make a motion um I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to take policy 217 off the table um embed the chart attached in slide number five that I have set for tonight's preview and add policy 217 to the agenda for uh board vote tonight without any additional reads on our policy committee reports um there's been quite a bit of discussion for the last president there needs to be a second before we have a discussion the

002rice and seconded by Mrs Mrs and this is just to take the policy off put it onto the agenda and I would ask that we would and password the comments I don't know so so if the vote is on just sorry lawyer stuff um on which section where are we putting it yeah . okay so yeah so yeah so there's a motion in the second president has indicated that all discussion about the content of that will be allowed during that motion so right now it's just a quote to a group to amend the agenda and vote on it at that section of the agenda and the past right as you stated correct right could you know to pass it now after our comments and open up the public comment no what I heard was to

003take it off the table and put it in the section 11 right and then to vote on it with disposing of any second reads and right and to pass the system right before there's before there's any action so my recommendation is is that the members vote on the motion to amend and then when we get to section 11 everyone make whatever comment that they want at that point and we can take public comment on the issue yeah there was a majority that actually asked for the 217 policy to be added to the agenda it was not and therefore we're asking for it now to be moved again to the agenda into the policy correct section but we should not vote on it at the beginning it should be in the policy course where the other

004policies so so I understand that that's what the motion is going to be and we're going to take public comments which we're required to do Under The Sunshine act so if we approve this motion by a majority it would go in the policy reports it can go at the beginning of the policy to get it done with so right now there's a motion in a second there needs to make the majority to vote to amend the agenda to put it into section 11. okay so yeah the motion is to add policy 217 to section 11 a policy committee report of the agenda all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed I thought you're on speaker Mr Spanish Clemens yes Mrs blomgren hi Mrs jaken yes Mr cormack Mrs Cullen no Mr Russell no Mr

005rice yes Mr wurz no no so the motion carries five four and we're going to move on to public comment and according to 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 for confidentiality and privacy rights specific comments regarding particular individuals must be communicated privately to the school board and superintendent via email at psdschoolboard at pennridge.org okay so the first person on the list for public comment I believe it says Joseph Pearson and when you come down please state your name and municipality okay I see I saw your errors so then it's Robin Reed first please Robin Reed Perkasie Borough in front of you tonight is a petition signed by 193 Pennridge students

006all in favor of keeping a four-year history requirement I'd like to draw your attention to the last column of this petition labeled future career path a driving Factor behind this graduation requirement policy is student freedom and the idea that students going into non-history-based careers aren't in favor of this four-year requirement however 76 of these signees are going into non-history-based careers most into stem careers like surgeons or doctors or pediatricians but also quite a few into vocational careers although I don't like your proposed plan I understand what the board is trying to accomplish in some research I found the other schools that feed into the tech school Quakertown and Palisades have different graduation requirements for their tech school students quakertown's national ranking is 3051. Palisades is 2573. and Penn ridges where all graduation requirements are the

007same is 5221. the solution to this problem is simple different graduation requirements in fact both Palisades and Quakertown require four credits for all four core classes for their all-day high school students rather than arguing to take away in one Department maybe the board should look at districts above them and consider adding requirements in math and science not removing the requirement from the history Department I leave you with a question haven't we given you enough I've spent the last week as a machine I've brought this petition to school a farmer's market my last homecoming dance my last parade and my last football game it has been all I have thought about it has been it's followed me to college visits and zoom meetings any time that I could bring this up I do because it means

008so much to me if it's not me if it's not my petition maybe you could book to the teacher's presentation the price this will cost the burden that you're adding to their back if it's not the teachers look to your community the Deluge of emails I know that you've had I never thought that I would see the Pepperidge Community United like this shouldn't all of this be enough the answer is yes if this policy truly came from a board member thinking that they were doing the right thing the response from the community the teachers and especially these students would be enough and it would mean something but it's not that reason clearly you have what you need to make the right decision don't make the wrong one for the wrong reasons thank you we do

009have the petition signed by the students and I too took note Miss read of the different career Paths of the students who signed it so now Joseph did you want to come down okay occasionally municipalities hey I'm Joseph Pearson I'm from shop on Pennsylvania I'm a big part of the orchestra Department in the school here I'd like to go on record saying I'm not specifically talking about the social studies department but I would like to bring out just the idea of getting students a choice and pushing for more electives I think that there's multiple solutions to every type of problem and when we're faced with a problem like Dr Bolton has stated at the last meeting that I was at of trying to push for the best education opportunity possible I don't know if personally

010I would go about that by giving students more choice I think that you can point a resource in the right direction but you can't make it win the race um I think there's a big push for more electives more choice choosing whether you can do history or not choosing what you can do tech school or not I think it's up to the students uh like in particular enough for the teachers to motivate the students in order to take advantage of the great opportunities that already have at hand image thank you [Applause] okay next is Dakota ornament murtha foreign Township I was unable to speak at the last uh curriculum meeting so I thought I would bring what I had prepared for the last meeting to speak to you here over the course of my four

011years in high school I've discovered that I am a lover of History because of this I plan to pursue a bachelor in arts degree that will allow me to split my time between Studio arts and art history I'm going to focus on museum studies despite this I didn't always love history but I did know I loved English so in my freshman year I took Humanities social studies and I fell in love with that class and how it allowed for a melding of English and history I had a dynamic curriculum that allowed students to build their writing analyzing and public speaking skills I understand that the proposed changes to the social studies program would involve drastic changes or an end to the humanities program I cannot stress enough how important this class was for my high

012school journey and how as I went on to other English and history courses I was able to make connections between the two and see how the classes complemented each other as it progressed into 10th grade I entered Mr cousinos AP US History course and I started to realize how much I truly loved history the class was able to delve into and explore facets of U.S history that I had never before heard of and mature and nuanced way that I didn't think I could achieve and I do not think could be achieved in a class of 9th graders the idea that the past not just of the U.S but the whole world directly informs our world in the future was fascinating to me and something I was able to further explore and Mrs Newman's AP World

013History course this class opened Windows to new areas of history that had never been touched on in many years of U.S history to have light bulbs go off in my head as to why Brazil speaks Portuguese instead of Spanish the line of demarcation and the origin of the idea of the third world Cold War era alliances well I understand the importance of learning U.S history I think that AP World History is just as important almost every student at Pennridge has grown up in the United States learning its history from the world around them the same cannot be said for naturally learning the history of the rest of the world and world history classes may be the only space for some many students to ever gain a true understanding of other world culture cultures and peoples

014thank you okay next is Nikki Reed Nikki leave Perkasie I will be saying the same public comment I spoke at last meeting for those of you who were not here there to hear it I'm speaking to you as a concerned Pennridge senior throughout high school I have taken Humanities AP U.S history honors world history and I'm currently taking AP psychology in the past three years of school I've gained valuable skills from all of the history classes I've taken not only have I learned important lessons in memorization interpreting historical events but I have developed relevant skills in writing at an advanced level analyzing texts with older English organizing thoughts Making Connections conclusions and much more as a student pursuing a career in medicine decreasing the amount of time students study these skills concerns me have you

015heard of a doctor who didn't know how to make diagnostic conclusions with set of symptoms or a biologist who didn't know how to properly write a lab report secondly understanding historical events from diverse perspectives allow students to appreciate cultures and peoples from all walks of life without a solid understanding of how different cultures work how can a student prepare themselves to work with different backgrounds in a professional setting throughout history students learn a lot more than how to spit out facts the proposed plans to change Social Studies classes requirements are not properly setting up any student regardless of career path for success additionally history and social studies concerns a large amount of different subtopics it contains American history world history and cultures of psychology and government if students are not required to take a fourth

016year of one of these subjects most of them will not and instead take early release later Bible or an alternate class because they think it's more directed to their career path however social studies skills span a large number of these topics that students can apply to any careers choice and are essential to a functioning Society finally choice is a major concern for changing the graduation requirements as a senior I can tell you that fulfilling the credits that I needed to graduate while still taking classes I enjoyed was not an issue for me I was able to take the minimum two years of a foreign language continue taking Orchestra and choir for four full years and add AP science and math classes into my classes that I wanted to take when I graduate I will have

017surpassed them in a minimum graduation requirements additionally I still have the choice of lunch release with my schedule I know your hope is to make this true for all students while we may not convince you to stop this policy I urge the board to find other implementations social studies is an essential skill in students repertoire and can allow students to have a more successful College and Career experience thank you [Applause] Dave and Kim [Music] all right hello my name is David Kemp on a senior at penrith high school and I'm here on behalf of the remaining marching band members who could not be here today due to scheduling issues but they are in agreement with what I have to say it's my final year my education will not be hindered by these preparations for the

018future curriculum and I should probably be at band practice right now but I'm not I care too dearly for this it's not my intention to offend or provoke or criticize any of these actions I just want to address my personal concerns and the concerns of my people I can't bear the thought of a student missing out on the experiences I've had in high school a thank you comes to niana's friend who thought Islam was polytheistic and couldn't point to India on a map before world history that's just what they thought at first it shocked me but that someone could know so a little bit upon further consideration where else are they supposed to learn these things at little YouTube documentaries their families look it up in our world you just expect people to know these

019things and why shouldn't you according to raise the United States of America we surprisingly learned very little about the remaining 95 of the world can I tell you something I've never had a unit on the Roman Empire the Roman Empire The Architects of Western Civilization were going to in sixth grade and we just didn't have the time we had two weeks of school left we got a presentation or two on in world history but that was all just for historical context we couldn't manage to make room for the most iconic political state in human history and now we want to make less room the United States is not the only country in the world but if people are taught that you're giving them a frighteningly dangerous sense of self-nationalism and they won't know when they've

020gone too far we need to be able to compare our country with the rest of them we need to know why the United States is so great so it doesn't fall apart in its own arrogance students without a world history class will not know nearly as enough about globalization Western imperialism decolonization the innate causes and authoritarian Society these are all necessary aspects of worldly knowledge to understand the current state of our Global World and yet they are confined within these classes that just narrowly manage to discuss them sufficiently and students are not going to choose this class if they're not going to choose if it's not required that is students will often lack that initial curiosity to select the course because they don't realize how uneducated they are in the in the subject and should

021that lack of curiosity become the defining characteristic of the argument to remove its requirement then I ask what exactly is the point of a required class in the first place if not to Enlighten the imperficient and stimulate their dormant Fascinations to my understanding all educational administrations aim to ensure that youths are prepared for their lives ahead and I'd like to address that coming from someone who's experienced having to learn 100 Years of American history in just three weeks the last three weeks before the test we did not have enough time to also cover World Topics in their proper depth we can't address history like this it's all we have left the past is on what is what the future is built on and I'm not trying to sound all right mostly we're just worried we're

022just frustrated and just concerned about this issue and please we have a good thing going please don't ruin it thank you [Applause] good evening my carbonara Parker C Borough uh former Pennridge grad of 2014. School Board is about to vote on a policy for social studies that hasn't had the proper exploration research development and discussion on this important topic before you consider your vote I urge you to watch last night last Monday's curriculum meeting which was awesome please consider several aspects about the proposal this proposal isn't to lower the requirement it seeks to eliminate world history as a required course this would ultimately cause disruption and have a harmful impact on the students here even though students are only required to have three courses of social studies they still require world history in Pennsylvania the

023standards are for students to learn world history no matter what if we eliminate that important material will be eliminated and we would be essentially cramming instead of learning furthermore this proposal eliminates a very valuable ninth grade Humanities course eliminating that puts a hindrance on preparation for future learning from students moreover this would force students to take AP classes in 9th and 10th grade years in freshman and sophomore the results show these students at this grade level are not ready for a challenging material not all but some that this course might teach test scores will surely Decline and might affect the school's academic ratings most importantly again this proposal seeks to qualify something that hasn't gone through the proper voting research and development my solution as a former student with a political science degree in history

024minor for the five school board members who are in favor of lowering the grad requirement please show the community compelling evidence that this is warranted we need a compelling presentation from you as the teachers did in previous meetings there is money of opposition on this issue students faculty and the community members I ask that you take more time on this matter please talk out the differences you might have the long-term effect of this vote will only be bad please don't make this a hyper partisan issue it doesn't need to be thank you all [Applause] good evening Carissa McDonald High School senior I would like to preface that I am passionate about the stem Fields I have taken every advanced math class possible and intend to major in chemistry I am the ideal example of a

025student that would elect to take AP stem courses over history however world history changed the course of my education because now I'm applying to liberal arts colleges to continue to broaden my Outlook on the world going back to 8th grade and participating in mock Congressional debates I discovered my palette talent and public speaking leading me to participate in the semi-finals team last year and debate president now the reason for my success is because of the history track set up for Middle School all the way until senior year reconstructing the history curriculum will cut these historical applications to fit content in and leave the next debater unnoticed however I made the mistake not to take AP US History because of the very reason proposed already thinking stem bound students like me do not need history yet

026requiring the world history credit was my push into electing the take AP World History because I felt I had developed the necessary skills to be a historian at the college level it takes time to develop these skills by reconstructing the history curriculum leaves students like myself feeling like they are stuck in one track the impact of having rural history is has been widespread if I had not taken this course I wouldn't have left Spanish class A few weeks ago excited that I could talk about La Reconquista Ferdinand and Isabella and the formation of the Spanish monarchy in Spain or famously but wants to send Columbus to the East Indies and what became the Americas and because of the world history class I am heavily looking into colleges with study abroad programs to to see what

027I've learned about in class in person to improve my fluency in the Spanish language and bonds with other people without world history I would have not learned in death about my own religion Not Having learned about the foundations of the Lutheran Church until only last year if you elect to reconstruct a history curriculum know that I would go to some college intending to stick me in a lab all day with a linear outlook on society world history convinced me why it is so important to be bilingual in this diverse world and expand my educational comfort zone to better my own country by looking to the rest of the world and appreciating our own culture unanimously I am not just one of the 10 of AP students here I'm a Pennridge student that needs to understand

028the world is Broad and we need to know it thank you [Applause] and then right in and reading your next hello and good evening my name is Nora Redding and I'm currently a senior at Pennridge I support maintaining the current credit requirement of sorts for social studies credits as a part of the upcoming generation of Americans I feel that the requirement of world history is something that I have greatly benefited from especially since maybe it wouldn't have been a class I would have originally chosen the requirement of four years of social study credits is something that students will continue to benefit from the future it is important that we teach students not only to be great American citizens but also citizens of the world taking world history has helped me to understand the history behind

029many current conflicts and America's involvement and and place in this world I believe that there is so much value in requiring students to take a credit of world history and that should continue thank you foreign [Applause] hello my name is Miranda Redding and I'm a junior here at Pennridge I'm also currently taking world history throughout my high school career history has done so much to shape my thoughts ideas and understanding of our country and the rest of the world change the social studies requirement we don't have the positive impact on our school that you may think instead of choosing other classes students would opt for early release lunch release and late arrival instead of learning the tools that they would need for Life After High School before world history I had too much basic knowledge

030missing when the world around us including Medieval Europe ancient empires and most importantly the Magna Carta that helped shape our Bill of Rights I urge you all to vote against change the social studies credit requirement and think about what you want our future students to learn and the tools they would they would learn from the current history classes [Applause] thank you genius I couldn't see him Jeannie West a math teacher at the high school good evening my name is Jamie West I grew up in Perkasie I was a pen Ridge alumni class in 1996 East Rock Hill resident from 2004 to 2022 daibler parent from 2018 to 2022 and a math teacher at the high school since 2001. I have sat on district-wide committees to help make Pennridge a great District I have always spoken

031positively of Pennridge and the opportunities that students have in this District but I am fearful where the district is headed with decisions of the past years that the school board is making I have seen science courses change and lab periods removed swim class is removed from the elementary and secondary levels curriculums needing to change book choices cutting up health and PE requirements and now talk a decreasing history requirements as a math major in college I was required to take courses outside my focus art science writing and history they may have not always been my first choice as a young adult to take but they helped prepare me for my future opened my eyes to topics I didn't know and created new passions that I enjoyed I won a district that is preparing all of our

032students for the diverse World they live in a district with high standards and not decreasing curriculums and requirements a district not afraid to celebrate diversity in every student a district that strives to make sure every student feels that they belong I want a district that is not going backwards in time with its policies I want this for my child and every child that attends Pennridge unfortunately my child is not going to have his name on a Pennridge diploma like myself it saddens me to say that as an alumnus but I see surrounding districts doing a better job currently I moved out of this District two months ago partly because of decisions this school board has been making not every family has the means and the opportunity to do that for their child I want you

033to remember the purpose of your job as a school board member help provide a great well-rounded education for every child living in the Pennridge School District thank you no actually you're on the agenda but you need to go on the second comment period because you're not speaking to agenda Obsession on the agenda we can't speak to Executives that's on the agenda on the agenda it's on the agenda it's on the agenda but we can't only to announce we're having one it's not something that we can speak to you can speak the second period a little bit before we go into executive session okay thank you all right Adam oh no sorry Adam is not so Angela shuttle thank you for putting the pronunciation figured it would be happy good evening my name is Angela shuttle

034and I am a social studies teacher here at Pennridge High School as well as a former student class of 2005. I'm here tonight to ask the members of the board to refrain from voting on the proposed change to the graduation requirements that will reduce the required social studies credits from four to three over the last few weeks my colleagues supervisors administrators and our students and Community have presented brilliantly on the benefits of social studies education and how this reduction would negatively impact the vast majority of Pennridge students it has been mentioned countless times so the reason for this reduction is to increase student Choice when it comes to course selection implying that there's not enough choice for students When selecting their courses from year to year and that reducing social studies credits would somehow create

035more opportunity and solve that problem as the graduation requirements currently stand students can choose on average three credits worth of just various electives each year that they're in high school and these electives come from all departments in the school while some selections currently have to fulfill a Humanities or Creative and Performing Arts requirement there are still plenty of opportunities for students to take whatever course they want and for the most part whenever they want to put it in perspective I'd like to share some numbers to reflect the amount of choice students have When selecting their various electives there are currently 106 corsets that would count towards the humanities requirement there are 57 courses that would count towards the Creative and Performing Arts requirement and if this were to have passed over the summer as originally

036proposed there would have been 138 courses or votech shops that would have counted towards the steam requirements the opposing argument might suggest that while there are all these classes to take students do not have enough flexibility in their schedule to take what they want to take that is also not necessarily the case many Juniors have at least two and a half credits available outside of their core courses which could equate up to five different courses to take while many seniors currently have up to five free periods in their day to take anywhere from five to ten different classes overall students here need 24 credits to graduate but with a number of class periods each day at the high school students can actually graduate with up to 28 credits by those numbers alone students can choose

037to take up to four additional courses beyond the minimum to graduate as I mentioned the graduation requirements as they stand allow for plenty of choice for the approximately 2400 Pennridge High School students if there is concern about credit fulfillment for a particular group of students we ask that you take the time to address those unique concerns and not uproot the entire system that would negatively impact the majority of our students thank you thank you [Applause] and then Bob Cousino you're on deck if you want to Tammy rissmuller I'm a math teacher hit the button oh there you go uh Tammy wrist Miller math teacher here at the high school so good evening my name is Tammy Russ Miller I've been a math teacher here at Pepperidge high school for over 26 years I've seen so

038many positive changes over my tenure here a growing Community new facilities the addition of the latest technology unfortunately I've also seen some negative changes changes that are detrimental to our students changes that contribute to our falling standards a few years ago we stopped requiring seniors to maintain a certain number of credits for the year and now we only require them to take the number of classes required to graduate with this change I have had college-bound students opting out of a fourth year of math specifically in AP math class so they can leave early on senior release if we drop the social studies requirements only three credits their department will see the same there are so many great opportunities for cross-curricular Education during senior year in teaching statistics I always enjoy when my students see the

039application of statistical Concepts in their psychology class our requirements decrease so do our standards and consequently our school ranking these rankings affect our students directly if one of our students applies to a college and they have the same grades and scores as someone from another school with a higher ranking the college will take the other student colleges look at rankings as an indication of the standards set by our school please help us in maintaining a high level of rigor and relevance for our students because what hasn't changed in my many years here are my incredible students these incredibly kids right here I have always been proud to say I teach or that I teach at Pennridge High School and I just want what's best for them and their future thank you Mr President will be

040Katie Hart or Caitlin Hart thank you Bob cousino's Toledo burro and Rachel says teacher first I would like to thank the board members who value our expertise as teachers and value the input of our community members by showing up to the board meeting last Monday and listening to us as a teacher I have an ethical responsibility to my students and this ethical responsibility is to make decisions that are in the best interest of all of my students not just a particular group of students this board also has an ethical responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interest of all of our students not just a specific group of students this issue was originally raised by a particular board member that wanted to create more choice for a specific group of students this being

041our BowTech students I agree if there is a group of students who are lacking Choice then we should explore what we can do about that what we shouldn't do is sacrifice the academic needs of a specific group of students to create choice for another group of students let me be more specific we have shown with an ample amount of evidence that this decision will harm many of our students at Penn Bridge AP enrollment and scores will decrease Court dip will diminish the development of critical reading and writing and thinking skills will decrease and state standards won't be adequately met I teach apus history here at Pennridge AP US History is the second most popular AP course in the nation this AP course in addition to other AP courses will be significantly impacted moving apus history

042ninth grade in my opinion is unethical making 14 year olds take College coursework will have profound mental emotional toll on these students again it is the board's ethical responsibility to what is right for all of our students you will not make decisions make a decision that harms A specific group of students to benefit another group of students we are capable as a district of investigating all potential Avenues for our students and to create a pathway that fits their future endeavors we're currently exploring black scheduling this will create more openings in student schedules it has been mentioned that we should make a business course mandatory this is something we could consider when exploring blog and creating a business course mandate doesn't mean you have to decrease social service by 25 8.9 of Americans own a business

043a hundred percent of our students become American citizens and they need to be well-informed citizens because they will have the ability to vote in our democracy our Administration has spoken against this move our students have spoken out against this move community members have spoken out against this moved and we teachers have spoken out against this move if you vote to decrease those studies you're telling us teachers that our voices don't matter they were just puppets and our expertise doesn't matter to be honest this is not a type of District that I'm interested in working for I'm interested working for a district that has board members that value our voice and expertise a few on this board have shown that our expertise doesn't matter now I ask that the rest of you follow their lead thank

044you [Applause] uh my name is Katie Hart of Sellersville Borough I'm a senior at the high school I took little history last year and it changed everything for me I absolutely loved it but I understand that history is not for everyone and I understand why the board would want to look into this decision to open up to more choice but coming from a student's perspective that's involved in a lot of different activities I have a lot of different friends that go to the tech school do different sports they have different interests I don't think I ever heard of a student complaining that they had to take world history I just mainly heard everybody talking about how much they enjoy their class and I understand that like that's just a personal story of mine that sure

045other people have heard complaints but I just don't see that this is a student's issue I don't hear anybody complaining I just saw all my peers turning into more well-rounded people and saw them start to understand the world around them better and start to understand references that they'd heard their whole lives they just start to understood things more than they ever had before and I just don't see the changing the requirement is an issue for any of the students personally that's all you have to say [Applause] foreign hi my name is Charlie lanehart I am an English teacher here at coverage High School I've been teaching here for 27 years I currently teach AP English Language and Composition or AP line uh World lit honors and World lit academic I'm here in the hopes that

046we will be preserving world history as a requirement for Penn Ridge I teach English they'd be lying is a rhetoric class we learn about argumentation and we read primarily non-fiction and that way it's a bit of a blend between an English class and a social security excuse me social studies class AP Lang is a mixture of Juniors and seniors and the seniors who have been through world history clearly have a much greater awareness of the workings of the world outside of the United States for the younger students the gaps in their knowledge can be breathtaking consider a few examples just a week or two ago in AP Lang so Juniors but only a month into the year the topic of fascism came up in relation to Orwell's 1984. I mentioned Benito Mussolini in class I

047got a lot of blank stares I had a sneaking suspicion so I decided to pull all three of my classes I said raise your hand if you know who Mussolini was only a few did in each class in fact 65 percent nearly two-thirds of my students again mostly new Juniors were unable to tell me anything about Benito Mussolini not a country not a war not which German dictator he was friendly with also just a few weeks ago in my world literature academic class I made an old pun I said denial it's not just the river and again that sneaking suspicion I asked what's the Nile one student answered pretty quickly it's a river I said yes where is it he said in Africa I said great job and I turned to write the next thing

048on the board and he said is that the one George Washington crossed he he realized it was a mistake but finally this one goes back a few years but it's memorable in my world that honors class in 2015 again early in the year I had the students run short research yesterday on a world topic one student chose the NSA spying Scandal where the US NSA was found to be tapping world leaders folks student turned in the final draft peer edited with sources about a woman in Germany named Angela who was upset about the U.S spying on her it was in the news that this woman Angela was very upset that the U.S had tapped her phone and she really wanted something to do about it that woman was of course Angela Merkel who had been

049chancellor of Germany for 10 years at that point he had no idea to be clear this is not on the students they learn what we put in front of them we have to teach them about the world now more than ever the world is interconnected and that is never going away we need world history not as an option but as a requirement if anything I see that two years of world history is a requirement and four of the other districts in Bucks County I'd argued for Penn Ridge to become the fifth thank you [Applause] David Brown good evening my name is Sandy hipoff and I teach seventh grade social studies at South Middle School I have been teaching World Geography for 19 years to seventh graders I understand where the 12 and 13 year olds

050are developmentally and I know what concepts their brains are ready to process I also know how to adapt the challenging textbook we use and bring in supplemental resources so our students can learn the vocabulary and content I feel confident that the students who leave my class at the end of the year do so with the necessary understanding of their place in the world along with the skills that set them up for success in future classes I'm sure the same can be said of many of my colleagues in Pennridge because they are experts in their subject area I point this out because reducing our graduation requirements will drastically shift our Department's curriculum from the middle level to the high school this consequence was outlined for you in the Department's presentation to the curriculum committee last Monday

051to ensure that our district satisfies the Pennsylvania state standards for social studies it is proposed to merge the current sixth grade curriculum of the ancient world with seventh grade's World Geography developing this merged curriculum will be a Herculean task both the sixth grade and seventh grade teachers we struggle each year to cover everything in the curriculum a combined course is too much content for 180 school days so major Concepts in both curricula will have to be cut in order to fit two years worth of curriculum into just one this means a major curriculum rewrite would be necessary this would be unfortunate for several reasons first the district just approved our curriculum last fall and now the taxpayers would have to bear the burden of the cost for another rewrite and new resources for a curriculum

052that had just gone through this lengthy approval process second world geography and the ancient world yes they're under the same social studies umbrella but they are two very different curriculums to compress these two curricula for the purpose of providing a choice to seniors would negatively impact the lower grades since the amount of information and skills covered would have to be reduced these courses need to remain separate to do justice to the content and to our students I am pleading with this board to pay attention to the arguments presented by us teachers and the community members and these amazing students your policy change will have a ripple effect that reaches farther than just a simple reduction in credits please remember that you represent this community of teachers administrators students parents and voting members of this community

053who have overwhelmingly requested that you please maintain this current graduation requirement that we already have in place thank you for your time [Applause] Mr Brown good evening my name is David Brown I am a Humanities English teacher here at Pennridge High School I am a champion of Education the Penn Ridge School District and our students I've taught the children four children actually of current board member members and have even traveled on school ski trips or some of them and I have nothing but positive things to say about these individual students and the job that their parents have done in raising them Henry's is a great place to work partly because of these kids their parents and this community but it's also because of the dedication and experience of outstanding teachers I stand tonight in support

054of my colleagues from the social studies Department dedicated and outstanding teachers and I believe that cutting the number of required social studies credits by 25 percent would be ill-advised for all the reasons my colleagues have already said so please listen to my colleagues please watch the October 17th board meeting the curriculum meeting if you haven't already please listen to the students and the members of the community who are speaking here tonight and thank you to those who have and thank you to those who understand that our teachers are dedicated to maintaining academic standards and fostering well-rounded critical thinking individuals these skills are developed in Social Studies classes and there are no viable reasons to change things as they stand we want Henry's to be a place where teachers want to work where teachers feel heard

055and where teachers are treated like professionals and experts if you care about students care about teachers listen to teachers if you don't we're going to continue to lose great teachers that's a trend that I'm really dismayed to see happening here we've lost a lot of good teachers recently our social studies department has well over two centuries if not three centuries of combined years of experience listen to them and also I'm sorry if anybody from the social studies department is offended by me putting it that way look we have the opportunity to model civility for our kids and to create an environment where it feels like we're working together that's what's best for our kids not fighting we're only as good as our leaders and we need school board a school board that supports and listens

056to us and administrators and parents that speak up when the board doesn't once we've realized that we're on the same team we and more importantly the students of Penn Ridge High School will be better for it thank you [Applause] good evening Dr Bolton members of the Pembroke School Board my name is Paul Clymer I live in West Rock Hill Township the school board is in a dilemma whether or not to advance curriculum allowing four credits of social studies or three credits surrounded by world history perhaps my experience as a former chairman of the Pennsylvania House Education committee might be helpful in Seeking a resolution when a house bill was submitted to the education committee for consideration of a coin meeting of the members for a discussion of the legislation in this give and take atmosphere

057the majority of concerns that were in the bills were a result they resolved them we resolved them in this in this give and take discussion while public hearings were the exception to the rule but if required to gather more information I would schedule a public hearing bringing in testifiers both pro and con the purpose was to have a full discourse on the proposed legislation and to seek out any unintended consequences that would create more problems than Solutions after 30 vetting this type of legislation the bill would then be again would again be considered by the members of the House Education committee if the majority supported the proposal the bill would be sent to the speaker for consideration on the voting schedule allowing debate and open discussion on these legislative proposals dispenses and lingering questions and

058any unintended consequences perhaps a similar guideline could be used in proceeding with the social studies question thank you [Applause] cylinder exit at Mr Township a senior at the high school not very concerned those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it now I've taken at this point three AP History courses at the high school I've loved every single one of them what I love most about them is our ability to discuss history not just learn and regurgitate effects they have in-depth class discussions and develop a deeper understanding as I mentioned last week at the board meeting we are the next generation of leaders we cannot just know who conquered who when what was established we need to know why we need to know how the wind is not as important but that's

059what truncating the history schedule will do the history curriculum is too important and too in depth to not necessitate four years of history but will not allow for the in-depth discussion and the in-depth understanding of our next Generation thank you good evening my name is Lydia Raymer Hunter I'm a Perkasie Borough resident with three children in the district I also teach math here at the high school tonight I am here to speak as a parent and in support of fine and creative ways to solve scheduling conflicts without compromising the quality of our existing academic programs my three children all attend Goose Elementary in fourth grade second grade in kindergarten my oldest loves music and animals my middle child loves stem class best a kindergartner is just getting started but he loves everything about school so

060far I do not know what Pathways will interest my children by the time they reach high school will my daughter choose to pursue veterinary science at the tech school maybe they will participate in band and Orchestra take art photography wood tech metalworking or ceramics they might take World languages or business classes my stem loving middle child if I take advantage of the rich variety of science math and computer science electives at the high school or follow his mechanical interests to tech school in automotive or small engine Tech whatever paths they choose to follow when they reach high school my children will benefit from a district that puts a strong academic curriculum at the core of everything we do many of my colleagues from the social studies Department have shared about why they believe four credits

061is essential to their subject they have spoken at previous meetings to explain the meticulous way to the social studies curriculum has been built to progress from 8th through 12th grades and to share the in-depth projects that they use to enrich this subject for students this group of teachers includes representatives from each grade level 9 through 12 and from academic up through honors and AP courses no matter the pathway my children choose these will be their teachers and I respect their opinion I asked the board to consider Creative Solutions for our Tech students that will allow them to follow the pathway of their choice without compromising the foundational academics that are valuable for all of our students I hope that by the time my children enter the high school there will still be a strong academic

062core of courses and that they will have four years of social studies classes angel [Applause] um good evening I'm Allison Kearney Hilltown resident and parent of two children in Pembridge School District I'm also a chemistry teacher at the high school one of our primary responsibilities as a school district is to provide students with a high quality education that prepares them for their role as Citizens in our democracy this requires us to help develop their understanding of not only our community but also the United States and the larger world during the curriculum committee last week I greatly appreciated that the committee members listen to the professionals who know the social studies program and care about preparing students for their futures the committee members asked clarifying questions and engaged in a positive discussion the presentation made a

063strong case that reducing the number of required social studies credits would have a negative impact on students educational experiences and their development as informed citizens possible changes to graduation or curriculum requirements should not be considered without thoughtful informed deliberation and long-term planning I want what's best for my children and for my students many of whom are here and did a wonderful job speaking tonight and for all those Kindred students who are out there and up and coming I just want the best for them we could best meet the needs of our students and the world that they will live in by having a strong comprehensive social studies program by keeping the four credit social studies requirement thank you for your time [Music] foreign [Applause] Township um I just came to give a small parent perspective

064follow this uh you know thank you to the board members who took the time to attend the meeting last week the social studies Department gave a very impassioned and thorough defense of what they're doing and as a parent of a senior here at Pennridge who has gone through what they're doing it's been amazing to see her progression and she could be ready to go to college tomorrow because of the efforts on their part and I just think it's going to be a big mistake and I mean we're lucky our kids have already benefited from this but as we've heard tonight people are moving teachers might I mean how do you expect to attract talent in the future if this is the kind of like you know support that the faculty can expect from the from

065the board um so I just really wanted to you know lend some Credence to what the teachers did last week and I hope the board members that weren't there did take the time to watch that because I know it is on YouTube to watch all the time and just in closing I wanted to say that today I got a newsletter from the high school and I thought it was funny that in light of all this stuff that's going on with this curriculum that you guys managed to put in there bragging about the AP you know performance of the students here and yet of what we're doing here at night and talking about is throwing a big part of that in Jeopardy so just some food for thought thank you [Applause] Sofia Regina east Rock Hill

066Township um following as many speakers I am floored by the Brilliance of our students and the profound commitment of our teachers and the somewhat unprecedented Unity of the community um so I have three kids that I've learned and in the beginning I was thrilled to be in Pennridge I was thrilled for them um but as one of our teachers has pointed out a teacher that I I mean I'm also saying teachers finding out how many both live and work here which I feel like is kind of a unique aspect of purpose of Pennridge um also how many people are alumni and stay here and raise their kids here I mean these are things that we wanted when we chose to raise our family here um then as it's been pointed out like just as my

067kids came of age for the the swim classes like that that was changed that was taken um you know reducing the science lab requirement or however that got restructured so that there's less lab time and and now this and uh and and everything I'm hearing tonight I I still have profound trust in our teachers and that is what comforts me that we are actually one of those families for whom resources did not allow us to move we tried sleep coverage last year the resources didn't work out so we're staying and I trust these teachers but they sound a little flighty frankly and and that's a little disturbing um I I expect that my my children will do the best their best to learn everything they can but they're not always going to know what they

068don't know which I think is one of these students what one of these students said um and it's not like in the beginning when I first heard about this I thought okay they picked three out of four and now that I'm better understanding that this is this is completely like overhauling a carefully crafted curriculum spent so many years um I I have no no matter no matter what my children's work ethic is nothing will change what they will learn if this change goes through um so as that parent I urge you not to approve this change period so we will go into the president's report and as you've already heard the Hot Topic in town is graduation requirements uh we recently have heard from a large number of stakeholders which includes current and former students

069parents teachers administrators and other community members and from all these discussions in the recent you know the feedback that we've gotten there are two main takeaways as as I've seen them I've thought about it and tried to compile everything into one concise explanation so the first takeaway that we that I found was that stakeholders have suggested a number of different approaches which they would like to have considered and forgive me if I miss one and I did miss one which was provided to me during a public comment one that I had forgotten about but according to my notes these are approaches are include but are not limited to six different ideas that I've heard mentioned from stakeholders the first one is to keep graduation requirements as is as is so in other words we keep

070social studies and our health and PE credits which is something that's kind of getting missed in this discussion too that there is some you know some suggestions that we would make changes to those so the first option is to keep everything we have as is the second thing our second option would be to lower the social studies and the health and PE credit requirements to three and one and a half respectively I think had that right the third option is lowering the social studies requirement to only three credits and also eliminate the world history requirement to make it available only as an elective this option would also insert a half credit of civics inside those three remaining social studies credits and compress the ninth until 10th Health grade classes from two years into one year

071the fourth option is to lower the social studies credit requirement to three but keep world history as one of those required courses and that was suggested because that's what's done in other school districts you may have heard don't require for social studies credits but when I looked at those schools that don't require four social studies credits each one of them does require one of their three courses to be a world history course so that's one of the other suggestions that was made the fifth suggestion is to allow the block scheduling committee that has already begun to meet to see if block scheduling could alleviate scheduling conflicts and increase student choices many schools use block to balance student Choice with having the appropriate breadth and depth needed for a quality academic experience and the sixth option

072that I didn't remember until mystery mentioned it was that perhaps we could have different diploma options for our students some schools have Scholars diplomas with different requirements additional kind of you have to take additional courses to get that and other schools like Quakertown as it was pointed out actually has different requirements for their Tech students which is something that long ago was asked by a board member at a committee meeting hey why can't we have different requirements for Tech students and the answer was that we weren't really permitted to have different diploma programs but now that we know that that's possible the suggestion has been made to consider that option so the other takeaway that I got from all of this was that while the reasons people support the various approaches are many and detailed

073and we should not get into all those particulars of them in this forum so Mr climber's point this really isn't the place to have a discussion that's supposed to occur in committee one thing on which there seems to be solid agreement is that there hasn't been a full examination and comparison of all the options and that is true while there has been a lot of talking by separate groups and separate meetings there hasn't been a formal constructive exchange of ideas with everyone present there are still a lot of questions and a strong desire to take more time to ensure we devise a course of study that will serve all Pembridge students well since we've heard very compelling arguments from stakeholders to have all of these options given full consideration I decided to honor their many

074requests and remove policy 217 from tonight's agenda voting on 217 tonight would codify something which was not is not fully developed and was the only option that was really given any consideration up to this point if our goal is to increase choice we should incorporate that theme of choice from the very beginning and give stakeholders choices in how our students will be educated it won't make sense to implement implement the policy only to get our scheduling and or curriculum get to our scheduling and or curriculum committee meetings where the supported details of the policy would need to be developed and discover then that this one option we've been given is not what will work best for us we'd only have to turn around and rework the policy all over again it's better to discuss all

075the action coalesce around something work up the details and then vote on it it remains my hope that we will have the opportunity to do that now we're going to move into the superintendent's report please hold on just a second I wanted to make one comment uh about the public comment um this was my most enjoyable evening on the board since I started listening to public comment there was so much positive stuff so many people I was so impressed with our students it makes me do the great joy that our future is looking pretty bright with people like this coming out of our high school and the teachers thank you again for pouring your hearts out and letting us really know what is important and what's so great about our teachers and they're really standing

076up for what you believe is great and I for one could not imagine passing this the way it is so thank you thank you Mrs Collins tonight's superintendents report begins with the proud announcement that tonight we are celebrating five students who have earned recognition by the National Merit Scholarship program we had one senior Ava Oliphant who was named as a semi-finalist and four seniors Caroline Bailey Dylan barrexa Peter Darrow and Kaden Kwan who were named as commended students National American recognition is based on students performance on the PSAT exams taken during the fall of their junior year Ava performed in the top 1.5 percent of the 1.5 million Juniors who took the test in 2021. that puts her in the top 22 000 among 1.5 million Juniors Across the Nation as commanded students Caroline foreign

077[Applause] students Caroline Dillon Peter and Caden were in the top three percent of all test takers which put them in the top 45 000 out of that same 1.5 million Nationwide this is the most numbered students that we have recognized through this award in Pennridge since 2012. I'd like to introduce these students to you I'll get you a chance to meet them a little bit and a chance to congratulate them students when I say your name if you begin coming forward I will read a couple nice things about them and then we'll do the arousing roundab Applause once they're out there you've heard about them so we'll start with Ava oliphan Ava has earned the AP Capstone diploma and Ed is an AP distinguished scholar who will have completed 10 AP courses by graduation including

078physics seminar research chemistry biology calculus a b Calculus BC literature English Lang and computer science she hopes to attend Princeton of the University of Pennsylvania's Dental affiliate program which would allow her to complete both undergrad and dental school in only seven years Ava and her parents tell us that she hopes become either an oral surgeon or an orthodontist she's been a competitive dancer since the age of two and she's a member of several clubs such as National Honor Society student council Key Club and others she has also founded a charity so please check it out fat cat cookies where she donates 100 of all cookie sales to local animal shelters or Pennridge Fest let's congratulate um don't worry assuming somebody's coming up I promise all right let me introduce you to Caroline Bailey Carolyn come

079up and save Ava please Caroline is passionate about nature and plans that major in environmental science she is applying to universities all over the country and she's very interested in foreign language and cultures and is currently taking her fifth year of French she's been a dedicated member and leader of the friends of racial Club since the 10th grade she's also an active member of Key Club International National Honor Society unified Pennridge and the pen Ridge women's track team finally Carolyn loves photography and is currently working on an art independent study highlighting the beauty of Bucks County which will be featured in the pH of the high school art show in May of 2023. so come back and check that out congratulations Caroline Dylan barrexa Dylan's parents wrote to us and stated we are so very

080proud of all of Dylan's academic achievements and extracurricular activities he has successfully balanced the rigorous academic schedule and involvement in the debate team academic challenge where he served as president and the math team when he served as vice president as well as rock you all while tutoring and holding down a part-time job he looks forward to attending college next year and majoring in Biochemistry with an eye towards working in pharmaceutical research let's congratulate them foreign Peter is a member of the Pennridge men's soccer team the National Honor Society in the Key Club in addition to school Peter plays club soccer is a soccer referee and works as a groundskeeper for Bishop Estates Winery and volunteers his time helping at a few local businesses doing odd jobs let's congratulate Peter [Applause] tonight oh 8 plans on

081pursuing computer science and Healthcare he's heavily involved in serving and volunteering at his church since as his family says it's where he's happiest let's congratulate Kate foreign [Applause] next next pedridge has gone pink in the month of October this month we've had an impressive amount of support for breast cancer awareness many buildings and teams and individual fundraisers for this important pause now for so many examples of this spirit that we just couldn't fit all the pictures into one slide but every school building and just about every sports team showed their Pink Panther's spirit in some way this month you'll even hear about one of those efforts during this student report later today next is uh update on Maya set Ascension this week right here in the LGI there will be an important event for our

082teens their families in our community the event on Thursday night is the screening of a documentary called my Ascension which will be followed by a question and answer session featuring local mental health and medical providers content is not recommended for student for student 13 or for students to attend a loan the film was chosen by the Bucks County suicide task force and this event is part of our collaborative effort that began last year with our partnership with St Luke's Penn Foundation and Grandview Hospital topics for educational evenings this year are in response to 2019 and 2021 pay survey results the event is free open to everyone in the public and walk-ins are welcome the doors open at six the documentary will play from 6 30 to 8 with the question and answer from 8 to

0838 30. there is child care available for students in kindergarten through age 12 and there's more information in the community section of the Pennridge website next we'd like to congratulate some teachers every year the Pennridge Community Education Foundation or pcef presents learning grants to staff across the district to help support Innovative programming that helps our students and their families tonight I'd like us to welcome Miss Patty Knott who's an officer for PS for pcef the vice president who is here to announce this year's winners and provide us an overview of the wonderful work done each year by pcef so welcome Patty thank you on behalf of the Pennridge Community Education Foundation I'm pleased to announce that we are giving over to the over six thousand dollars in Grants this year um the Education Foundation was

084founded I believe in 2010 since then we've given over fifty thousand dollars in many grants we've also given ten thousand dollars to the stadium and every year we give a scholarship that sometimes is 500 last year it was three one thousand dollar scholarships um the main purpose of our fundraiser which will be in April we think we have to do a little juggling with dates this year but it's called a lovely evening um and at the lovely evening we uh honor What's called the friends of Education which are people teachers administrators parents support Personnel who have gone beyond beyond contributing to the district um but the main that's our main fundraiser and most of our money does go to the mini grants so the teachers apply for the grants in the fall and they out

085they are asking for something that goes beyond the budget something that will improve their classroom something Innovative uh I'm always this year's the first year I read all of the applications and I'm always surprised at the variety of of ideas so we have I believe it's eight recipients this year we have Sarah Gray from Elementary music and her Grant was for inclusion for sensitive years and the teachers who were able to join us tonight if you're here if you come forward when your grain is mentioned thank you we have the Sandy hip hop and Shelby Shaffer from South and North Middle Schools and the grant is for online cetera Patron membership from Goose we have Rebecca waiter and Lee and Gato cool Dr Grant for enhancing language development for bilingual students and Kimberly stelino from

086Central Middle School we're a keyboard unit Rachel pulsford from the high school for flexible seating for drama Ali Beagle from grass for Bulldogs building connections Colin Leach from Bedminster for a calming room and Jill Troutman from high school art with the M People project congratulations to all of you let's congratulations [Applause] all right you guys can help me out not for me one two three one more congratulations [Applause] I'd like to add one more thing the foundation is always looking for new members new volunteers you can like us on Facebook at Community Henry's Community Education Foundation our website is pcf.org and on Twitter at PCF news please give us a look thank you Daddy thank you so much and please take take back to everybody in PCF I've obviously only been involved for five years

087of the 12 that PCF has been in play but all of the representatives of that group uh love Henrich many of them have been teachers almost all of them have been parents whose kids have come through the system obviously live in the community and every dollar they raise comes directly back to Pennridge in some form you've heard you've heard many of them at every dollar they raised there's no administrative overhead there's none of that it comes all the way back so continue to be looking for that a lovely evening and any other events that they're doing and we'll make sure we get that date out as soon as we know so Maddie thank you for everything thank you and that is the superintendent's report I would like to introduce everyone to Viviana who will be

088one of our student Representatives this year and she's going to have the student liaison report hello my name is Viviana um I am one of two sumizons the other one is actually in the crowd today who was presenting for her playing for the thing um we mostly I want to first talk about Ava olivon she recently joined student council last year and has made an amazing effort in participating in the event ending in this little amazing um I just want to give her more credit because she very much deserves it all right now to the importance um pink out pink out was a very successful event we had multiple sports teams clubs all participating in not only their own discount events but also the large one on I'm sorry October 20th but we raised over

089ten thousand dollars to donate to Grandview Hospital which is very good uh the student council put a lot of effort during the actual football game to decorate make thousands of paint out ribbons that sadly did end up on the stadium floors but it's all about the ever to Pink out um we also had a very successful homecoming parade and homecoming itself if my accounts are correct week has sold over 1 000 tickets for homecoming events and it was a very great experience for all things and I think it was a very good way to introduce the freshmen into what school dances are going to be like and then the parade we had over double the amount of clubs from last year to participate and walk 7th and blooming gland notables mentions are the marching band

090with the cheerleaders and rock you with the ending so very fun and good event um I believe that's it on my part thank you and welcome did you somebody mentioned sadly I do not keep up with powder puff but I do know Lose Yourself the sophomores no and I'm pretty freshman last year also one which is the same group so good on them they're really making the restaurants look bad in our Dynasty almost all right so we will move on to the consent calendar and I would like can I please have um the person uh item H superintendents Personnel voted on separately okay so I will make a motion to approve the consent calendar items a through G ate by myself and seconded by Mr rice are there any comments or questions from board members

091if not all those all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 9-0 so then I would like to make a motion to approve item H the superintendent's Personnel slash DDR report uh animation consent calendar but it would require a second okay so it was me by myself and seconded by Mr worth are there any comments or questions from board members yes I have a question for the administration we had um an employee who was not able to be paid um monthly and was instead being paid over the summer two months after finishing working which was not something that this employee could manage financially we for in our Union contracts allow the employees to have the choice of whether or not they're getting paid as they work as opposed to getting paid

092that's spread out over the summer I don't think that that's fair so I'm hoping that that item is on the agenda so I would like to see that fixed I don't see why we can't pay that individual in the other manner so that that individual is getting paid as that person works I'm offered the employee that other Manner and they turned it down and chose this one okay are there any other comments right so again this is for consent calendar item H all those in favor of saying aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero booster format is still on the phone [Music] Mr Cormac you there it's actually a curriculum sorry hang on okay so our curriculum committee report we do have a couple of motions to pass first one is curriculum Improvement proposals and

093I would like to make that motion to approve the following curriculum courses a through C listed below civil service and Military Fitness emergency care first aid CPR ADB and unified physical education exactly by myself and seconded by Mr waters are there any comments or questions yes uh two questions well one's a comment and then I'll ask that question um I'm supporting this because we um I'm supporting the unified phys Ed course because it's better than apparently what we're doing currently but I want on the record that I think it's unfortunate that we are it's one thing to have that in your after school sports because um you're giving these kids an opportunity to participate in this competitive Sports and I'm fully supportive of that for a phys Ed Course during the school day the fact

094that kids have to opt into or opt out of the inclusive class is disappointing to me we should be doing this in all of our phys Ed classes all of our kids should be included in our phys Ed classes with the supports they need with everyone else we shouldn't need to design a class just for these kids in isolation and then oh yeah other kids can sign up for it too that's not inclusion I phys Ed is one of the few opportunities that our kids with special needs have the ability to be fully included with their peers that should be happening in all of our phys Ed classes that's my comment as far as my question when we eliminate when when swim was eliminated I saw that swim is still in the unified PE course

095but since that was eliminated in the uh or proposed to be eliminated in the drop of two credits to one and a half credits for health and phys Ed I just want to ask if there is a plan for kids to be able to test out my concern is I know a lot of people who are older and so I don't know a lot that are younger but I know a lot of older people who never learned how to swim and um they can't go out on a boat they can't go and do all those things because they have a fear obviously of falling in and they and they don't know how to swim I would want to make sure I think that the reason it was built in was to make sure that all

096of our kids have learned that skill and I think a majority do but I would like to see us at least make sure that all of our kids have the ability to swim at the very least if we're if we're taking out that and the reason I bring that up is because the unified PE course seems to be the only course that well other than just taking swimming I just want to make sure that we take care of that situation uh two things first of all all of our students are included to the level that they are able and so we do have students who are in a various number of social phys Ed classes this unified is obviously specific to the program and so it is another opportunity for but all of our students

097are included to the level that they're able to do that I believe the comments were referring to the second grade swim lessons the history behind second grade swim lessons for those of you who've been in the district for a while in second grade students used to be able to come up here and opt for swim lessons the lines over that program they stopped that program a few years ago with coven and we're still in conversation with them to offer that to our second grade students they have not brought that program back yet which is why we moved it to the why and offered families to be able to do it there as opposed to here in second grade we do have swimming options for students and students can choose to take so many courses it's

098not like they don't have to that they can't they're just not required as part of the 10th grade yeah I guess I was just hoping that we would have a way for them to like a test out show that they can swim because they may not choose it if they're afraid that they should all learn how to swim okay are there any other questions or comments the motion again is to approve the three curriculum Improvement proposals all those in favor say aye aye opposed well she carries 9-0 okay and then our next item is a motion to accept the eight mini grants that were just presented to us totaling again six thousand two hundred thirty one dollars and 36 Cents from the Pennridge Community Educational Foundation okay seconded by Mr rice and I only comment

099with you again thank you this is not already left but we do appreciate it and every bit of the money does go right back into our classroom so it's a labor of love for them over at pces and we are grateful for it any other comments or questions okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero the next curriculum committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday November 1st do you want to now we're in policy oh yes I apologize so as part of the note since the um policy 217 has been placed back on the agenda and there is the potential that it could be passed this evening we do want to give the teachers the opportunity to just make some comments to summarize what you know the the presentation was for

100those who are not able to see it so I understand we have some teachers and Dr scheide if you could come on down board members this presentation is under administrative content obviously you can also turn around if that's easier for you hi I'm Mike garcuzos social studies here teacher here at pennrage um first I would like to just thank everybody that has spoken on behalf of the Socialist Department the students the community members and the teachers so there are a couple things that we would like to address um just in case you didn't see some of our presentations or we're confused about a couple things I'd like to start off talking about curriculum writing uh so so really proper curriculum revision takes the upwards of three years if we want to do it effectively if

101you want to do it with fidelity and the reason it takes so long is because it really requires collaboration with all subjects all grade levels and what goes into that is really a tiering of skills and the development of skills over time that they pass from course to course from year to year the other consideration that we need to make be aware of is just to make sure that everything is age-appropriate the tasks that we're asking our students to complete and the content that we're asking our students to learn uh just for example uh what when did this take place over the last three years it took place in a variety of different settings it took place in in service time with the experts that we brought to the district Dr heike's Jacobs and Dr

102calek and took place during our PLT time which is our professional learning time it took place during its service days as well as the department time and it was really a culmination of what we've been working towards over the last three years and that culmination resulted in uh four different grades 7th through 12th grade social studies curriculum getting approved last year again after three years of working on it and I do want to just highlight uh there are a lot of different options that we've been talking about but any change that we make will impact the way that we teach U.S history so one of the questions that we really have to consider is we're going to have to decide which topics of U.S history we want to delete from our curriculum and overall the

103social studies Department goal is really to create a cohesive curriculum across all grade levels and across all subjects in order to support all disciplines and really support all of our students all right so what you're looking at right now is a chart that right now in green highlights the scope and sequence of the current uh curriculum so as you can see uh we start in sixth grade with ancient history then we go into geography and then you can see three years of U.S history and you can see the the the years that each of those courses covers during that that year then 11th grade we have a world history and culture and then our current 12th graders are taking that government half year and then the left most of our seniors are taking that government

104uh half year and an elected for half year and if you look over to the other column and you kind of follow diagonally that is what one of the options that has been discussed uh in order to be able to reduce the credit requirement from four to three so in sixth grade we are considering one of the options would be to combine geography and ancient history and then shift those three history courses that we just talked about to seventh eighth and ninth grade and again I do want to highlight the the fact that the last time our Penn Ridge students would be getting U.S history would be as ninth graders at 14 years old and then they would take under this model the the world history and culture class followed by that government course and

105half year elective and then there will be no requirements uh their senior year and if I can point out this is the the first time that this new model would actually be put into place infidelity where they would be starting with that new course and ending their their graduating with no requirement their senior year and if you look that really wouldn't take place until 2030 school year so my name is Heidi Newman and world history and I'm here to briefly address some of the curricular aspects of this possible change so it was suggested that one way to reduce social studies credits would be to remove world history as a requirement if that were done we would still need to address the basic standards from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and those World standards would then

106need to be addressed in U.S history so essentially what you would be doing is using U.S history to teach world history so to give you an example in covering the World War II unit in U.S history you would be covering the U.S home front you would be going into the European front and then you would have to pause at the European front and you would need to go to India and in India you would be looking at what Islam is what Hinduism is British imperialism to address Gandhi then you would come back to World War II in the European front but you have to pause again to go to China to look at the Chinese Civil War and talk about Shanghai China and then once you covered that you would be going back to Europe

107after you finish World War II you need to go back to China you need to look at the rise of Mao in 1949 it can get very confusing and in that you would have to remove some U.S history to fit the world history in there now imagine doing that at a younger grade level sixth and seventh grade where students are developing their basic analytical skills and reading and writing some students even struggle having an organized notebook that you're working with and now you're combining the content you're looking at new resources looking at the age appropriateness of the materials the maturity of the students and what you can actually cover and we would need to address all of that as you shift all of those subjects down in grade levels and just to give a concrete

108example of what uh Mrs Newman is talking about just in 10th Grade it was one of the courses that I teach at the honors uh textbook is currently a college level textbook so if we shift U.S history 3 down to ninth grade that is just one example of many of a resource that would definitely not be suitable in terms of the content as well as the reading level for 9th grade students good evening everyone so I'm here to address costs and to address some other things that I see happening here with the suggestion or the recommendation to move from four to three credits in social studies as both these wonderful teachers and every teacher who spoke tonight and I'm humbled by the students who spoke tonight the value of social studies instruction at Penn Ridge

109High School has always just been a part of what we did we talked about why we were decreasing credits and health and PE we talked about values we always value above all citizenship we're a public school system we talk about standards all the time but I thought it would be imperative for everyone to hear what we read and how we develop our curriculum through the state of Pennsylvania so the state of Pennsylvania tells us for academic standards for civics and government the Pennsylvania constitution of 1790 was the basis for free public school Act of 1834 that is the underpinning of today's system of schools operating throughout our Commonwealth these schools were created to educate children to be useful citizens loyal to the principles upon which our Republic was founded and aware of their duties as

110Citizens to maintain those ideals we this is how we build our curriculum that's Civics and government in the history in history standards history is a discipline that interprets and analyzes the past it's a narrative it's a story in order to tell the story it's not sufficient to Simply recall facts it's also necessary to understand the context of the time and place and to apply historical thinking skills I will tell you that that is what led us to look at all of our curriculum and we've been writing it for the past three or four years and we've spent a lot of time and money in the district to ensure that our teachers every one of them at the secondary level and we're working with our Elementary staff now have the capacity to write rigorous curriculum for

111the students in front of us for the Pennridge students and they've done that work they've worked on it and the courses have been approved everyone agreed that this was the course the content the strategies the resources that our students needed especially in social studies because it's our job in public schools to develop citizens of the United States of America the greatest country in the world and there is nothing more important than that so the idea that all the work and everything that we value is now being challenged that now we're going to decrease the number of credits and by doing that taking away important Concepts and the time that students need to develop their understanding of what it means to be an American citizen and a world citizen the idea that we can sprinkle world

112history throughout other courses is unfathomable as we move forward so this impact the financial impact that this slide is talking about really is about the work that we have put in to helping our teachers write the curriculum the rigorous index not cursory curriculum and the one example that we have given is the it took five teachers in 10th Grade to write one to to do one course right it was it cost the district six thousand four hundred dollars because we value what we're doing that work is now in Atlas for all students and students to come forward the students who are here and the students are coming because we're thinking about our future if now we have to go back and now we have to go back six courses and we have to redo the

113courses I mean there's the math there's certainly approximations when it when it in terms of the the writing of the curriculum the six hours that's thirty eight thousand four hundred dollars when we estimate new resources it's about a hundred dollars per student if we have to go look at new books these are estimations but it's a lot of money for courses that we have already written when you look at that total of 395 000 I think about the past prior to this position I was the K-12 curriculum director and each year we had about that maybe a little less just to use for all curriculum I implore you to rethink the vote this evening on the most important Concepts that we are here in public Educators to do I am a person who's always been

114a reading teacher literacy matters but what does it matter if you're not teaching all the students who come in about schools about what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America in the world thank you um there's one more slide student Choice sliders please so one of the things that we keep hearing is the idea of choice so we thought it might be prudent to highlight all the choices that students have specifically in their social studies education here at Penn Ridge so if we start with ninth grade the first course that I'm going to talk about is that Humanities course and that's really that course that blends that English and social studies aspect and that course currently this year has 185 students in it that chose that course this is a

115course that if we were to make this change will either be completely eliminated or radically changed in from 10th through 12th grade we have five advanced placement courses for students to choose from and currently just this year alone 191 students chose to take at least one AP course in 12th grade seniors get 10 plus elective choices to choose from in the social studies Department one of those choices could possibly be the 21st century citizenship course which is for the seniors a combination of that English and social studies piece this year alone we have 55 total students that have chosen that course 22 of our 74 vote Tech students are currently enrolled in that course if we were to make that that this change that course will also go away and then uh one of the

116other things that I keep hearing is history right history in in the social studies department and yes history is a component to the social studies department but history is not the only component to the social studies Department it really is a social science department and as you can see there are uh these are some of these are the electives that our students can choose from and they're not just history courses and it's not so simple as saying students don't need history after they leave Penn Ridge or history hasn't made an impact on their life some of the courses in the social sciences that they get to choose from are economics psychology sociology American law American government and international relations and that's just to name a few uh and these ask a quick question um you're

117saying that they have choice but to be clear right ninth grade they have to choose some version of early American history 10th grade they have to choose some version of modern American history 11th grade they have to choose some version of world history 12th grade they get a half credit of political sign of the government class so all of these choices that you put over here they really only have one half credit it filled into their social studies of four credits to actually choose any of those other things that you mentioned right I mean that's that's what the rules are well to be fair there are students and especially in junior year that are choosing from those that list of of electives there so like I have I think sociology which primarily is a senior

118course but I have Juniors that take that that choose to take that they choose to use some of their elective credits to take myself and that can be seen in all of these courses actually can I just the reason why I think I I mentioned because we have state standards those are required courses in every Public School the state of Pennsylvania that we don't have an option and world history is not an option either so that's why they're required of course we do have many electives that the students I mean we're so fortunate to be able to offer all of those sources I just wanted to clarify something so that's clear in the record if I understand correctly the minimum requirement is three credits so if the school board would adopt three credits they're meeting

119the minimum standards of PD isn't that correct the minimum standards right that's what I said yes okay thank you so just um adding to that as far as meeting the minimum standards those movement standards include world history standards which is what would impact if you look at just removing world history that's what will impact your US history and a lot of these electives that we are mentioning up here students are able to do amazing analytical work because of all the skills that have been built by those required classes along the way so for example economics is a much more useful course because in U.S history students have looked at economic Trends and in world history they also looked in economic Trends so then by senior year they're able to do much more analysis I do

120have one I just are you guys going to are you so the last thing that I just wanted to point out is that currently there are 12.7 percent of our seniors uh that are enrolled in vote Tech some of our seniors are enrolled in an AP social studies course now I bring that up to you not to pit these two groups against one another but to highlight how well our current system addresses the needs for all of our students in order to make all of our students effective Global Citizens in this community and that's ultimately as a department what we're looking for that we can address the needs of all students being asked to keep the time that we have to teach the skills that we are teaching and follow the curriculum that we've developed

121or at the very least that you take the time to form a committee to actually look at what would be going on within the social studies curriculum if a change would absolutely need to be made and we do we thank you for for giving us this opportunity to present okay we appreciate it thank you we've never heard that last part about the senior class that 12.7 you know and the 16 I think that's a good a good little piece of information to for everyone to think about okay so our next committee is facilities Mr cormack or favor you want me too Mrs cormack you're up [Music] from Penn State University and my first uh one of the days and change order via motion to approve a change order for nice Construction in the amount of

12261 878 dollars and I'll check it out um so that was a motion to approve the change order for nice Construction in the amount of 61 887.26 it's moved by Mr Cormac it requires a second seconded by Mr wurz are there any comments or questions opposed motion carries nine zero [Music] I'll second that is there any comments or questions okay [Music] opposed motion carries 9-0 Mr Carmack [Music] a second seconded by Mr rice moved by Mr Cormac any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero a motion to 2022 23 season it's clear as developed by the transportation department did we discuss that before I never saw that before I know it's on the agenda but under Auto Improvement to be honest we are required by the state

123to signify that the bus routes are finished and that we as a school board you as a school board approve them for the school year it's a handful requirement so did we discuss this in a committee meeting or not it was I'm looking at Mr daughter it was not okay I'm still I'm okay to pass it I have some idea what I'm talking about we have a motion to for obsolete items a through D listed on your agenda by Mr Cormac consecuted by Mr rice are there any comments or questions all right all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries [Music] Finance all right we're on the finance here we go uh approval contracts I'm looking for a motion to make a motion to approve contracts A and B are there any comments

124or questions all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero all right I'm gonna make a motion to uh to approve resolutions to authorize the waiver of additional charges for the late payment of real estate taxes in a certain circumstances that comply with act 57 of 2022 for a second thanks he's moved by Mr rice is seconded by Mr worse and this is something that is not it's it's a law that we're not able to adapt and so I just not impressive what this law assistance Amendment to the Pennsylvania code which permits people who own their house for the first year to be able to pay their taxes late if they didn't get their tax bill it is only applicable to those individuals the the indication that you didn't get your

125tax bill which sometimes happens when you change ownership was never a valid excuse in this case the statute as amended by the general assembly sets forth certain exceptions which allow somebody to have that defense so they are not they are not in the tax default list it's a very specific remedy brought about by the general assembly and Mr Miller uh correct me if I'm wrong but the school district would not make that determination the taxes this authorized as a tax collector to do so under certain very narrow circumstances with very specific proof thank you all right all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries nine zero all right looking for a motion to approve 20 the 2022 or 2023 2024 act 1 accelerated budget opt-out resolution the first second hi Mr rice

126and seconded by Mr wurz are there any comments or questions it's just our standard well it has become our standard in the last few years to pass this resolution to not exceed the Act One index we won't any exceptions all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries the next finance committee meeting is Hitler for Monday November 7th 2022 all right Mr uh Russell personnel each year were required to post our organizational chart and so that's attached so I have a motion to approve the 2022 organizational chart I'd like to make a motion to table it motion of the table needs no second that does the individual review to approve that needs to be a motion's been made to table this do you want to explain why the table gets on the biometric

127procedure gets better today no no that's fine I'll just explain why we have to do it this way so the motion of the table is is a motion that takes prominence so the matter is on the floor for about okay I'll lose in favor of putting this organizational chart on the table signify for saying aye aye opposed hi hi okay now no I think for clarities let's do a roll call vote please so what are we voting on the table the organizational charts discussion motion of the tables in order Mrs Chenoweth can I confirm first that there are no time limits on the requirement for us to post the organizational chart are you aware of any timelines that make it has to be done by October 31st or anything like that I'm not okay I'm

128not either okay I just wanted to check before we move forward thank you okay this is Vance Simons yes Miss um no I Miss chicken Mr cormack Mrs Collins no Mr Russell no Mr rice yes and Mr Wars no okay so that is tabled to Russell that's the uh correct all right so our next Community report is policy and suspense conference the president I think in 11 days where the amendment was made to consider 217. what's that sorry one moment oh okay I wasn't sure if she was not present so actually the emotions if it's tied it's a failure right so we'll go back to you said you it's Mr Rusty well their emotions already on the table we need a second hey it's been moved by Mr Russell and seconded by Mrs batiski Mr

129whiskey are there any comments or questions I guess now we could have some comments about the chart I want to discuss the chart in executive session and I also have some questions about some pieces that don't seem to be in there it is a personal matter would be appropriate to discuss an executive session any other comments okay okay thank you so on to policy thank you Mrs Cohen um to start off my um Community report for policy I'm going to um first have uh Mr rice share some thoughts that he wanted to share and then I will continue uh and also yeah could you pull off that um the PowerPoint that was sent thank you okay just as a reminder um sorry board members this is not part of administrative content it will be on

130the screen okay there are no actual classes that are being removed from the course of study um as far as moving anything forward which um our history class you may choose we're looking to give greater flexibility to students so they have more options which is uh directly aligned with their own personal Pathway to success we have talked about it for the last eight months relatively from February through in well now this should be the third presentation but actually the 11 committing annual board meetings see we were looking ahead okay and um at the last uh board meeting it was tabled and uh sent back to the pilot um it was tabled so they could go back to curriculum so that teachers could give a presentation um it was supposed to be I think for health

131and phys Ed teachers but they weren't invited but then social studies teachers were invited so they gave their presentation and then um that moved to policy it was on the agenda again in policy since our last meeting the board moved it forward to the board meeting today and then a committee meeting for curriculum was called on Friday without any notice to any of us I actually found out for my husband who said oh you're having a special committee meeting I didn't know it wasn't available um and uh so it was publicly posted before we even know knew about it um and then here we are um at this meeting but that's why you probably saw a little lackluster attendance um wait I just wanted to show I would like to talk before we posted the

132meeting I do want to mention that please finish your comment okay so um up on this yeah so the district's proposal uh this is what I wanted to First share with you the district's current proposal that they have put forth actually violates no no start with this one the the district's proposal violates the school code pde requires two credits of arts and or Humanities or both pde goes on to Define exactly what Arts and Humanities are in four specific categories visual arts dance music and theater it further breaks down that teachers with those certifications are the only ones who can teach them if you look this was what the administration put together as far as the state requirements it breaks them up here you can clearly see two arts or Humanities or both and that

133was the definition for pde of what that is please go to slide two this was the administration's proposed graduation requirements where they decided that Humanities um from the state's category actually would be moved to social studies and they are requiring a fourth social studies instead of humanities they are also creating a new category called steam ironically to allow kids not to have to take art as is required by the department of Ed because as you can see by putting science math and a choice of any of the above under steam it actually allows you to take science or Math instead of art which again violates the school code um it also begs the question at least from my perspective we're art and music teachers consulted on the idea that students could graduate without ever taking

134a single arts or Humanities course or meeting the state standards in high school because there are state standards for arts and humanities um can you please switch to the next slide this is a schedule of the this this would be a Tech students schedule based on the administration's proposed based on those graduation requirements proposed by the administration as you can see they literally do not have a single elective in their entire schedule for students who do not have any room in their schedule to add any electives like students who attend Tech and others they would be completely denied access to a free appropriate public education in line with the state code even if they wanted to because they are being forced to take social studies instead and do not have space to take it elsewhere

135so they literally cannot take the requirements of pde they can't there's no room for it they have to take social studies instead the district has set this precedent of mandating against pde requirements rather than block students from being able to take before social studies in place of humanities which is what we should do based on the law we are suggesting at least leaving that option open to at least give students the ability to take the state requirements the key question is if the point is to prepare students for their future what future would benefit most from the requirement of a four social studies class that doesn't mean everyone wouldn't benefit from it everyone absolutely does and I I appreciate the passion of the students who shared that and I hope that their guidance counselors help

136guide all of our students in the direction that's best for them it's just not the uh it's just not what will work for everyone would it benefit college-bound students or students entering the trades the answer based on College admissions as well as criteria for business and industry is no not that it wouldn't benefit them but that would it benefit them more than any other criteria please show the next chart this shows you um an average of What the college requirements are when you apply um these are these are this is typically what your admissions look like um if you look at this chart so and and I went through grad admissions requirements everywhere okay all the way up to Ivy League schools everywhere they require two to three uh credits of social studies I couldn't

137find a single one that required more than three with most of them requiring two on the contrary many require up to four credits of math science and foreign language courses which many of our students would not have the ability to take social studies credit requirements for college are lower than any other core content area in college admissions and in many cases even foreign language but it's the only one we want to require above and beyond the state limiting the ability for students to choose a course that will be required for their education in many cases although many universities compare students based on the GPS day of their core content area courses students must take additional Math Science and foreign foreign language courses to have a competitive shot of getting in again one category is clearly

138listed missing from that list social studies the College Board website doesn't specify a need for added social studies requirements but specifically speaks to having four credits of foreign language and taking high-level courses despite not calculating courses like Arts and Humanities into the GPA for comparative purposes in many cases they do require you to take at least one art class and have a well-rounded application which again students in many cases would not have the ability to do as you saw with a tech schedule who can't take you know band or any of those other things through that you would need multiple years to be able to take either they can't take band choir how are we measuring the success of social studies are we just measuring it through AP scores that's a small percentage of students

139does it benefit everyone else who's not taking AP would those AP students benefit more from a different AP course when students go to college after attending Pennridge are they successful in college what percentage of students graduating from college obtain a job in their area of study for students to be competitive getting into certain universities their core GPA is what's taken into account causing a need to take all AP courses in those areas since we are mandating for social studies credits they are forced to direct those AP courses to social studies when admissions criteria demonstrates they would benefit more from directing them to math or science this is clear when looking up individual College admissions requirements as well as a comparative one that I showed you Penn State requires four English three math three science three

140social studies two World Language but they require extra math and science certain majors who are now for English or math for science for many majors three foreign languages nothing I did nothing about social studies not even mentioned 4.0 MIT for English or math through calculus science three specific ones social studies two foreign language two Princeton or English or math is to science to social studies foreign language four some Majors again require additional for Science and Math they also take into account essays interviews and standardized test scores there's no there aren't standardized tests for social studies but there are from those other content areas which would then be increased if they're taking more of those content areas business and industry criteria that's the other category right so we talked about college talk about business and industry

141criteria demonstrates academics are a small portion of what they are looking for with skills first hiring being the priority what industry certifications are being earned from social studies well career paths are we preparing students for with this extra history course we have them for 13 years certainly we can cover needed content while giving students one year to follow their Pathways many students attending the technical school who plan to go on to higher education go into medical engineering and business fields we actually heard from several people at our tech meeting the other night including one parent who was sharing how his son actually went to the tech school for welding went on to get an engineering degree had it paid for because of his company so he got his college education paid for for free and

142now he's making more money than his dad um you know there's there's a lot of stories about that because they're getting that hands-on experience many of those Pathways require additional Math Science and business courses they don't have the ability to take I'm sick of hearing that's their choice we're denying them of their choice are we truly saying penrith should not be producing any veterinarians Engineers or business owners because we don't want to accommodate those Pathways those Pathways incorporate a combination of learning skills at the technical school with extensive Math Science and business courses if we want to set those kids up for Success do we really want to say to those kids sorry we can't accommodate your pathway because we know what's best for every single student are we suggesting kids in the technical school

143shouldn't have the same access to colleges this is not to say again that everyone wouldn't benefit from an extra social studies everyone would everyone would benefit from every one of the classes that we offer here it's a matter of making them all specific requirements that prevent kids from being able to take what they need to be able to succeed in their future I'm going to uh have I know Jordan had uh some of she was also going to share some information for my policy report okay um I do appreciate everybody coming out and everyone's really passionate which is amazing and I do agree that it's brought unity in some aspects where we've been divided on other issues um I've taken a lot of I feel like or it's being painted tonight is that we are

144in disregard of the passion behind the teachers recommendations admin students and um I don't believe that's fair uh personally I feel like in the spirit of deliberation and debate uh it would have been wonderful for to have more notice about the special uh committee meeting as well as really having it be a debate and a deliberation and coming together and having those discussions but it wasn't set up that way and maybe that's how it was meant to be and that's okay um so here we are tonight um I want to speak on um the law for a moment um regarding social studies the Pennsylvania code states there should be three planned courses each 120 clock hours history and government of the United States and Pennsylvania shall be taught as required in section 1605 of the

145public school code of 1949. notably missing is world history it specifically states that U.S and Pa history and government is all that the school requires that the state requires I'm not dismissing that world history is not something that you can gain a lot of Knowledge from I'm stating the fact that those are the vital by law that is what is required okay it goes on to say that beginning with students graduating from a public high school at the end of 2020 and 2021 school year and continuing in each school year thereafter a student who successfully completes a course in personal finance during grades 9 through 12 shall be permitted to apply up to one credit earned for successful completion of the course to satisfy the students social studies family consumer assignments mathematics or business education

146credit requirement for graduation therefore students could also instead of applying that 0.5 personal finance to only math um they could record they could take it in social studies as well so in theory they could also play with that and take that credit there in place of the world history that we require now standards okay so I'm under the understanding that the reason the um discussion goes way back to sixth grade to revamp and disrupt entire curriculum to go back to sixth grade is based off of the standards I agree in Middle School it would be incredibly insane to teach ancient um history and try to merge that with geography currently right now students are learning Neolithic and Paleolithic ages and I don't know how you merge that into geography with some pieces so that's understandable

147however with the standards they State clearly that they are in the code in the state law they are voluntary and instructive they are recommendations they're essentially guidelines similar guidelines they release during covet that wound up being struck down by the courts okay standards the world history there are seven of them Mr Price could you put uh or sorry I mean if one keep going sorry if you could one more there we go okay it's gonna be hard to follow I tried to sympathize as best as possible this is the world history standards and um a lot of the standards in all and across curriculum are written in a way that you can teach things as a teacher it allows you to have creativity and things that are important as a department that you can come

148together and that you're able to say well we can do this awesome thing whatever we want to do in our class and it can fit under the standard I do feel like they are very fluid that way so some examples I will just read one evaluate the interpretation of historical events and sources considering the use of fact versus versus opinion multiple perspectives and cause and effect relationships that is one of the seven world history standards here we are already covering this uh currently in the modern American history course and World War unit one as well as the Roaring Twenties just and again this is just one example I'm not stating that this needs to be the only but at the end of world war one and economic boost that's fourth known as The Roaring 20s

149where economic growth and individual Prosperity impacted many countries including Europe America South America multiple places to cover some of the world history there again that's just one example um even if you accept the premise that world history must be taught which it doesn't involve and that the PD standards for world history dictate how to teach it meaning going back the whole way to sixth grade and disrupting the entire thing which they don't then we we still are fully compliant with no impact because the seven world history state standards are already being covered in early modern American history classes now there are a ton of economic standards we don't have a required economic course they are being met also in dispersed among different courses there are 14 Civic standards that we do not have a required

150Civics course for and I recently emailed specifically spawning information on those 14 Civic standards where we specifically meet those standards and they are dispersed around the curriculum nothing specific I brought this argument up into previous meetings and I've not been given one argument to say this standard right here is where we are deeply impacted that we have to go specifically back to here here here all the way back to sixth grade that has not that argument has never I've never been given a reason for that um so credit scores and curriculums are constantly changing and no school does have the same exact requirements multiple school districts have different requirements for graduation credits such as Pennridge we require 24 Council Rock requires 23 some require a lot more um Radner requires 22.5 credits and two different

151requires 24 credits they are two of the top and they only require Three Special days they are two of the top or five performing school districts in rankings so I do not again it just because going four to three does not mean that the rankings are going to go down necessarily also I want to just point out that there is also no required Keystone test for social studies uh to impact the rankings as well Keystone tests are only required for biology algebra and English after English 10. and that's something I even looked into we all like parentage offers different English courses for ninth and 10th grade different districts have different English courses for 9th and 10th grade but they still have to take the keystones again there's just a lot of things that you can

152decide as a district on how you play certain things um and again the students that came tonight and spoke so passionately about uh their classes again you are a person have a voice and I love that you're passionate about it but again it's not all students it's just they're not all the students are not here I'm sure there'll be some that would be appreciative of the choice we haven't people reach out to us on that front as well so again I'm not trying to belittle anything oh a Humanities course that's not something that for the Humanities social studies scores for ninth grade that's not something that we suggest and that's where again I wish that before the presentations it would have been to have a better Liberation to see exactly what we were suggesting to

153be able to deliberate and debate and come together so I would like um wait a minute excuse me often interrupt presentations Megan let's not pretend that you don't I want to add something clarify something before we move on I also noticed that Radner while it says it requires 22 credits it then says that the students are students are required to take six and a half credits each year of high school so I asked Dr babarchuk who's not here this evening tell me Radner says they only require 22 and a half credits but then when you look at their further down the list it says they require kids to take 6.5 credits every year of high school times four equals 26 credits explained to me that it's a source subject but that they are actually required

154to take 26 credits and he said that the thinking behind putting it that way on their website was to sort of it should kind of alleviate anxiety among students but they are most certainly required to take 26 credits to graduate in Radner as far as the meeting goes not one person although it was offered not one person asked for a different date not one person offered a different case not one person at any time throughout all of these months where we've said let's stop let's form a committee let's have a conversation not one person backed off of this position of needing to pass this policy this way right now you're given many opportunities privately by many people we asked you to please let us do this in a different way you rebuffed every single opportunity

155that was presented to you so please don't play the victim and pretend that you aren't given opportunities [Music] I agree we're given plenty of opportunities over the last eight months are you finished to do the committee you guys rejected every time we asked that website and then uh Mrs Chicken had some things to add as well okay um I generally don't plan what I'm going to say in tonight's no exception um so I'm going to hit a couple points and then go over this particular slide um I've probably spent more time on this than anything since I've been on school board it's the first subject I've really had to do so much research on because everything else that we voted on to me was not I know exactly where I landed so and I can

156say for the four people that I know who are in favor of lowering we've all done a lot a lot of work I hate the way this has gone down because I don't think it should have been done in this format I personally found out through the public about the meeting last Monday I would have liked to prepare something prepare what we're doing now deliberate give the community you know a week to digest it um but that's not quite how it happened and not even hearing her there secondly um for some of us I think this became important because of tech school for others it has absolutely nothing to do with tech school um for me it has to do with when I found out that the state only required three I am always always

157always going to be on the side of choice for students and their parents and guidance counselors and then figure out what's best for them I think it's great if a benefits to talk but that was not my motivation to eat at all um the idea that you can take early release of a study hall is not true you have to replace that credit it's just that it could be with math science or business you can't just take study hall or go home well sure I believe the teachers there on that one so let's let's just thank you hold on let's just let her finish her comment and then board members now just please finish your composters you still have to take 24 crowd requirements or credits instead of four social studies you can't take three

158so you have to replace it with another credit a study hall is in the credit um we're going to show a chart that offers 14 pathways without any changes to current curriculum yeah I'll go for a second um anybody who wants to take four credits still count we're not suggesting take that away we're not taking away world history in fact this suggests an option where we have a one credit world history and a half a credit world history if you want to hit world history but you also want to take the required civics or an elective um it does not require a 9th grader to take 10th or 11th grade classes um there's a couple other things that kind of have become irrelevant as the meeting went on but I'm just going to kind of

159go through this chart and what we've done is mapped out for four credits if you choose to take four credits academic four different Pathways keep in mind adding civics you can anybody can test out a Civics if that's going to mess up your schedule Hill still offers a free course that's great and you can take that course test out of our Civics there's your house of credit all we want is for you to leave here without information we also have seven and a half electives left so if you want to take four credits you can use that civics class you don't want to test out as one of your seven and a half the truth is when we added personal finance we could call it math we could have called it social studies it's just

160you have to use half of one of your electives for finance or or test out of that so you have four Pathways for academic we have four Pathways for honors if you want four credits starting with Humanity's honors apusd history AP World and then three different options for that fourth product and again none of them involve taking a course away none of them involved changing a single course we have and then we have the same thing for absolutely three credits we have four Pathways for each rather than three and I do really wish that this had been included either last week or put on the agenda so ever be a time to digest it but the fact the matter is nobody up here I'm a big proponent of choice if it involved changing every single

161history class in Penrose School District I would say absolutely not it's just not worth that extra flexibility but the fact of the matter is it doesn't and there's nobody up here and sit back to the last uh Monday's meeting because several people said Thank you to the people who came there's nobody up here who would just intentionally there's nobody up here who doesn't care about this subject in fact it's probably become one of the things we have spent the most time on um so that's just not sure I want the teachers to know that in students community members none of us just said we don't really care how it hands out and we're just gonna you know throw this vote out hopefully it works out we've done a lot of research and it's unfortunate that

162this is the manner in which it was finally you know both sides explain but that's really all I have now can you go back oh thank you um just a couple of other uh quick things um one so the state requires four English courses and three math science and social studies so that students can choose which of those things to take more of based on their career path this isn't just for Tech kids anyone who's going into the science field or the math field needs to be able to take more AP courses or higher level courses in those content areas and you can only fit so many AP courses there were some comments about um you know listening to our professionals and um you know I guess I just want to point out are Professionals

163for um you know our science professionals didn't want to change the double Labs but the administration did our health and phys Ed professionals didn't want to switch from two credits to one and a half but our Administration did uh pde is saying three credits uh pde is saying Arts and Humanities I mean when you it's like we're still it's like we're we're kind of saying these are the specific professionals that you should listen to uh and these you know in in only certain circumstances I appreciate all of our social studies teachers and the fact that they are passionate about this topic and I appreciate that the kids are too just as our science teachers are passionate and they would all be advocating for more requirements in all of their individual content areas because that's their

164content area and again I greatly appreciate that I appreciate the students experiences and how this specifically benefited them and I just want all kids to be able to choose and have those experiences and have the same stories that um you know that our kids here are having Clemens yes would it be possible to get a motion on the floor yeah in just a second I'm just about done um guidance counselors should really in front of healthy and help us decide which classes are best um for their individual Pathways and the last uh comment I wanted to make there was someone who would come out and share how many Humanities choices they have for their Humanities credit the reality is they don't have any because they're not allowed to take a Humanities course for that Humanities

165credit they can take it as an elective but that was Guy the the four social studies was taken in place of humanities it's something that's been uh a tradition or traditionally done even under the other requirements I would like to at this point make a motion to amend the I'm sorry a motion to embed the chart that's above here into the policy that's on Slide Five above here of the PowerPoint sent as part of the policy and past policy 217 waving any additional reads solution so it's moved by Mr rice in second or moved by Mrs Vance Clemens and seconded by Mr rice are there any comments or questions and before we make take comments or questions I'm going to take the privilege of making the first comment I want to reiterate again that we

166asked specifically we said we have heard from so many community members and in my account there are fewer than five that wrote to us to say that they support this change in contrast you've heard all of the community members the teachers the administration and many many many emails that we received asking us not to do this when the special curriculum committee meeting was scheduled and I gave notice at the policy meeting when we were walking out of the policy meeting I said we're going to have to let the teachers and administrators present and I asked Dr Bolton if you can get a presentation together if you think that can happen let's have a curriculum meeting on Monday the 17th Dr Bolton got everything together but his staff's too efficient he walked out the door I

167said well he walked out the door he walked out the door of his office the meeting got posted to the website but there was no nefarious intent everybody knew that we should give people the opportunity to speak and once again after the board members were informed of the special curriculum meeting they were told we don't have to have this meeting in this way if you will agree not to rush this policy vote they rebuffed that they refused to wait they gave us every indication that they were just going to go ahead and ramrot this through and all of this talk that I've heard is really nice that people have done research but I've heard a lot of we've done this research I looked at this we are going to what you don't realize is you

168are imposing your will on all of these people who are only making one reasonable request of you all they want is for you to sit with them don't talk to them and tell them what you've devised let this be looked at in a forum where it can actually be analyzed where we can actually follow up on those points that were made about how we're not apparently following the law because I've been on the board for seven years and this is the first I'm hearing that I don't know possibly all of our graduates have graduated um while violating the law you have not given anyone the opportunity to hear your presentation and ask you questions the board meeting is not where this happens committee meetings is where it happens and you cannot pretend that you weren't

169told that we would gladly I would have gladly changed that curriculum meeting cancel it all together to instead schedule something at a later time where we could have more constructive conversation so I want that on the record you were given the opportunity over and over again I know myself and other board members have asked you repeatedly I know that community members have asked you repeatedly to please do this in the proper way so you're not that don't here you were given every opportunity what you're trying to do is impose this on people and say this is our work school board members do not write curriculum you're trying to put a curriculum you want this embedded into a policy and that is not out of rule as school board members I hear a lot of we

170want this this is our plan we've done this work but I never heard the word collaboration amongst all the people that we are to collaborate with and yes we should have a healthy respect for professionals and to the point about the science labs we went we talked to the teachers it was worked out that we could have chemistry labs for those students who wanted them what the administration did was go and they went and they talked to students to find out do you want chemistry Labs as it turned out I think was half and half half it was a little less than half and half who kids were like yeah I want the chemistry lab and other kids were like no I don't so we had not we I didn't do the work the administration

171had people hand schedule kids to make sure those kids that want the lab at the lab and the kids that didn't want the lab well they don't have to take the lab but the point is that we actually did collaborate with the professionals there has been no collaboration on this I want everybody to have that clear so that if it passes there has been no collaboration between the school board and the professionals there has been school board members speaking to the professionals and telling them what to do and I've heard the comment made many times you know if they're professionals they'll be able to make it happen it's not really a question if someone wants to you know can make it happen you can demand that a doctor chop off somebody's foot but if the

172foot is healthy the question is going to be should I chop off could it be doing that that's what this is this is people forcing their will on other people without betting any collaboration or input from them it's not fair it's not fair that teachers most importantly it's not fair to our students I have no skin in the game with my family my children will be done with Pennridge next year they will not be affected by this but thousands of the students will be and it is your responsibility as duly elected school board members to sit and collaborate with the professionals not impose your will and your plan as the only plan and the only option the board sets policy and that's exactly what we did we accept policy with graduation requirements if everyone please

173be in order you're saying we're forcing our will by giving people a choice we didn't write any curriculum whatsoever and we're trying to pass a policy that uh if you are imposing a correct a course of study that's this is a course of study that you are demanding your operations when you change the course of study of a school includes all of the courses that you require your students to take say that you are not imposing a change to the course of study is a false statement this is the basis of what you want to do is change the course of study and you have not collaborated with the proper people Dr Bolton looks like you want to say something uh just two things uh one the chart that's on the board the presentation that

174just went through I received at 6 30 tonight um so I do not know what the board members have a chance to interact with this or not in terms of all board members I know some have in terms of presentation but in in terms of you know the interact and provide input there hasn't been any because it's obviously a lot of information um two things Mr Miller uh number one under social studies in the chart that's on the board or the one that's being recommended I'm just making sure we're all looking at the same thing yeah I believe under social studies the board does have the right to set policy which means they could determine how many credits I believe the district and the administration determines curriculum which means to dictate what those credits are

175is really the administrative position and not the board's position to say that it must be early American history modern American history citizen choice I think the the board can determine the number of credits the Administration has to meet the appropriate State Standards correct So within the three standards it would be the administration's choice at how to meet the state standards within those three credits I assume the administration would write curriculum that would get you to meet the states and Equipment three credits right no I don't I don't anticipate I could be wrong with the makers of motion could answer how to anticipate that those particular credits are the only the last word on which credits I heard that one of our existing courses would become optional and so I just said that's not what I

176heard from some of the members that were up here I also need an opinion as to whether this is a significant enough change that it would have to go back to first to read um no that's that's the school's policy thank you for for me it's it's uh it's not so much the ends as it is the means and it feels like the means is not a best practice for our board and how this is accomplished I think it would have been helpful for us to get the information that just been presented tonight so that we could work through it but I do think it needs to be collaborative with the stakeholders that are involved again you know we might look at this and determine that you know we need more than 24 credits or

177we need less than 24 credits or what's encompassed in that but it feels it feels awkward the way that we're going through this and I'm not sure at this point Who's asked for this um and when I'm asked why are we doing this I can only reply that a majority of the the directors see it from their personal perspective that this this is something that needs to be moved on there doesn't seem to be any consensus on the why when I ask people why there's no consensus everybody has a different reason there's not one single uh reason for that and I think if we're going to make a change the people who want the change have the burden to prove that whatever we're doing now is not appropriate I think that's a heavier burden I

178think you need to make the case I think that we should continue with what we're doing unless there's good reason to make a change I don't think a case has been made at this point I appreciate the presentation but it's raised more questions in my mind than it's presented answers even in Megan's uh you had like 15 questions in what you were presenting that's posed rhetorical questions perhaps but I don't have the answer for that and I do think as to the the issue of of people dropping out it's not people you you have still the required credits you'd still have to take 24 but as it's been indicated people take more than 24 credits so as I did when I was a senior if I had all my 24 credits in I've already been

179accepted to college my class if it was required I'd have to take it if I took it as an optional I just dropped it at early release so that's where that comes in that you're still required for your 24 but if you if you have more than 24 credits you'll drop the one that may be requiring more rigorous study and just move on so I think that's hard too I mean that you could say that student choice to drop it but I'm not sure whether that's a student choice that we want to Advocate or Advance or Champion so I I think that there this needs to we may end up at the same place after the process goes through but I just think if we can't believe in the process it's going to be very

180difficult for people to buy in the into the process I agree with those kind of make a final appeal to board members again to to go through the process and do the due diligence I I hear the comments that we're not going to be able to graduate vets and doctors and but we are we're already doing that and nothing's broken so maybe we should do something different but let's go through that in a measured in a measured manner um the other thing is I hear everybody saying the same thing or the five of you saying the same thing about not knowing about the meeting those of us that were there I mean I didn't get a special notification I looked at my email um so I mean I hear you but the rest of us

181were able to get there so originally I was going to do a presentation but because of all the excellent presentations that I saw tonight from the students from The Faculty from the administration I'm going to skip that because it's just repeating almost everything everybody said so I appreciate all your input what I wanted to talk about was we should be debating these things okay in a debate give you reasons why you should do something and then the other side rebuts that and tells you why this isn't right it comes with real data and we're not seeing that we're seeing we all did a lot of research but I don't know what that research is and I don't know where your sources came from but I know that the people who spoke eloquently tonight did that

182research and they've lived it for 20 years and even more sorry about that who have been there a long time but that's the kind of information as a board member we need to embrace now we may not agree with it and we may go a different path but we don't pull it up at the last minute so this wasn't on the agenda tonight that we were going to pass this and now as we asked and you know uh Megan you said quite enough for a long time please everyone be in order please let Mr words thank you and I will continue as long as other people have done but my point is this came out of nowhere right now this is a huge change for this for this school to go from four to three

183and I had all these reasons up on the screen that I'm not going to show as to why social studies is important but you already said those so it's relevant take this for too long so my point there is we're going to now skip all the readings and try to Ram it through in one meeting does that make sense to all the board members that's the real main question here we had people who want more gym credits we have people who want a business class in here in the requirements nobody's getting what they want they're getting less they're getting less PE credits that's one of the passions that one of the board members those who should have more okay that's going to go down if we vote yesterday we'll have less okay so there's so

184many things going on here how possibly in good conscience pass this tonight without discussing it Merle with the people who are truly the experts not the ones who have done research on the Internet or whatever to say that they know more than these people do I mean that bot that just blows me away if I was my mind and I would just say that if if you vote tonight for this to pass it and jam it down everyone's throats that would be the worst thing this board has ever done and we haven't always done all the right things in my opinion but that's okay and so I'd say we move on vote no on this and go back together to do it right and come back in a few months and not have these big

185dates on these big stages nobody really can get their point across and that's it okay thank you I appreciate it I hope everybody comes together on this because this is important so to the point about not being able being forced to only throw this up at here at this meeting without warning just because something isn't on the agenda I received no emails Dr Bolton did you receive any emails notifying us that this information and information wanted to be shared ordinarily board members will talk all the time in between meetings I would like to maybe present this here's something that I would you know like to talk about not one person before this evening before the very moment it was put up on the screen the only people that saw this were u5 we have a

186duty to talk about these things in the sunshine we have a duty to present them in a manner where they can be considered and just like Ron just said if you have your idea that's great everybody can have their ideas but you can't just come in here and say this is our idea this is what we're going to do here you've heard us say it but we're not going to be able to take any feedback from you before we vote on it that is not appropriate and if your ideas are as good as you say they are they will rise to the top in a conversation that idea will rise to the top when someone wants to force something on me and my apologies to car salesmen out there but if someone tells me you

187know you've got to buy this today whatever it is you've got to buy it today because I'm not going to have this deal for you tomorrow that makes me really nervous that makes me wonder what's what's this person hiding so to throw this out here not offer any opportunity for collaboration on it not to even consider there are six unique possibilities that we could explore you are refusing to listen to anyone else and explore any of those six opportunities other than your own you keep saying we've been talking about this for a year we have not been talking you have been talking you have been saying what you want and you just want it past we have not been talking together that's my point so let's please dispense with this idea that this has been

188discussed for a year it has not it has been decreed for a year and that is not how we are supposed to operate [Music] there have been multiple presentations that I feel like we have heard as well as when this suggestion first came up at a um either committee or a board meeting about the social studies credits and I voted in favor of it when it first came up um after that meeting I remember talking to Dr Bolton and he was saying how the social studies teachers are really upset when they when they heard about it and I was because with everything with health and PE uh we voted on that one time for our first read and I think it was 9-2 to vote to lower the credits but I did reach out to

189the health and PE teachers and I met with them as well as with the science the double Labs I I met with them and I after that night I was like oh my gosh you're right I could not want I did not reach out to me with the social studies teachers so I couldn't find the department head I did not know who the department head was on the website so I emailed to social studies teachers at the high school and and that was in August uh August 27th and um I was told that they did forward it to the department head and that would like to meet I was then asked to wait until they would present into that board meeting because it was kind of like a short it was a committee meeting because

190then it was a board meeting and I was wanting to meet with them before the board meeting so I was asked to wait but it's it again then it didn't pan out it still felt like from the heart not I wanted to have that informal that dialogue yes we can have it in public as well but I'm definitely fine to come sit down and meet and do all those things but then that never came to fruition and it's not like I did not reach out to try to do that just as I had with health and PE as well as science so to say that it's just saying I'm not listening to what you said then now this is the third presentation tonight coming to the board meetings I think there has been a lot

191of um information that we've received and it's not that we've said no we don't want to hear it or no you can't say it so that's right so yes you we've heard presentations but each one in isolation there's never been a time where people have sat in a room and actually talked about the different options that's what you're not understanding there needs to be a committee like the comprehensive planning committee like the scheduling committee the block scheduling committee all those things that we've done you sit in a room together and you talk about and present your ideas to one another at the same time and go over them together and having a board member sit with a group of teachers doesn't make up for that need for the collaboration with all stakeholders that due diligence

192has not been done not by a long shot we've talked here we've talked here we have a whole brand new presentation here and we're supposed to vote on it that is not collaboration there is no due diligence or there was no due diligence or collaboration for health and PE either those teachers were not given that partner just ask everyone to be in order yeah it's part of the presence part of what you guys want to do is imposing health and PE and I think in my president's report I did point out that health and PE changes are getting lost in this whole scenario you voted no for health in the first three I'd like to call the question we have the ability the question has been called when we can proceed to a vote and

193given the gravity of this matter may I suggest Madam president and you do a protocol vote I'm sorry I still need to understand something about the chart um first of all I want to make it I want to again say that I do not believe that it is the board's purview to dictate specific courses right outside of personal finance which is you know covered in different things and that was a decision that was made so I think it should if if right three social studies courses I also think the chart has up to 24.5 credits and I'm a little worried about losing my math card but I think if I add up all the credits it says 24 and a half and up 24 and a chart on the bottom says 24. and so I

194want to make sure we're we're again wait a second I saw this at 6 30. so I've never seen this before and you're asking me to vote on this tonight and you can't even get the credits right I mean come on this is ridiculous can we be in order please thank you okay I appreciate everyone keeping it spicy this evening the motion the question has been called um the question has been called that's a proper motion that's in order now uh Miss Clemens before we proceed to a vote do you have anything clarification-wise do you want to say to Dr Baldwin I need some clarification too on the three credits because we're wanting to have that 0.5 required it's in there it's it's in there but if we can't if we don't if deductible's point

195if if the if it's just three credits and it's three credits it has to be the state standards all right does everybody understand that you are still you listen to yourselves you're still asking all of these questions that has not been clarified and you are about to vote to make it the law of the land in Penn Rich oh and then we're going to go up to one five or four and a half presents no matter how you slice it no matter if you suspend policy to Fast Track this through on I've never before in my life seen something proposed and voted on at a board business meeting not a president the teachers up here again to make sure to check our arithmetic because we can't seem to get that money right okay it's been

196suggested that the personal finance 0.5 is now being required to fall under either math it can either count as an elective or under social studies or under math that's why it's there it's saying that that needs to be in one of those categories presenting information like this and even a month which is why you should let it go on the agenda instead of me Tony maybe because you don't have anything more I don't think that we should actually vote on something that is still being presented and discussed and the people that are trying to vote for it are still asking questions even as they are attempting to make something the law of the land in penritch our policy you would have to suspend our policy in order to vote on this tonight you would first

197have to vote to suspend our policy thrown out the window continue to have no proper discussion of this first you have to suspend the policy because this is a substantial change to a policy and it should be going back to first read so that's the first thing that you would have to do and then you would have to after you vote to suspend the policy if that's successful then you could vote on this but I still say you're asking questions about it you don't even have it clear in your own minds what this is you didn't present it to anyone you didn't serve notice and you've had at least a week more than a week to have to have said hey we're not putting this on the agenda but we want to let you know

198we would like to present this information you didn't do that you chose to do a sneak attack in Ambush and now you want it so so just I want to just as a matter of parliamentary procedure I thought that the original emotion was to suspend any additional readings of past policy uh 217 as presented here that was my understanding if you vote in favor of this motion you are suspending the readings as your permit underboard policy to do and go ahead and pass 217 whether whether board members choose to do so we've had a lot of vigorous debate about that but that's that's what's on the table as I understood the motion that was made can I also clarify one more thing that I believe is different I think there's two more things that are

199different that have never been seen before tonight one of them at the top I think announced the class of 2024 with the caveat at the bottom about 2026 speeding the 0.5 Civics so what I think that is saying is beginning with next year seniors that's the class of 2024. they would not be required to take four years of social studies right I believe this is because the original presentation always was let's do this for ninth grade because then we have time to do it over as kids were moving up and because everybody has a pretty common ninth grade schedule they all have pretty much the same credits it's after that where they diverge I believe this now says 2024 at the top which means the recommendation is that for the current Juniors they could be

200sitting in their last social studies course it says at the bottom they can take it right I don't think that they don't have to have Civics obviously because that course isn't even written yet um but I believe that's what that's saying I think it's also saying that Personal Fitness can now be a social studies course right which is also different from anything we've talked about in terms of where it falls right Personal Fitness can be a social studies that's our personal finance I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry right but personal finance analysis social studies so I just want to make sure that I do believe those are two other changes in case I'm missing something just want to make sure that we're talking about the differences before we go when the motion was made fast

201track this and go you know go um forego all the additional readings it wasn't divulged that you had all new information to add to this policy and information that is very significant no Jordan covered that information no no I'm talking about the very first thing you did this evening where you voted to put this policy not only on the agenda but to surpass all of the readings that would we would normally go through and when you did that you did not divulge that you had all new information so I'm going to go back to my point again that if this is such a great idea if if you believe in your hearts and and listen I'll believe you and like Jonathan said if we have a conversation and we all go oh I get it

202okay let's do that that's the best choice if we had that conversation and this idea Rose to the top then we would be set the fact that you don't want anybody to actually scrutinize your decision is making me feel like there's something that we're not being told there's information so this is brand new to me I didn't see it before what concerns me is the sunshine act and then did everybody get together outside of here and come up with the five people I don't know what happened I don't I have no proof or anything but it's a concern to me that if you're going to flip something in at the last minute and five people already know about before don't that just doesn't add up to honestly we've literally been saying this for eight months

203no we have not we have not been saying this there's new things up here yes are you glad that it's me asking a question I'm glad that anyone's asking a question if we were there's clearly a lot of confusion I think this is the whole things ridiculous to be honest if we were to table it tonight could we have an emergency curriculum meeting just let me finish please yeah present this discuss it we don't have a school board meeting in November December's reorganization so we're talking about January could we also have a school board meeting in November we allow ourselves some time to talk about this if we can really talk in a normal form the last time we were in a meeting it was like a screaming match in the curriculum meeting and quite

204honestly I couldn't hear what anybody was saying but is that possible or do we have to now vote one way or another I don't think it's going to change this outcome policy not curriculum policy meeting and we can't even put other activities I'd just like to answer one question tonight that would be great we can do that if we can do this it works can you just let me answer the questions I didn't get started but thank you the answer to the question is that there's a motion in the second on the table anyone can make a motion the table that would take five people to vote it to table the motion but the the vote has been called so in addition three people can call a member a thing called a meeting of the

205school board and the president has to adhere to that under the school code um so can I just finished the answer to the question there is a motion and the second on the table until and there has been the question has been called and I either procedural Vote or table it those are the two things motion the table needs no second can I five votes the table though I just wanted to make this motion because and then we just worked with the emotional tablet so Mr Miller just to clarify if we were to table it we could then have another reading specifically about this and if three board members agreed to a school board meeting in November we could do that with proper notice you could do that isn't that the same as five board

206members putting something onto an agenda and a board member and the board president saying no sorry I'm not doing it anyway but the only remedy for that is taking them to court which I don't think we plan on doing when she refuses to make it there's a motion at the table is this a motion at the table on the floor there is no debate on the motion the table five votes tables of motion there's no condition on that motion of the day so it needs to get voted on now if we were can we do that I'm not putting out emotional emotion of the table has been made if you vote if you vote Yes for it it's tabled if you vote no for it you proceed to a vote on the original motion we

207will meet if you only meet if again three members ask for the meeting and it's properly notified what is proper notification it may have to be published in the newspaper of Records et cetera et cetera et cetera 24 hours or 72 hours beforehand I think it's 72 hours for a special meeting but um verging into areas of the school code that I hadn't studied before this this meeting and I didn't carry it with me there's a motion to table on the table that motion is in order five votes to say yes tables this motion with regard to a meeting afterwards that meeting is at the direction of three members of the board and we'll have to follow the school code and we will retake up this matter if we do that it could be a

208one agenda meeting Mrs Vance Clemons MS patiskey yes to table Mrs Longhorn no Mrs Chicken yes Mr cormack do it again Bob sorry thank you Mrs Cullen Mr Russell yes Mr rice no no and Mr words yes table let's move on to section I can't make a motion to approve the first reading on the following policies a through C threat assessments emergency preparedness and response and school security personnel requires a second I'll second it so it's moved by Mrs bannis Clemens and seconded by myself are there any comments or questions from board members okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries 9-0 this is Spanish Clements okay the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for November 7th report okay the IU met on October 18th and just a few highlights celebrating white

209cane day white cane safety day is an international holiday celebrated on October 15th in the United States each year since 1964. the date is set aside to honor the achievements of people who are blind or visually impaired and the important symbol of blindness and Tool of Independence the white McCain history of orientation and Mobility was another um it was a presentation that was just the profession of orientation and Mobility developed after World War II when soldiers who had been blinded in battle were returning home the soldiers were highly motivated to be successful and in response a technique was used for using a cane that is lightweight and longer than support canes this technique and Kane revolutionized independent travel for people with visual impairment some instructional practices the Buck's IU orientation and Mobility Specialists focused on

210teaching purposeful safe efficient and effective travel skills to individuals who are blind and visually impaired orientation refers to the ability to know where you are and where you want to go Mobility refers to the ability to move safely efficiently and effectively from one place to another communication comes in many forms our special education staff work with each student to help identify the best ways for them to be able to communicate shown here as a student using pictures uh I can't really show you the picture though to select his response a writing prompt as he works to complete a journal entry for the day students answer questions make choices identify pictures and Endeavor to expand their vocabulary as they do their journaling as part of their writing lesson another reminder about the wow treats there's seasonal

211wow treats that you can continue to order as far as uh there was one other legislative there's one legislative item that I thought I would highlight in the uh the Senate Bill 1243 it was introduced by Senator Chris gampart and would establish a high school graduation requirement for students to complete an individual economics and personal finance course in addition to all other graduation requirements this new financial literacy graduation requirement will be required for all students beginning with the 23-24 school year and would allow the financial literacy class curriculum to satisfy the students social needs family consumer science or math or business education requirement for graduation the bill would allow the school district to determine the graduation requirement to which the credit earned by the state by the student is applied the measure was referred to

212the Senate education committee and was voted favorably from the committee by a vote of 7-4 on June 21st 2022. it was then referred to the full sense of consideration but taken off the senate floor calendar and referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee it is scheduled for consideration by the Senate Appropriations on October 18 2022. um there there may be action on it as early as um as this week I believe um the next IU board meeting is scheduled for November 15th upper Buck step Mr format [Music] um board of directors meeting on November 3rd from 5 30 to 7 30 p.m does that school will have an open house and come see our Cutting Edge programs and highly qualified instructors and understand how you might become a leader in Innovative Workforce Development so it's an

213open house November 3rd if you're interested in meeting with other artificial committee we had over 150 members businesses in the community attend and community meeting very impressive mechatronics Labs it's a company called Farm Bots uh Fort Myers students by Saint cubana's competition the formal buy program received a bronze spineless medal and farmbot is nothing more than a hydroplined plant system and it's really unique and it's a our food truck is open again so if you've got to be interested in having a food truck come by your office um please leave me alone it's called a call and 13 companies participated in Placement Management for 14 students that is my report our next meeting is November 17 2022. thank you and pcef Dr Bolton did you want to add anything uh just to say that PCS

214spend time celebrating the learning grants and doing additional planning for a lovely evening which will happen in April that brings us to Old business see any any new business seeing none we're back to public comment but I've got to get back to page one it was Darren Austin left twice but she state your name in municipality please [Music] Darren lost in Perkasie burrow smut and filth at the last meeting these were the words that attend Ridge School Board director used to describe a book that was in our high school library allegedly by Tiffany T Jackson then her colleague on the board read some excerpts from the book to demonstrate its smuttiness and filthiness it was a book they used as a Smoking Gun to justify the need to protect our kids from pornography in our

215libraries it's time for a reality check this is the book A young adult novel it is not smut it is not felt and is sure as hell not pornography I know this because I actually read it is there explicit language in the book yes big deal there was explicit language in the high school library when we were teens there's profanity in the classics literary masterpieces there's also everything else in life that makes people uncomfortable sex rape murder drugs War violence racism it's time for some much needed context context that was conveniently left out this book takes place in a group home for juvenile offenders convicted of very serious offensions their main character Mary just finished seven years in jail for allegedly killing a baby when she was nine years old Mary is now pregnant the

216social workers want her to have an abortion Mary insists that she wants to keep the baby and raise the child herself to do that Mary knows that she has to convince people of her innocence and prove that she is a capable parent so she starts sneaking out of the group home to take sap prep courses she saves money for a graphing calculator she wants to get a good score on the shes and hopefully get into college she covertly reaches out to Legal Advocates to help appeal her murder conviction but to say the odds are stacked against Mary is an understatement for one the group home is extremely unsafe environment Mary endures physical and verbal abuse okay stop right there verbal abuse that is the context of the excerpts read at the school board meeting the

217dialogue needs to be harsh profane and upsetting to capture how dangerous unhealthy and difficult the situation Mary is in it's not gratuitous pornography meant to corrupt the minds of vulnerable high school students its realistic dialogue that is essential to the story I don't want to give any spoilers but I'll say this this book is dark gritty Twisted disturbing and it feels dangerous it's a book that churns in your head for days after finishing it it's a type of fiction that some teenagers enjoy reading and that's okay it's not right for every single high school student of course it isn't but what book really is we don't need you stepping in and protecting our other people okay other people's kids from library books I have way more to say on this issue but I'll leave you

218with this quote from Oscar Wilde the books that the world calls immoral are the books that that show the world its own shame thank you next East Rock Hill um I am going to make a comment quick um there was a lot of great comment a lot of organized ideas shared in the Publican the first public comment and our teachers did a great job Dr Shelley did a great job um and the students are awesome and they did wonderful and it's so funny to see how they did compared with how the school board acted tonight and it's I am not surprised I'm not surprised unfortunately but I think you could probably learn a lot from watching how they act the way they make their comments that's all I got thanks thank you and then Janelle

219and Coleman technique you can each speak separately but Janelle montigney Hilltown I have three boys in the district that all love baseball it wasn't until last year that I found out the Pennridge school district has never had Middle School baseball that was very surprising to me since it's one of the most popular sports in our area on top of that all the surrounding school districts have it including Central Bucks solderton and Quakertown having a sport Middle School helped make the high school program stronger also there are many kids that stop playing baseball at 12 and 13 because there are less options available adding baseball Middle School will keep more boys and it's widely known that Sports helped build character and keep kids out of trouble another important fact is our Middle School sports are not

220fair balanced there are nine total for girls including softball but only eight for boys it is really difficult to explain to my sons why the girls have softball but the boys will have baseball I found out recently that number of parents have tried to Pusher Middle Middle School baseball in years past it hasn't happened yet but it's gotten closer last year feasibility study was done and recently it was expressed the Middle School athletic directors were asked to explore the possibility of adding Middle School baseball for 2023-2024 and make a report and recommendations in early 2013. last year's study showed that there are three 90-foot fields in the district that have never been used by high school teams so we have available fields those are Coal Hill town and Deep Run the cost will be similar

221to other Middle School sports particularly softball finally the interesting in his program is significant I know a lot of people already wrote the board I've not met a single family between all my boys teams that doesn't want this option for other boys when they get older this is very personal to me with my oldest going to seventh grade next year he and many of his friends are really hoping that the administration gets a plan on the table to vote on by January so they could play thank you in advance for the work and making the report I am hopeful and excited to see this happening for our boys thank you Coleman's hitting the Hilltown first I would like to thank my mom for all her hard work in the past few months trying to get

222Middle School baseball for me and my friends I started playing baseball over seven years ago and is one of my favorite sports I've learned a lot and made many friends it has taught me how important teamwork and hard work are also to never give up and always do your best many of our friends at Central Point Expo and I think it would be so much fun to be on a team together it would also be cool to play against South and North and get to see my friends in those seats we have softball middle school and I really don't think it is Spirit to know how to baseball I I am asking you to please start a middle school baseball program for next year it would mean a lot to me and my friends thank

223you [Applause] great and we do have one announcement we were going to have an exec executive session after tonight's meeting but due to the late hour we are going to reschedule that in our next school board meeting will be held on Monday this December 5th something like that take a motion to adjourn Al Mr Thomas please let us know in the live stream