SCHOOL BOARD Meeting - August 24, 2020

001and with that we'll do the uh salute to the flag so there's a few flags in the background whether it's mr rice or myself we'll stand and do the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you this is chenoweth would you please call the roll mrs vance clemens here mr cormack here mrs collin here mrs dolan here mr gerhart mr krauss here mr rice i'm here dr thompson here and mrs walters here thank you um and dr bolton before we go into public comment do you have uh something you'd like to um say please thank you mr krause can you hear me okay we can tomorrow almost

002600 teachers and other professional staff will return for the start of the 2020-21 school year they will spend five days of professional development learning new safety protocols and getting lessons ready for the return of 2900 full-time 2400 hybrid and 1500 full remote students on wednesday september 2nd when we were forced to switch the full virtual on march 13th of this year we learned a lot about our community we learned more about the mental health impacts on students as well as the number of students who face food insecurity who don't have reliable internet and the number of parents and staff that had to balance full-time work with full-time school supervision it was hard but at the same time we also learned more about the unbelievable heart of the penridge community everyone our staff parents community members

003local businesses all found ways to rally around our students and families to provide for their needs and to allow our students to have lifelong memories of the end of the school year planning for this school year was certainly a no-win proposition as it became clear that we would not have a completely normal opening there were arguments to be made about the beth best have to take we plan for various options from the beginning and investigated how to do them safely we are happy that we were able to provide families a choice for their children since we know that not every home has the same capabilities situations and needs we have been able to grant seventy percent of our families their first choice of academic plan for their child providing three plans was ambitious it certainly

004would have been much easier to simply choose one or two plans in july and move forward the past three months have been filled with us investigating how best to open safely and finding new ways to engage students when they cannot be physically near one another we greatly appreciate your patience since our purposeful commitment to continue to monitor the health recommendations our staffing resources and changing family requests has caused class lists and bus routes to be delivered later than in previous years we all know however the importance of students being with teachers in schools and have continued to work on how we can safely provide options to families we have continued through this whole process to review health and safety requirements and recommendations our health and safety plan incorporates all state mandates and includes recommendations from

005national state and local health agencies both the pennsylvania and the bucks county departments of health have been wonderful frequent resources as we have designed our plan there are 67 counties in pennsylvania we are fortunate to live in one of only six counties that has a county local county department of health that has allowed us to evaluate national and state recommendations through a more local lens most of the state does not have this benefit for instance the state has issued recently recommended metrics for counties to use as they consider school reopening plans because of our local health department we have been able to evaluate those recommendations looking at states county upper bucks and even penrid specific data the situation across the county has shown improvement over the past month and the current data in both penn

006ridge and upper bucks is the lowest it has been since prior to school's closing in march as of sunday the numbers in bucks county have been decreasing for about a month and they're as good as they have been in upper bucks which incorporates penridge quakertown and palisades the incidence rate for the past seven days based on onset date is 4.9 in penridge it is 6.1 both of those numbers have continued to drop over the past three weeks the positivity rate across the county is 2.5 both of those metrics are included in the state's recommendations and are currently very positive for our area i do not mention this to say that i believe that the data indicates that covet has been solved in upper bucks county i do not believe that instead it indicates that we

007are seeing positive trends but we need to be vigilant with our safety protocols and we'll continue to monitor these metrics and other health data on a regular basis it is vital for each one of us to do our part to continue to have those numbers continue to go in the positive direction and we can do so as we follow the recommendations i want to address another opinion that has been shared on social media over the past two weeks some have said that teachers are taking leaves to avoid teaching this year i want to be clear when i say that that is simply not true our teachers love their students and love what they do and want nothing more to be in school teaching however like all of us they have unique family and medical situations

008and have to decide what is best for them so even though some teachers have had to make the difficult decision to take a leave to begin the year they are not doing so lately they like all of us are doing what they believe is best for their family we will support their decisions and they should not be criticized our administration have continued to work hard to fill those positions so that we can continue to offer the various academic plans at each level in contrast to this opinion i cannot stress enough how awesome our teachers have been as they have had to plan for the uncertainty that this fall has brought no one planned for this scenario but it is our teachers who will be there on day one to welcome care for and educate your

009children their students their work will continue to make us all penbridge proud i said in my opening video to the staff that we haven't done this before but i know that we will conquer it and we will do it well because we will do it together i truly believe this because of the tremendous staff and supportive community we have in penridge thank you dr bolton uh so we'll move into public comment according to policy 903 public comment which is limited to three minutes should be directed to the presiding officer rather than individual board members district employees or members of the public for confidentiality and privacy rights specific comments regarding particular individuals must be communicated privately to the school board and superintendent via email at psd school board at penridge.org and with that we'll open a

010public comment the same way we have in the past if you would like to make a comment please unmute your microphone and we will call upon you as we see you so the first one i see unmuted is mr valletta mr krause thank you i have a comment that was unmuted thank you jim valetta i am a west rock hill resident and the president of the penn ridge education association representing over 500 teachers nurses school psychologists and guidance counselors i'm here to urge the penn ridge school board and dr bolton to use two common sense ideas that will make this school year better and safer for students parents and teachers first follow all state guidelines for school reopening these guidelines for reopening are currently followed by every bucks county school district except for penn ridge

011and palestine neighboring counties such as chester montgomery and delaware have implemented state recommendations that include stronger safety protocols for reopening which benefit their staff and students if the penrid school district had chosen to heed these guidelines from the beginning of the planning process penridge would be better prepared to offer students a better educational product this school year from day one the current education and health and safety plan is convoluted confusing and places penn ridge teachers in an extremely difficult position we are being directed to provide educational services in an often crowded environment of mixed and blended classes taxing our ability to do any one method well the current plan appears to be a collection of compromises and exceptions to exceptions we are being asked to implement a novel and incredibly complex scheme with little time

012to prepare and little specific information and logistics for how it will work the second idea that i'm here to advocate for is just simple respect for the professional staff many of whom have been completely displaced from their home buildings and areas of teaching expertise so that the district may force this current plan to work the professional staff of penn ridge is a phenomenal collection of human talent we've always worked diligently and adhered to the highest standards for our students but we do ask that we are treated fairly because we believe to our core that when this staff is fully supported it is then that we are best able to support all our students needs in short full support for teachers right now means following all state guidelines providing staff with unwavering encouragement and pro professional

013courtesy and an honest and public recognition that we are being directed to provide instruction during this fall of a global pandemic in a live and blended or mixed classroom atmosphere that has never been before used in penridge we want to do our best for students in the community but we have significant concerns that the administration has promised a complex plan that is difficult to deliver thank you mr valletta is there someone else who would like to make a public comment i see is it aaliyah yeah aaliyah i got your full name in municipality please yeah uh well before i start my cousin my lumix and i were both presenting is it okay if she's unneeded as well just i don't know are you both at the same location no we couldn't be okay i think

014the uh individual business to the solicitor i think the individual has three minutes yes yeah it's three minutes right and her cousin can be recognized separately since they're at separate locations okay so elia if you'll just uh state your name where you live and go forward please okay aaliyah lomax and i live in hilltown okay um so i'm here to talk about the pembroke school district i feel the need that it needs to create a more inclusive curriculum um we would like to first thank the dr bolton for meeting with us earlier this summer and we would like to thank the school board today for listening to us and hearing what we have to say today today i would like to bring attention to the school board and administration that the current curriculum in place

015today isn't as inclusive to all races as it needs to be i've been in the pembroke school district going on my tenth year and my peers and i feel as though that there is a lack of education um when it comes to educating students about all races and all cultures instead of emphasizing only one or two we started a petition on june 11th and currently around 5 30 pm today we checked we have 2587 signatures we started this petition to demand action and recognition from the school board and administration that these issues underlined in the petition are occurring and need to be fixed this issue is not only important to us but it should be important to everyone we believe that people aren't born racist it's a learned behavior and we in order for it

016to be solved we need to be educating students from a young age if we were to educate them at a young age that would decrease the chances of racist behavior prejudices and acts around racism that are currently occurring today at penn ridge to conclude we hope that the primary school district and board recognizes the severity of these issues that we're bringing up today as we're seeing them happen and we're seeing racism and systemic racism occur in the world today and we hope they understand the severity of these issues we're asking for discussions we'd be open to having discussions with the board or whomever to work for a solution and we would love to be a part of whatever team that if there is a team that works towards creating a more inclusive curriculum and inclusive

017environment thank you thank you miss lomax um other folks that would like to make a comment please bear with me there's 14 pages of little boxes that i have to check over so please bear with me anybody else that would like to make a public comment well i believe aaliyah had said that maya might also want to make a comment my are you on yep um yeah she covered all of it so okay okay thank you okay i'd like to make a comment okay please state your name in municipality sure it's bob sellers from east rock hill okay yes sir mr sellers penridge is a great community penridge families hold dear the importance of god community and the education of their children henrich has a great school district with great teachers i want to thank

018the teachers for focusing on our children's education social and emotional learning as residents we want to thank you for recognizing how important it is for our families and children to go back to school to receive these important services that only can be achieved by opening our schools i want to thank our superintendent dr bolton for his leadership and wisdom especially addressing recent national concerns over issues of race and bullying and currently his role as the planning team leader with 24 additional planning team members creating and implementing a school reopening health and safety plan that follows state and county department health guidelines thank you all for your hard work i want to thank the following school board directors joan cullen bill kraus dr sherry thompson david rice and bob cormack i want to thank you for

019your strength to promote and defend diversity of views and discussion even when hateful and hurtful identity labels have been targeted against you thank you for standing up for american exceptionalism recognizing it is achieved by our diversity sacrifice suffering strength generosity and love we had for each other thank you for standing up and defending america's history that started with the signing of our declaration of independence july 4th 1776 that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the respect duty and appreciation that millions of americans of all races many who lived in our pen rich community fought and died for thank you for reminding us that freedom means

020freedom for all americans and slavery is evil and as americans we faced our shame and fought a civil war that left america with an assassinated president and 700 000 americans who died for the righteousness of freedom for all americans american civil war to abolish slavery sent a message to the world that slavery is evil and america needs to loudly call out child and religious slavery that still exists today in countries like china and africa in today's climate of identity politics schools and universities need to stop teaching our students that america at its core is evil and racist we need to stop teaching based on differences of skin color we need to stop teaching black children that america is a racist country and as a result they can't succeed we need to stop teaching white children

021because of their skin color they should feel shame i want to thank you for standing up for our children and teaching them that america is a great country of opportunity and together with love of god and one another there are no limits we can achieve together in conclusion thank you teachers administrator and school board directors joan cullen bill kraus dr sherry thompson david rice and bob cormack for your hard work and unselfish actions recognizing the important services penrith schools provide our families children especially with special needs that only attending schools can provide thank you very much thank you mr sellers anybody else like to make a public comment hello yes sir please state your name in municipality i'm tom moran from dublin thank you mr krause my comments and concerns tonight mr haran you you

022faded out on us a little bit can you closer to the microphone yes all right how's that that's better all right my comments and concerns tonight are about the high school cafeteria during the last school board meeting it was said that it could not be held in person because it was against regulations to put 300 people in a room together but we want to hear your comment but we've got to be able to be audible okay maybe i would sit maybe i was too close is this a little better it's much better thank you thank you okay thank you again my comments and concerns tonight are about the high school cafeteria in the last school board meeting it was said that it couldn't be held in person because it's against regulations to put 300 people

023in a room together i have since learned the high school cafeteria will have 350 students eating lunch together at one time and traditionally lunch has been a very social time but unfortunately that can't be the case right now putting all these students together is going to be very problematic and you don't think students will yell to their buddies to the next table maybe move closer to talk to a friend or get up and walk around the room and we all know covet 19 spreads through airdrop it's talking shouting coughing sneezing in this type of environment we're giving this virus the opportunity to easily spread this will put students staff and the community as a whole at their risk the risk that is unnecessary and could have been avoided quakertown school district thought about these problems

024and came up with a safe solution they changed their schedules shortened the day and eliminated the lunch period altogether they offered the students the option of taking grab and go lunches home to still provide food for students in need quakertown chose not to just meet the state's minimum requirement but instead chose to put work into changing a complex schedule and offering the students the safest option why didn't penridge follow quakertown's lead on this why is penridge only meeting minimum requirements when a safer option is available and we'd really like to know the reasoning behind the decision to include lunch in the curriculum thank you thank you mr grant for your comment is there anybody else that would like to make a public comment hello uh can you hear me yes i can please state your

025name in municipality uh hello my name is jason herder from dublin and so i would just like to first thank everybody for for having this forum and all the thought that's gone into the difficulties that that are presented with this school year um so i i just wanted to ensure that everybody's really trying to think outside of the box and come up with solutions maybe that that aren't being considered by other school districts or or or aren't at the you know being you know government mandates like for instance using open open spaces rec centers perhaps bringing in trailers using tents and nice weather things like that so we can spread it out and still maintain um our classes in a normal capacity in terms of full full-on classes um also in terms of for instance

026like high school students right so considering maybe you know 10th 11th 12th graders they have a better capacity to do homeschooling so maybe we could clear out room in the high school to make room for the six we have second third fourth graders so that they could use that space and then we can keep it keep the distance and increase the space um and allowing for um somewhat some some sense of normalcy and then also um i'm sorry what and then also think what in the intention of putting you know corrective actions in place uh for the year but then realize that that it could change at any moment in terms of you know if there's a vaccine effective treatments and things like that so we need to think short term but plan long term

027and i just want to ensure that everybody on this panel is is kind of thinking in that direction and that that's all i had thank you thank you mr herder um anybody else like to make a public comment and please forgive me while i scan it's up to 15 pages now and it's um okay okay okay all right i have scanned all 15 pages dr bolton do you see anybody unmuted that is there anybody that would like to make a public comment that i may have missed okay hi i have a public comment okay please state your name and municipality hi this is karen angelo c schaefer and i am living in perkissey pennsylvania my children attend bedminster okay hi i have two things the first i just wanted to uh just reiterate what the

028uh the girls said earlier today and support what they said uh aaliyah i believe was the the girl's name that spoke yes and i just feel like we do need to have more diversity and more education supporting diversity in the penn ridge school district my second comment excuse me for a second is regarding the school board and i just want to remind everybody on the call that the narrow win last year for this school board was 44 maybe 45 percent to 55 percent and that if we want to see change to come out and vote because when i looked at the numbers it looks like only about maybe about 13 000 votes the 13 000 people voted out of a population of about i would say i think the total population of the penn ridge

029school district is about 45 000 excuse me not that they're all voting but i just want to remind everyone that we all have a say in who is supporting us who is representing us and that we should be thinking about that at the next election thank you thank you for your comment is there other public comments at this time okay seeing none hearing none i will move into the president's report all right tonight we have two very important topics for my president's report and give me one second i have to move this to another screen okay uh the first is a public announcement of dr bolton's performance evaluation for the 2019-2020 school year and the second is a review of the herculean efforts of dr bolton the cabinet administrators and staff over the summer and

030in preparation for safely opening our schools so i'll start with the first in accordance with pennsylvania school code the board is required to perform an annual evaluation of the superintendent evaluating the superintendent is one of the school board's most critical responsibilities an effective performance evaluation helps drive school improvement and student achievement develops a positive relationship between the board and the superintendent demonstrates district accomplishments and sets annual priorities in assessing the superintendent's performance the board and superintendent have agreed to use the psba's superintendent performance evaluation form which reached the superintendent in the following areas student growth and achievement organizational leadership district operations and financial management communications and community relations human resource management and professionalism for the 2020 school year i am pleased to announce that the board rates the performance of dr bolton as proficient or

031distinguished in each of these areas thank you dr bolton job well done okay i would also like to public publicly acknowledge and thank our outstanding superintendent administrators department heads and staff who have worked tirelessly since march 13th to address needs develop plans that sometimes change daily and deliver essential services to students in the community while at the same time planning for a safe reopening of the schools this fall i would just like to take a moment to highlight some of the truly amazing efforts if i have admitted anything or left anyone out i apologize in advance mrs jessica krauss and that's no relation and the transportation department they have touched and when i say touched i mean this is a manual effort to hand schedule six thousand seven hundred and ninety five children to code

032them as five day hybrid or virtual they are in the process of rallying the kids that are returning in some format plus the tech school routes mrs giantana the nutritional services they have provided over 155 000 meals to our students since march the summer months were extremely busy preparing and distributing over 8 500 meals per week they have sourced disposable packaging materials for breakfast and lunch meals they've created breakfast and lunch plans for fall with each building principle with the help of aaron reichert they have developed an electronic pre-order lunch form for the elementary and middle schools they've worked with all schools on layouts of the cafeteria to ensure proper social distancing during lunch planned alternative serving methods and procedures for breakfast and lunch and supported the upper box county technical school with cafeteria layouts

033servings plans menus and schedules for the fall return dr darren the pupil services department they've provided 148 students with extended school year services virtually mr dalbert and the business office in addition to keeping a careful eye on the budget state and federal funding and looking toward the future the business office has processed and paid 87 senior tax rebates totaling seven thousand one hundred sixty five dollars in the months of july and august mr harper mr kelly harper the operations department the operations team have diligently been working on all 11 buildings to implement the safety measures they have acquired 35 000 disposable masks and distributed them through the 11 buildings they have 30 000 floor markers and arrows for hallway directionals and distancing they have 600 custom made portable clear polycarbonate barriers for classrooms 600 classrooms

034set up with 30 second disinfection supplies and disposable gloves 440 plastic tables to supplement lunch spacing 100 student desks were loaned to the upper box county technical school and they've installed wall mounted hand sanitizer stations in each school installed water bottle filling stations in each school near the cafes and they've installed clear polycarbonate barriers in each school in the main office secretary library nurse and cafe checkout and they've also reprogrammed the hvac controls to increase the outside air into the schools and they've gotten creative with storage of non-essential classroom items inside the school at no extra cost to the district that's a herculean mayor mr kelly hats off to your department mrs miller in the technology department they've imaged 650 new freshman laptops they've reimaged 427 sophomore laptops and imaged and distributed 40 additional teacher

035laptops at the high school in the middle school they've imaged 650 new sixth grade laptops the elementary schools they've imaged 1 200 laptops for use in grades 3 4 and 5 and updated 1 200 ipads for using k through 2. they've they've added enough devices to offer high all hybrid and remote students a device for use at home they've imaged one 210 teacher laptops as part of the normal four-year replacement on the district-wide effort they have provided 60 additional laptops to tas and pcas 70 laptops for principals counselors and facility managers the network was upgraded over the summer and they oversaw the installation of 240 access points across seven elementary buildings that included 120 updates and 120 new access points for extended coverage on the data network they rolled over all the student data from

036the various systems and amongst all that there we have a new website coming soon stay tuned that's coming um i'd also like to thank the county commissioners and extend a huge thank you to commissioners diane marseglia robert harvey and gene d gerlanimo for providing 18 000 face shields and i know i also know that there were hundreds if not thousands of hours in meetings phone calls some while staff was on vacation developing plans and refining those plans then changing those plans in response to governor wolf's orders to bring the district and community to this point together this community is lucky to have such a caring administrators and educators who repeatedly demonstrate their commitment to what is in the best interest of the students we should all be penridge proud so to all thank you for

037your efforts over the summer thank you for your ongoing efforts to to open the schools this fall in a safe manner and with that that's the end of my president's report i'll hand it off to dr bolton for the superintendent's report thank you mr press thank you for recognizing the team members and the hard work that happens every summer but especially this summer to get schools ready so i appreciate you taking the time to delineate some of those accomplishments for the team this summer i appreciate it uh mrs miller for my superintendent support i'd like to share screens so could you give me that capability please can have a couple thumbs up if you can see the goals that are on the screen thank you mr krause so our district goals get finalized in september

038but with the start of a new school year um i would like to share an overview of the draft copy of our goals as we look forward to the the work that we'll be doing in and outside of our classrooms over the next 12 months these are also going to show up in a lot of committee meetings over the next few months as we unpack these to a more minute level and give some details around them you'll notice that these are organized in the same six areas that mr kraus mentioned in terms of my evaluation and they are established by the pennsylvania school boards association in terms of evaluation of school systems as well as school leaders so in the areas of student growth and achievement for continuing both of these goals one is our

039work to work and to improve our elementary literacy with the bold commitment that we're going to improve the percentage of students reading on or above grade level by the end of third grade to a hundred percent um the students that we set this as a benchmark are currently in second grade and we are tracking them as we go through we're excited for our new elementary literacy program this year and the improvements that it has shown in the two programs the two buildings that have piloted it so we're excited to get started with that and continue the improvement of literacy at the elementary level we're also continuing in dr robartic's leadership the study of possible later school start times our expectation is sometimes around the turn of the calendar year uh there will be some discussion

040that committee continues to meet monthly to discuss those topics and to see what might be appropriate or not appropriate for penridge and make recommendations to the board in the areas of organizational leadership obviously our num we have three pretty big goals here one has to do with just the social emotional and instructional supports that are needed as a result of the coven 19 pandemic and so we obviously from a mental health standpoint as well as instructional standpoint need to stand behind all of our families all of our students and all of our staff as we go through this year and we deal with the uncertain time the second area is one that we've spoken about over the last few months and it's continue the education and training for all of our stakeholders in the area

041of diversity equity and inclusion uh we've delineated some of this work in terms of goals and and we'll be doing more of as we into the fall i have asked dr durr who is uh leading this initiative to provide an overview of some of the work and the trainings that have been done this summer so dr dirk could you just give us a sense for some of the work that was done by many of our staff over the summer please yes thank you dr bolton so i'm excited to share that since may 1st until today we've offered 10 different training topics to our paraprofessional staff professional staff and others in the area of diversity equity and inclusion some of those topics included understanding equity and inequity learning to be a threat to inequity culturally responsive

042teaching classroom diversity an introduction to student differences cultural and linguistic differences cultural competence and racial bias making schools safe and inclusive for transgender students making schools safe and inclusion inclusive for lgbtq students so with all of those trainings that we offered um we're pretty amazed to see that our professionals took advantage we had 1244 total staff that took those different trainings from may just until today so i'm pleased to share that information additionally we were excited to have dr sharissa gibson she is an educational consultant for teach for equity she's also an administrator at pensbury she came to the district on august 12th and provided a three-hour in-person training for all of our k-12 administrators and some of our teachers that participate on our diversity equity and inclusion team so her training title was understanding

043bias and culture an introduction to culturally responsive leadership she talked to us about leading with cultural humility and understanding the cultural continuum and moving from cultural pre-competence to cultural proficiency so she also introduced the culturally responsive school leadership model which includes four areas for us to examine school context and climate community engagement curriculum and instruction and critical self-reflection so i will have much more detail to share at our september 8th committee meetings about the work of our diversity equity and inclusion team and i also will be sending out invitations um there in the process of getting ready to be sent out to some of our families who indicated interest in participating and some of our students um so i can say maya you're on my list thank you dr bolton thank you both for your

044leadership and for that report also under organizational leadership we're continuing our work in terms of curriculum documents so it has been a three-year process to evaluate rewrite and refine all of our curriculum documents it's under the lead lead of dr scheid in the curriculum department they have set a curriculum renewal cycle and we'll be following that over the next few years to redo all of the curriculum across the district from an operations and financial management standpoint again from a fiscal management standpoint to provide a balanced budget for next school year with a tax increase at or below the act 1 index and also to finalize a plan to address all of the areas of the technology program quality review or technology pqr if you remember from last year the iu came in and did a

045study of all areas of technology i did surveys of students and parents and staff as well as look at infrastructure as well as instructional models their report is due to us in early september it was a casualty of the spring and so once we have that we will prevent present that at a technology committee as well as our plan to address any items that they put in front of us from a communications and community relations standpoint as mr krause mentioned we are excited that in september there will be a roll out of a new district website that comes complete with a parent mobile app there will be training videos for parents and community members to stay attached to their schools in the district as a whole as well as a fresh new look to our

046district website we are excited about to share that for you and this group will be sharing that in september as well as continuing our focus on communication and relationship with all district stakeholders we look to plan events that involve not just parents but also other community members in educational and community topics from a human resources management standpoint we're implementing and evaluating new special ed classrooms at all levels we've added programs this year and special edit all three of our instructional levels elementary middle and high school and it will allow for two main things number one it will allow for more students to remain at their home school and number two will provide more training in the modeling of instructional strategies for our regular ed teachers as there are opportunities for that inclusion and that co-teaching

047in more of our buildings across the division so we're looking forward over the next month to unpack some of many of these goals for you at committee meetings um and finalizing our goals in september and that is the superintendent's report for tonight thank you mr krause i believe the next agenda item is for me to recognize a couple donations we have two very gracious donations i would like to recognize first the donation of four hundred dollars from an anonymous source to be used towards the district summer meal distribution uh as was said we've served uh about 160 000 meals this summer and so it was very kind that many community members stepped up including this donation the second donation was a donation of fifteen thousand dollars that is being used for the purchase of ipads

048and laptops for the upcoming school year and again that was for an anonymous source so we just want to thank both of those individuals for those very generous gifts to help the families and the teachers of the district thank you mr kraus thank you dr bolton um okay moving into the consent calendar um like i make a motion to approve the consent calendar items a through h and as it applies to item h i would like to just say that please note the approval of the proposed ebr contracts are specifically conditioned upon each individual executing a document which includes language indicating that the district is relieved of its obligation to compensate for services not provided due to a cancellation of operations so that's the only caveat um around item h so the motion stands do

049i have a second a second seconded by mr rice and we'll do the voting same as we have been um abstentions and nays so are there any abstentions or anybody voting no hearing none motions approved eight zero committee reports uh mrs walters activities thank you mr krause uh the activities committee met on august 3rd um and we have a couple items for approval tonight first item is a motion to approve the amended 2020 health and safety plan second it's a motion um by mrs walters approved yeah seconded by mr krause comments or questions from board members yes mr cross yes yes this is miss clements i just want to thank the entire staff for the huge undertaking that this has that that has gone into this so far and that will continue to go into

050this from the administrative standpoint this has been a huge effort to juggle all of this to try to match not only students but also staff up up with the uh settings that that that are most conducive to their needs and you know as well as all of our additional staff that's going to have to implement this i mean um for teachers to be completely changing the way that they teach in a virtual capacity in a hybrid capacity is a huge undertaking for our teaching assistants um you know and and looking at even what they've done so far over the summer and the ways that they've been creative and trying to make sure that they meet the needs of students our bus drivers are going to be doing different routes different days which is something that's

051new for them our nurses are going to be dealing with completely different situations than they've ever dealt with before um our secretaries are going to be facilitating different settings than they've ever dealt with before and so it's a huge task for everyone and i've seen some really exciting uh posts from some of our staff who are really excited to get back to work and uh you know it had shared some really neat things that they're looking to do going back and it's really inspiring and so i just want to thank everyone for all of the efforts that they've put into all of this thank you other comments or questions from board members can i make a comment mrs walters um i just i want to piggyback off of what mrs vanish clements has said um

052because i know that there are some teachers that are very excited to come back but i also know that there's some teachers that are really struggling with everything um and i think sometimes these meetings are very formal and dry and people make public comments and we you know don't deserve for board protocol um and i think sometimes people that don't tune in to board member or board meetings on a regular basis understand the board members really do care we are very involved most of us are have children in the district right now and we go into the schools a lot during the school year and help and volunteer we care about our teachers um and and i i completely understand the frustrations um of the unknown that some teachers are feeling and the anxiety that

053they have i was a teacher in this district and um i was a long-term sub in 2010 at grass and we the building went through renovations that summer and we could not get into the building until 48 hours before school started to unpack our classrooms from boxes and begin teaching and there was a lot of unknowns there was a lot of anxiety and while our faculty room conversations might have been all about us you know treading water and feeling overwhelmed we persevered and our students didn't know any different because we showed up for them and um they needed us and and i just want everybody to kind of keep that positive attitude right now that yes there's a lot of people that have worked really really hard this summer and they care everybody's doing the

054best that they can to put all these pieces into place and we're going to monitor and we're going to adjust and we're going to work together but i i feel very strongly that this is a community that can pull together and support each other um through difficult times and and our kids need us right now so i just wanted to recognize uh you know and some of the fears and the frustrations that some teachers are experiencing and know that that you are heard and you are supported by all nine of these board members and all the administrators thank you thank you other comments from board members okay i have uh just i just want to for the public's um sense uh since it's a 36-page document to just explain why there's an amended uh version

055since we approved one at our previous meeting um a couple weeks ago so the only change to this amended health and safety plan is due to the change in the face covering order by the state that has come out since we approved the last time and so that has been updated to include that mandate around face coverage okay thank you dr bolton okay um we'll go to the vote any abstentions any nays seeing none motion passes eight zero mrs walters back to you okay the next item um is the emotion to approve policy number 815.1 to you it's the use of live stream video on school property i saw you on mute mrs collins seconded by mrs cullen questions or comments from board members seeing none and the abstentions or nays seeing none motion passes

056eight zero mrs walters okay and the last item is the approval to begin fall sports based on the suburban one league recommended calendar and utilizing approved healthy health and safety plan let's take a nap okay seconded by mr rice questions or comments from board members i just mrs cullen yeah i don't want to take too much time but i i do want to say that i think this is the right move and just support it our children our students it's it's important for their development i believe it's an essential part of a public education to have not just sports but all extracurricular so i'm happy to support this tonight and i am looking forward to seeing our students you know marching on the field and playing their sports and doing the other other extracurricular activities

057that we're blessed to be able to offer through a public school system thank you thank you mrs cullen other comments or questions from board members so uh yes mr krause famous clemens yes uh i just wanted to point out that this uh motion will allow the kids students to participate sorry i'm trying to get rid of my background noise but it's not working um um this will allow the students to participate in their sports but it doesn't we are not yet addressing the the piece about spectators and that's not because we're not going to allow spectators it's because that's going to be a later decision so for people who are um you know concerned about that topic we will be addressing that topic before um before those before it becomes necessary to start implementing it

058thank you thank you mrs penis clemens any other questions or comments from board members i just wanted to clarify again uh what this is and what this isn't and as we move forward into the fall sports and so if you remember uh we sent out a communication that the health and safety plan for summer activities was extended through august 31st and that meant no official practices would begin until the earliest next monday which means teams have continued voluntary workouts that have included multiple students um on a daily basis being here but they were not official team practices and it did not lead to competitions from a pia standpoint what this does is take the suburban one league which if we are a member of suburban one league most of the school district in bucks county

059are and to accept their um amended calendar for participation which means officially sports would start next monday and then competitions begin depending on the type of sport it is sports are ranked by p double a in terms of low risk medium risk or high risk in our environment the low risk sports are the ones that are a little more individual and distancing is a natural part of think golf from that standpoint and so those competitions would begin earlier the moderate sports which are soccer field hockey girls volleyball water polo they would begin later and then football which is the only high level sport in the fall would begin last with their competition slated for the beginning of october this would allow us time to continue to monitor the situation as ms venus clemens said in

060terms of what does that look like both for our athletes as well as for spectators and parents being able to attend those events be able to get a sense for what it is both locally as well as what are the current mandates and recommendations from the state at that time so we will continue to address this but this does allow our athletes to formally begin practice next monday thank you for that clarification any other questions or comments from board members before we vote okay any abstentions any neigh votes seeing none motion passes eight zero mrs walters back to you okay and then the next activities meeting is scheduled for monday september 8th thank you finance committee mrs banus clemens okay yes first i would like to make a motion to approve contracts a through p

061okay a second seconded by mr rice uh questions or comments from board members uh mr president on mr cormac number k i have to abstain from voting because of the coved [Music] 19 act capital access funding program okay so note it uh thank you mr krause can i can i amend my motion to remove item k i don't see why not mr miller is there any issue with that there's no issue with voting on everything but k and then taking k as a separate vote okay all right so i believe the motion is a through p with the exception of k at this time is that correct mrs baynes clemens yes okay questions or comments from board members all right seeing none any abstention as noted by mr cormack nay votes okay motion passes seven

062seven yes one abstention mr krause i believe for that motion it still would be eight zero i think mr cormac is going to abstain that's correct we're taking them we're taking them separately you are correct i'm sorry i i completely overlooked that all right yes motion pass is 8-0 okay i'll make a motion to approve item k a second second by mr krause uh questions or comments from board members seeing none abstentions here mr cormack thank you um any any neigh votes seeing none motion passes uh seven yes one abstention okay thank you back to you i'd like to make a motion to approve the insight financial services lease resolution for 2020 and schedule of assets for one to one laptop program approved may 11 2020. a second sorry seconded by mrs walters questions or

063comments from board members seeing none any abstentions or nay votes seeing none motion passes eight zero back to you mrs venus clemens thank you i'd like to make a motion to approve proposed nutritional services employees compensation and benefits plan i'll second that seconded by mr krause questions or comments from board members saying none in the abstentions nay votes hearing none motion passes eight zero back to you mrs clinton with that vote mr krause i just want to thank the board members for their support of that contract that does raise our important nutritional services employees to uh rates that are competitive across the county and so you know that every time we're looking at salaries we look to compare that way and so i do believe that this is a fair contract both for the district

064but also for the nutritional services so thank you for your support of those important employees thank you dr bolton okay mrs baines comments back to you i'd like to make a motion to approve obsolete items a through f second second in by mrs cullen questions or comments from board members seeing none anybody abstaining or voting nay hearing none motion passes eight zero back to you mrs banus clemens thank you mr krause the next finance committee meeting is scheduled for monday september 14th all right thank you uh iu mrs baynes commons thank you we should put them back to back for me so that i can look right into the next one right gotta keep your kids out exactly over the summer the bucks county intermediate unit has implemented virtual instruction including steam summer camps extended

065school year programs and head start summer school even delivering family engagement kits for students in the last year dr hoffman and his staff have demonstrated an exceptional ability to handle crisis situations first facing a fire and relocating an early learning center while only missing two instructional days and then in handling this pandemic while facilitating information and communication across all districts in the county in addition we have held multiple meetings to approve health and safety plans across all different settings the bucks county intermediate unit has to create plans to meet the needs of students in early learning centers in homes and correctional facilities medical facilities in all different districts with various reopening plans and the list goes on that is not an easy task and the entire staff at the bucks county intermediate unit is working

066hard to meet the needs of students in all districts and settings within the parameters being set their efforts are greatly appreciated and set an example across the state our next intermediate unit board meeting is scheduled for tuesday september 15th thank you mrs banus clemens uh personnel committee dr thompson thank you mr krause i would like to make a motion to approve i just have one motion tonight one motion to approve sean dalbert as treasurer for the 2019 2020 and 2020 2021 school years a second seconded by mrs cullen questions or comments from board members seeing none anybody abstaining or voting nay hearing none motion passes 8-0 dr thompson thank you mr krause our next personnel committee meeting is scheduled for tuesday september 8th thank you upper bucks county technical school mrs dolan hello so the

067upper bucks county technical school we met on august 20th last thursday and there was quite a few things on the agenda um first was um we approved our school to be open five days a week full-time in-person instruction which was very exciting um personally i don't think that there's any way that you could not be learning with your hands virtually so i was really happy that that passed um 9-0 um we accepted our carl perkins grant of 130 000 and some change um we also put in place and discussed our cleaning our new cleaning crew and they seem to be doing a really excellent job um our new building is making a lot of headway um and should be open for the start of school um and i think that's about it just um the

068big thing was getting our kids back in five days a week into their normal environment and i know being a former tech student how much that means to them being in in their shops and doing what they love um if mrs clements has anything to add or mr rice he was on our call uh please feel free to add to my report thank you all right looks like everybody's okay with it mrs dolan so i'm sorry i'd like to add one thing to the report i just want to also thank the board for their support of transportation of our tech school students because obviously if our high school is running a hybrid schedule and the tech school is running a five-day schedule then our students have unique transportation needs since they will not be at

069the high school three of the days that they need to get to tech school so because of the board support and mrs krause's unbelievable organization and routing skills and transportation we're able to provide multiple transportation routes for our tech school students some from their home some from the high school to be able to get our tech school students so they can participate five days a week but thank you for your support of that and for mrs krause's and transportation's work to get that done i would i would completely i would also echo those sentiments i know how hard it has to be trying to get an am and a pm route a.m there i am back to and from the high school different days our transportation department has worked tirelessly doing an undoable job so

070huge shout out to them and thank you for making that possible to get those kids up there every day yes echo that and thank you very much dr bolton for that um thank you mrs dolan for the committee report uh penridge area coordinating committee mr cormack mr krauss i don't have a report at this time we are still trying to put a zoom meeting together with our membership and i have reached out to our chairman mr nyman to see if we can schedule that so at this time we have another board meeting or another pac media committee meeting scheduled for august 27th that'll probably be delayed uh in trying to put together a zoom meeting and we'll look for that zooming to take place in september thank you mr cormack uh penn ridge community educational

071foundation liaison this is walters thank you mr krauss um the um penridge education foundation met on august 1st via zoom i was not in attendance at the meeting but i know that rescheduling our fundraisers and trying to come up with some creative ways to fundraise um in the upcoming months was part of the discussion as many people know our biggest event is in april we do a lovely evening at the washington house um and of course it was canceled this year so we're bouncing around ideas and hopefully i'll have an update next month on some things that we have planned for the upcoming year our next meeting is september 5th first saturday month thank you mrs walters okay next is approve approval of voting delegates um i'd like to make a motion uh to approve

072uh dr thompson as the voting delegate at the 2020 virtual psa conference to be held on october 14th and 15th 2020. as i understand it psba because the conference is going to be held virtually um is only allowing one voting member this year so um this is uh dr thompson has graciously volunteered to be that member so uh motion's on the table do i have a second second oh oh my god mr seconded by mr rice questions or comments from board members hearing none anybody abstaining or voting negatively hearing none motion passes eight zero congratulations dr thompson uh okay moving on is there any old business mr krause i have one item that i forgot from my president's report so i apologize yes sir there was one recognition that i wanted to give from the

073summer as well as into the beginning of the school year and that is for the rams packs uh we've had a a presentation from the rams packs last fall but there are local churches and volunteers that have been packing food for our neediest families and providing that at the elementary level they continued that work over the summer so for one of our weekly food distributions they would bring 100 rams packs for those families in addition to the food that we were providing to continue to provide that service and they've also announced that they're going to providing rams packs at all seven of our elementary schools in the fall and so they were providing to just that many more families so just a huge thank you to those organizations those churches and those individuals who have

074spearheaded that uh they do have a wonderful website if you're interested in donating or learning more about their work but i did want to recognize them and fail to do that my president's report so thank you dr bolton oh sorry and on that note i'm tonight i'm pretty sure at the hickory stick there's a fundraiser i mean it's ten after eight now i'm not sure what time it was going to maybe nine o'clock but anyway at any rate if you're outside or going out the ice cream shop hickory stick is having a fundraiser for the ram packs tonight thank you for that and anybody else with old business no is there any new business seeing none we will move into public comment and the same rules as the first public comment period applies if you

075wish to comment please unmute your mic and state your name in municipality so is there anybody that would like to make a public comment yes can you hear me uh yes please state your damon municipality sir yes uh matt linetti east rockhill township um i wanted to uh just point out um that a lot of families have been left uh sort of in the lurch over the last two weeks and it i can't help but um uh seem to think that uh the school district seems to have been very poorly prepared when it comes especially to the hybrid model that was floated um and while i recognized that when it was when it was originally announced it was indicated that there may be a small number of families that wouldn't be able to access it

076or that it wouldn't be available to and then about two and a half weeks before school is set to start um there we get uh notification to a significant number of families that due to staffing issues they can't uh they can't accommodate the hybrid uh model and it seems to me that that is an issue that could have been foreseen and wasn't uh and so i i just want to point out because i hear a lot of self-congratulatory talk from the board tonight uh that that is a thing that really uh has left a lot of parents and families uh sort of in the lurch at the very last second and scrambling um and forced to pick from two options maybe neither of one that they were uh neither of which they were particularly excited

077about um and so uh i just wanted to in the midst of all the all the congratulating about uh sports uh i wanted to point that out uh thanks thank you mr linetta um other questions or comments from the community uh yes i'd like to make a comment please yes please state your name in municipality my name is colleen kaufman i'm from perkins borough i am a teacher for the county i also have a son going into second grade um at goose and i feel at this point um you know my point is probably moot but i need to sleep at night so i really want to say how i feel as a teacher with the plan that's been put in place particularly concerning teachers being deemed essential workers i'm proud to be an essential

078worker i take pride in that label but to put teachers as essential workers on the same level as nurses and doctors and staff that deal with life and death um is ignoring the fact that there are different levels of essential workers and i feel that that is unfair to the teachers who have just spent the last seven years doing active shooter drills in their classroom um i spent years holding pulling uh pulling things in front of my door and holding it down with a rope you know i spent time being anxious about my safety in the classroom and the safety of my students and now i'm walking into another situation where i have to be anxious about my safety and the safety of my students and again this is for my conscience to sleep at

079night at this point i recognize that the only way that things are going to change is when something unfortunately happens and something will unfortunately happen thank you any other comments from the public hearing none seeing nobody unmute it i'm scanning through the pages i i have some comments to me okay please state your name and municipality um krista ammon and penridge borough i just was questioning too i feel like a lot of information hasn't been given on really what the virtual is going to be about i mean i even called today south middle school and they couldn't even tell me anything about it over the phone so i really feel like more communication when you're asking people to make a decision like of someone else said if you were going for the hybrid and that's

080not an option anymore for middle school then you have to possibly you know pick a different option and you're being asked to make a decision that you don't even have information as to what that model is going to entail so i really feel like there has to be a better communication to the parents so they can make a better decision as to what's going to work for them and their children okay thank you are there other comments from the public yes i'd like to speak uh okay alexis please give your full name in municipality um my name is alexis shell and i'm in hilltown township um i guess i just want to say that i originally had chosen hybrid for both of my middle schoolers which is now not an option and i am now

081basically having to make my children go back to school five days a week because i feel like there's been absolutely zero communication on the virtual model and i just don't even know if they would be what they're going to be learning who's going to be teaching them and now all of a sudden on friday we got some strange chart talking about blended classes and there's been absolutely zero explanation about this how it's going to be running who's gonna be who's deciding which children are getting the virtual model who's deciding who's getting the blended model and again everyone keeps asking calling the schools and nobody is giving them any answers and i don't understand how everyone here is acting like everything is all great and perfect and most people don't even know how their kids are

082going to be taught and i just find that absolutely stunning to me that here we are a week out of school and people are just acting like everything is fine and i'm you know again now i'm sending my kids to school and i don't really want to be doing that but i feel like if they're going to need to learn this is the way they're going to have to do it because i don't trust that the virtual model is going to be teaching them what they need to be and it's going to be completely unequitable to a lot of these poor kids who are going to be doing this either virtual or blended classes and i just i i think it's terrible and there's been no communication and i'm just i'm really horrified by this

083so i just want to say everything is not perfectly fine many many of the people in this district are very angry and upset and i feel like you guys need to understand that and i don't know do something about it thank you thank you mr any other comments from the public and please i would like to speak okay please state your name in municipality my name is stephanie carr and i'm speaking from bedminster township okay all right miss score i wanted to piggyback on what the last individual said um i'm finding it extremely frustrating that i still don't know who my children's teacher is what kind of curriculum we're looking at um as well as you know the fact that my children might be taught by a teacher who's not unique to the bedminster community

084i understand that many teachers are qualified to teach second grade and i appreciate that however from a parent's perspective which i know you care about because we elect you um it is very upsetting to know exactly what is not happening and i know i speak for many people in stating that there is not enough communication not enough thank you thank you mrs carr hi i'd like to make a comment please state your name and municipality my name is lauren schalk i am in sellers alberto and i have two children at sellersville elementary um there's a lot that i want to say and i'm extremely disappointed in the district and the lack of communication and the lack of i think the concern for everyone in our children's safety there are classrooms with 40 desks in them

085and i want to understand how that is taking our children and their safety seriously that isn't at sellersville that is at central but it's still one of our schools and i have i know like it's it's extremely frustrating i think the second thing that's extremely frustrating to me is the fact that now we are being told that there is waitlist to go virtual so you're telling us that if we are not comfortable sending our children five days a week we have no choice we got kicked out of the hybrid because only fifty percent of those people got to do it now i'm being forced to do five days because there's no virtual there's a wait list that is unacceptable and that's all i have to say yeah you got to be fine thank you mr

086schalke and the other public comment yes um i have a comment deborah beck i'm in bedminster township i have a daughter going into sixth grade we had actually wanted the hybrid version for the middle school and we understood when we filled out the survey that it might not be um offered but um it appears that it was a popular option listening to the comments however we were put into our backup plan which is the virtual we did look at the email on friday with the chart and i have no idea exactly what it means what my daughter is going to be doing we also have an iep with her and we have not been contacted with regard to her speech therapy as well as what is going to happen with the orchestra our daughter plays

087the cello and she was really looking forward to doing that in sixth grade i think that with a week and a day before the start of school this is absolutely unacceptable nothing was really done today when we when my husband and daughter went to pick up the laptop we did not get much training on canvas and i just think that if everyone's supposed to be prepared to start school on september 2nd all the parents are woefully unprepared thank you thank you mrs beck other public comments at this time i'd like to speak okay please state your name municipality i'm robin snyder from hilltown township and i just wanted to say i am the mother of two elementary students at sciler and i'm very happy and excited to send my kids back to school five days

088so thank you very much to the school board for supporting that option thank you mrs snyder other public comments at this time okay i'm not i'm scrolling through looking for unmuted mics i have a question um please state your name and municipality my name is ashley dallas in hilltown township yes ma'am is this an appropriate time to ask a question pam uh public comment is is public comment it's it's really not a question an answer uh period but if you state your question uh dr bolton may either contact you separately or you may address them after the end of public comment great thank you um so i have two very quick questions the first one is if schools do need to close for whatever reason or for x amount of time what will that look

089like in regards to students who already are learning virtually um and second in one of the early correspondences about the different models of learning it was said that the virtual model would allow for a seamless reintegration back into the classroom and i'm wondering um you know what exactly is the rule for this um at this time or what are your thoughts on that in terms of being reintegrated back into the classroom thank you thank you for your questions okay other public comment at this time hi this is adrian king hilltown township all right mrs king welcome hi um so i just wanted to comment on the um plan that dr bolton went over um i understand that this is a draft plan but i would have hoped to see that not only were you focusing

090on diversity and inclusion objectives under your staff and your teachers but there would have also been some bullets underneath your students your first bucket that you went under over as well um and then also that you would have gone into on anything really that you had in the plan there was no mention of measuring success and what success looks like um even with the diversity and inclusion training that's being done it's great that it's being done but it's being done in a an environment where there is no diversity and so how do you really measure the effectiveness of that um to ensure that what you're doing is achieving the true outcome that you are you are looking for thank you thank you mrs king any other public comment mr rush i see you're unmuted would

091you like to make a public comment well good evening good evening mr krause thank you uh lee rush live in the great borough of perkasy i wanted to uh just mention uh obviously one of the arguments in fact probably one of the strongest arguments for why we want to bring kids back is for their social emotional and mental health needs and i guess it was last month i wanted to uh recognize one school board member in particular miss bannis clemons for taking time in her statement to uh share data with the community from the pennsylvania survey that penn ridge students did it was a long litany of statistics and i don't this i really don't mean this comment to be glib at all but i thought it was the strongest argument for why we need

092more mental health more substance abuse more behavior specialists and more mental health uh clinical supports for our kids many people know that most schools in pennsylvania aren't even close to meeting the ratio that the american counselor association suggests for how many counselors per kids i think the counseling staff at penrage is exceptional i do know that uh clinical therapists doctors have often said that the pandemic will radically alter their practice they'll be doing more telemedicine i'm sure many kids will get served one-on-one whether they're in person or on the computer but i really think that as the budget process begins to unfold in the fall and winter through january that what miss bannis clemons said a month ago that those statistics are looked at carefully to realize that not only are those needs what was

093measured almost uh 12 18 15 months ago they're going to be more they're going to be more and our ability this year will be diminished to meet those needs so not only is the need greater but the capacity to meet the need is diminished so as we move into 21 22 school year i really hope the board in spite of their frugality for budgeting takes a hard look at the number of councils we need to support those needs uh thank you very much thank you mr rush the comments from the public at this time and i see there's a mica muted missy oz uh yeah your name in municipality sure my name is melissa azdanski i'm actually from the perksy borough um my daughter is attending south middle school for the first time this year

094and my concern i mean i understand this is extremely difficult it's a first time thing around for everyone obviously as a parent for my own child i'm extremely concerned about her own curriculum which we don't seem to know very much about i mean i could piggyback off of a lot of things but most of the things i was going to say were said i know when i went to pick up the laptop today and i had asked about a schedule um and she said they're working on it we don't know if they'll be ready till next week and i said well next week is wednesday so and i understand everybody's trying to do it at once but it's like there's not much communication and she said they do have to individualize a lot of the

095classrooms and things like that to each student um i was one of the ones that was accepted for hybrid as far as i know because i have not gotten an email saying otherwise but also when i heard one woman say that if there's a waiting list for virtual and god forbid the school would close i mean how is there a waiting list if everyone all of a sudden has to go virtual i don't even know what that would look like so again i understand that everything is in the works and i'm just sharing my comments and concerns for my own child um hoping that there might be some type of direction for us to just hang on to or get because i know not that i'm the most organized person and i certainly try to

096be but we at least want to be as prepared as we can be for our kids and um i just want to know as like any other parent what's what i can do and what's going on and i'm not on the board i don't know how it works but if there's other schools or other things that are working what do they look like you know what are they doing that's working for them i'm sure you guys are looking into it but if you are i don't know what it looks like i haven't done my research i'm just mentioning there's got to be a way to pull it together so we could get a little information just to give us a little more comfort on what's going on thank you for letting me share thank you

097other public comment i have a comment yes sir mr king how you doing sir um good evening everyone um hope everyone is doing well dante king um hilltown township um have children in southern universal uh elementary school oscar santa university but anyway um i wanted to uh again follow up on the the diversity and inclusion um uh committee um again understanding that you know it's it's one step um i guess wanting to understand and i've also heard that there's going to be updates to the school board's website right so where does the diversity and inclusion play into the mission and vision statement um in in the school district's you know mission and vision statement process where is that at kind of what timelines can we expect to see that in um and again just to

098kind of address that you know um maybe having you know what assurances do the parents have that you know there's going to be some type of test to control or or the community or these parents brought in prior to these teachers going out and um for lack of a better term you know given the fact that we have less than five percent diversity in in the pembroke school district going out and actually uh for lagging by the term using these kids as test dummies right just kind of you know trying it out and see how it goes so that would be my my two things so again so the first thing again is updating the mission division um period just kind of for purchasing i mean for school district bringing that forward to to the

099new website or even the current website and then also kind of what is that plan to get the community involved thank you thank you mr king other members of the community that would like to comment um i'd like to say something um debbie bill silverdale pencil silverdale um i have two high school boys i understand it's difficult and i have to reiterate the lack of communication is the biggest frustration especially which i know i'm sure you've heard especially the high school kids have figured out how to get into this thing called my backpack and look at their schedules that i they know are not official um and that has create stirred up a whole hornet's nest of stress with kids i'm signed up for class i'm putting classes i didn't sign up for i'm not

100getting classes that i wanted um if there were some way you could do the schedules without seeing that but even not addressing that if there was some email that could come out to the kids or the parents saying we are working on it we're having difficulties so they have some expectation because i can tell you every high school student in this district first thing they did this morning was log on to try and log on to powerschool to see what their schedule was we are a week and a week and a day from school starting and that's all they care about and that's all the parents care about and as a mom whose kids are doing hybrid i want to know at this point are my kids going tuesday thursday or wednesday friday i don't

101think at this point in time you being able to tell me what days of the week my kids are going to be is asking too much that's all we're asking is some communication and we are feeling that we are not getting it that we're almost like an afterthought and we should be your primary concern we we put you in there we love you we think you guys do a great job but we're not getting the communication i know as a parent i would try to give my child more communication than what i'm getting from you thank you thank you mrs bill anybody else like to make a public comment hi i'd like to ask a question as mr miller indicated you can ask the question and dr baldwin will get back to you yes okay

102so um jatanna wasserman bedminster township i had asked um a few meetings ago i don't know if you've brought this up at all i know mr miller said he was looking into it um the confederate banning the confederate flag on school property and also banning all um images of hate um i wanted to i don't know if you've addressed that since the last time i asked about it but i just wanted to bring that up again thank you why all right any other public comment at this time and i'm not hearing any uh comment okay please state your name in municipality stephanie regina east rockhill township okay i'm just going to piggyback what others have said just to add my voice um yeah i think there's been a lot of back padding in this uh

103meeting and yeah that's great math you know people um you know coming up with the uh the face shields and everything great but there's been so much focus on how do we do this in such a way that we avoid calamity and now here we are we all have questions what are our kids doing to learn we know what you're doing to try to avoid all hell breaking loose but we still don't have teachers we don't have schedules um the the lack of preparedness is disturbing at this point i know others have said it i'm just adding another voice behind that thank you thank you mr regina any other public comment at this time i have a comment to make please okay penn ridge teacher please state your name in municipality uh my name is

104kendall jones i do not live in the district but i'm an employee of this the district so i would like to just share some concerns that i have as a teacher i've heard a lot of concerns from the parents about the lack of communication from the district and that has been the same for the employees i just got my assignment august 19th and it's a change of a grade level i have no curriculum materials at this point and i am switching a grade level this has not only happened to me but many other staff members especially at the elementary buildings i don't know why we are waiting until the last minute to make decisions on where we are teaching how we are teaching and even what grade level we are teaching this is as a

105disgrace as an employee of the district and i feel for the parents as well because they have the right just like the employees to know what's going on and that has been very poorly communicated to all of us staff and parents thank you thank you thank you okay if if we've run through the public comments that are pretty much all along the same line are there any other topics that uh in the way of a public comment okay i'd like to give dr bolton an opportunity to uh speak to some of these if he would like yeah thank you mr krause i appreciate that and and thank you to the many uh parents and even teachers who spoke um honestly from your heart i really do appreciate that that's how we learn and that's how

106we get better as i said in my opening we we are sorry for the timing of bus runs and schedules and hybrid communication and that was solely because we were trying to meet the needs of families and our staffing resources and pairing them together and so if we were to rewind and do it over again maybe we would pull the plug early and that would make fewer more people angry because they wouldn't get what they wanted but i do understand and i do hear you we have since we communicated last week to the levels we have heard questions and are responding to those and are putting out additional communications as soon as tomorrow to help explain some of those issues those of you who spoke tonight will have someone reach out to you personally to

107make sure that your individual questions are answered but those aren't the only questions that are out there and so i can give the overview of some of the topics that were spoken but we will have somebody follow up with you personally as well as communication across the district we've spoken a lot about remote and remote looks differently depending on the level that you're in at the elementary and the middle school level primarily remote classrooms are only remote students which means there are 25 students with a penridge teacher learning whatever that class is whether it's all fourth grade or whether it's sixth grade social studies and so you would have a period with a sixth grade social studies teacher and then a period with a sixth grade science teacher and you would go through your day

108as a remote and it would be very similar to being in school except so you'd have five different teachers over the course of the day but you would be doing it from home as opposed to blended which is more the model of remote at the high school level blended means that there are students live in a classroom and students remotely from home live streaming at the same time and that's more the model the high school level just because of the sheer number of permutations of classes it is harder to find 25 students who have the same schedule at the high school and so obviously to provide a remote situation that is just those remote students is more difficult at high school level where in elementary middle school that was more um available so we did

109try to explain that in the communication although we do know that that is new for everyone and so we are doing multiple communications to further explain that um as we've said in all of our communications the schedules the a b assignments um all were wagged by transportation which is why we shut down transportation last wednesday in terms of those changes and all of that will be communicated this week as we promised we expect the abs to be out tomorrow and wednesday and then the schedules will follow that uh by a day or two so that families will at least know their a b assignment um from that standpoint uh ms dallas spoke a little bit about pivoting back and forth in terms of what would happen if we need to go full virtual or had

110an opportunity for full return and we have planned for that which is why our models are modeled off pen ridge curriculum for us to be able to easily go back and forth either for individual students or for whole classes or for the whole district and so that is why we designed our models the way we did to go back and forth um there's some talk about diversity in terms of what comes next and what that looks like as dr durham mentioned there is going to be a presentation on september 8th to kind of provide more details we did kind of unpack i believe seven action steps at a previous meeting and so that will be part of what she discusses as well as team members of the increase in terms of both students and community

111members parents and community members be involved in that team so that we can guide that not just this year but over the next years in penridge as that team continues to work and speaking to the types of things that we've talked about in terms of plan and designs for the team so there will be additional communication this week i would encourage you that for your specific questions that you do reach out to your building principal if it is district-wide there is the fall 2020 planning at penridge.org email that does get responded to there are three people who are on that account and we do respond to those questions if they're district-wide but if it's individual your building principle now will be the one to be able to reach out to so please look for those

112communications again apologize i do understand um in terms of the frustration with us being a week and a half away from school and you feeling like i should have had my schedule two weeks ago but again that is because we were trying to make sure that we met the needs and could staff the needs of our families and so that did delay us and i apologize for that but that was the priority at that time and that has slowed us down so we will be ready for next week we do have that information coming you'll you'll get more communication this week thank you mr president thank you dr bolton uh one last note um any any questions from the press mr keeler i see you're online you're muted still all right thank you mr keeler

113all right um all right with that uh announcements the next school board meeting is scheduled for monday september 21st and that brings us to adjournment i'd make a motion to adjourn mr krause isn't there a new business or old business or it was there we it was there miss mrs famous comments we did cover those items yes okay so seconded all in favor uh any abstentions or or nay votes and with that that motion passes eight zero so we are adjourned thank you very much to all who joined us this evening have a great week bye