001One nation indivisible. >> So, may I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Papis. >> Mr. Pacificico. >> Mr. Romanoitz. >> Here. >> Mr. Mr. McCully >> here. >> Mr. Cook >> here. >> Thank you. Mrs. McInness >> here. Mrs. Irwin Adams >> here. >> Mr. Francis >> here. >> Mr. Minion >> here. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. Um, before we get started, I'd just like to announce that we had an executive session that extended from uh 5:30 until about 6:35 to discuss some personnel issues. Um, and before we hear from any citizens, uh, let's hear from Mr. Scott um about our audit. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. I'm Dave Scott, as you know, from Young Oaks Brown. Uh, what could be more exciting than an audit report, right? who said accounts are
002boring, right? But um I like to appreciate Sue Franks and and Brad and the staff uh for cooperation during the audit. Uh the audit went very well and they all do a great job. They really do. Uh you don't realize how much work there is involved with this little report. The thick one I'm talking about now, the thick one. There's two of them, thick one and thin one. I'm going to talk about the thick one. But there's a tremendous amount of work, time, and effort to get this product together. And this is what you pay for is the product. Okay? And basically, I'm going to go over some numbers because I'm a numbers guy, but basically I'll be very brief. Uh if you would take the thick report, look at it on page 14. That's
003the uh balance sheet as of 6:30 uh 25, the thick one. And again, uh this is the balance sheet as of 6:3025 of the Alterian School District is the assets, liabilities, and fund balance. And everybody likes to know about the fund balance. And again, we're not talking about the thick report on page 14, uh, under general fund down at the bottom, the second line up from the bottom, it says total fund balance, a little over $33 million at that point in time. So again, uh, the audit balance is 33 million of fund balance at that point. Um the next page I was going to go over in the thick report was page 16 which is called the statement of revenues expansion and changing and fund balance. That's like a profit and loss statement for a
004business. And again uh you look under general fund which is the main operating fund. Uh the second line up from the bottom third I'm sorry third line up from the bottom you have a you had a a a deficit of 2.2 million. However, that was really created because we took $3 million and transfer it to the cap reserve fund for future repairs. So, again, that's where we created the deficit was the transfer of 3 million over to the cap reserve fund. Did anybody have any questions on on this report right here? This is the thick one. There's lots of pages. A lot of this report is very unnecessary to be honest with you. It deals with uh the piece of retirement plan. It deals with OPED benefits. And again, it's just requirement of what we
005call a generally accepted accounting principles and really your bonding company is really the bonding company really is what is more used for this really to be honest with you. But again, there's a lot of work involved with this. Any questions? Okay, let's go over the thin report. This is a separate audit. This is because your federal expenditures were more than $750,000. So, if you go to page number eight on the right, because there's two pages, number eight to the right, you'll see a summary page of all your different federal programs here. Okay. The total amount of federal programs for this fiscal year was uh $13.7 million of federal funds. And we had to we p selected certain programs. If you look towards the bottom, it says selected for testing. We tested title one special education
006cluster and also uh temporary assistance for needy families. We selected those three programs. We did a comprehensive examination of internal control and compliance requirements of federal laws and regulations on those dollars and it was about six little over $6 million. Uh there was no audit findings in the federal on the federal part. There's no audit findings in the federal part of of the of the audit. We had one finding a fun finding if you go to page number 11 uh during the financial audit of the financial statements which I just is the thick report um there's a lot of credit card transactions regarding Amazon and basically what happened was the invoices they were relying on Amazon to maintain invoices on our behalf for our expenditures through Amazon and we said that probably is not a
007good thing and we and they have changed but we recommended that they uh somehow come up with a process of downloading those invoices from Amazon. we have a file in our server in our system of those invoices not relying on a third party like Amazon to hold these invoices for us and that's what what was all about and again they made changes to correct that and and also I issued a me we issued a management letter of certain other issues as far as internal control minor issues that we think they need to address to make things better here at the Alton school district other than that that's really all I had anybody have any questions at all for Have a great evening. >> Thanks, Dave. And uh good job, Sue. All right. Now, moving on.
008This is the opportunity for us to hear from citizens. If anybody would like to step to the microphone and speak, just please state your name and uh you have five minutes. Um I'll time it and let you know if you're getting close. Hello. >> Hi. My name is Stephanie. Um, I'm a resident of Altuna City and I moved here about two years ago. Um, this is the first time I've ever done anything like this, so just bear with me. Um, I'm sure all of you have paid attention to the news over the last couple of weeks and are well aware of the releasing of the Epstein files. And um I think that this is a topic that from what I've noticed in Altuna in general doesn't seem to be talked about enough. Now in the
009Epstein files that were released, I'm only going to talk about facts. I want to say that really quick, not opinions because I have my opinions. I will keep those to myself. Um however in those life or in those files uh we have discovered that a company known as life touch um was creating cataloges of children's school pictures. Many of you might remember Life Touch from when we ourselves were children um and giving them to the pedophiles that visited Epstein Island or had uh interactions with Epstein. Now, um throughout that release, it was also discovered that Jizlane Maxwell, Jizlane Maxwell being the partner of Epstein, um her father cre created um McMillan, uh which McMillan or McGraill, sorry, mixing things up a bit. uh McGraill and McGraill as pretty much everyone here knows is a huge
010uh textbook company resource company for schools. Now um among the most recently uh released Epstein files there is only one mention of just in those files. However, it is unredacted um as to who uh Epstein was talking with and and all it was was a yearbook uh ad to like a f to the families of that town and the message was get these ones for me. Now, I want to say that from everything I've seen so far, everyone's saying, well, what are we supposed to do about it? And I think that's the problem. We might not be able to take down billionaire pedophiles by ourselves, but the school, me, a plain mom, I have four kids at home, seven total. Um, and it mortifies me to think that my kids pictures could be out there.
011My pictures could be out there. And I think that um I guess I'm here today because it's time to stop waiting for somebody else to do something about it. As a school, we can take precautions. We can start hiring local photographers. We can start looking into other options for textbooks. We can start really carefully researching um where things that we've always assumed were safe are coming from. Um, and I don't really have a question for the school board. It really is just a call um to keep our children safe, to make these choices, to not trust companies that are making billions, to educate and care for our k our children because obviously they can't be trusted. Um, that is an opinion. Sorry. Um, like I said, I'm very opinionated on it. This isn't something I
012normally do. Um, but I would like to see the school taking action and taking precautions and generally not not pushing this aside because this isn't something anyone in our society should be pushing aside. This is something we should all be fighting for for the safety of our children. I don't care if you're right or left or where you stand on the political scheme of things. Hurting children is wrong. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you for sharing that and enlightening this. I uh recently learned about some of those connections myself. So something that uh we will take into consideration and uh explore. Uh can't make any promises, but definitely something uh that we'll we'll remain aware of and continue to explore. So thank you for sharing that. Um anyone else uh any other citizens like to
013step up and speak to the board? Okay, then we'll move on to the uh the rest of the agenda here. Um moving on to uh number four on our agenda. I I would seek a a motion to approve minutes from our regular schoolboard meeting of January 12th and February and the committee of the whole meeting on February 2nd. Do I have a motion to approve those? Do I have a second? Okay. Thank you. Anybody like to discuss any of the minutes? Okay. All in favor of approving those minutes, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Anyone opposed? >> Motion carries. Uh, moving on to finance. Under number five, um, we have items A through E, we have a, uh, list of payments. We were provided our financial reports. Um, we have uh a request
014to approve an agreement with the county of Blair to utilize the Altuner area junior high school, the high school Logan Elementary School, Mclliff Heights at Irving in the Washington Jefferson building as polling places for the 2026 through 2029 primary and general elections. Um, under item D, we have administration requests approval of agreement with the county of Blair to util to utilize the junior high school for a polling place for the March 17th special election. And finally, under E, uh, administration recommends approval to extend the lease agreement between the Alter Area School District and Goodwill of the Southern Alaganis Incorporated for a term of one year. the leases for 4,175 square ft of space in the Altuna area public library building at a rate of $1225 per square foot or $4,262 per month. Uh seeking a
015motion to approve items 5 A through E. >> Do I have a second? Any discussion? I'll just typically share what I share. Uh going through the list of payments, I saw that we by my estimate paid cyber charter schools $634,000 this cycle. Um which represented about 5 a.5% of the total payments we we made. And again, that is taxpayer money leaving our community to pay cyber charter schools. So I always like to bring that up. Anybody else like to discuss any issues related to items 5 A through E? Okay. All in favor of approving those items, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. We will move on to six education. Uh administration re under a administration recommends approval of the revised 2526 district and learning express calendars showing weather adjustments for December
01623rd asynchronous day and January 30th full day with a 2-hour delay. Under B, administration recommends approval of the attached 26 27 calendars for the district grades K through 12 ear early intervention learning express and prek counts learning express. Under C, uh request approval of the Altunary Junior High School summer school proposal for 2026. Under D, the Altun area high school uh would like to add the AA AHS book traverts for a new club for students. This club is hoping to encourage students to improve their reading skills in a low pressure environment. Miss Megan Leon uh will be one of the teacher volunteers. Under E, Juniata Elementary requests approval for the Juniata Elementary Drama Club. The bylaws are attached. Under F, administration requests approval of the attached affiliation agreement between the Altunary School District and St.
017Francis University for an occupational therapy student. Under G, per Mark Harrington's contract, administration requests approval for course education 611, four credit course to be taken in the spring of 2026. Under H, we were provided a list of volunteers to approve. Under I, administration requests retroactive approval to submit the preschool early intervention agreement application. Funding awards will be offered in the amount of $10,000 and will fund targeted activities meant to strengthen the capacity to support children engaging in persistent challenging behaviors. under J um Alu or administration requests retroactive approval to accept the charitable grant for the Stevens building care closet in the amount of $1,000. Um the money will be used exclusively to assist in the purchase of food and other essential items and goods for the care closet. That's uh the Altuna curve charities under
018K. Uh this is first uh first commonwealth bank charitable donation administration requests retroactive approval to accept the charitable donation for the Stevens building care closet in the amount of $500. The money will be used exclusively to assist in the purchase of food and other essential items and goods for the care closet. Um under L, we were provided a list of uh elementary school field trips to approve. And under M, we were provided a list of secondary field trips to approve. Do I have a motion to approve items 6A through M? Do I have a second? Okay. I would just like to say it's nice to see a non-controversial new club be formed. Um, so that's exciting. It looks like a interesting club. So that's that's that's really nice to see. Um, anybody else? All right.
019All in favor of approving items A through M, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Under seven, uh, we were provided um, uh, administration recommends approval of the attached personnel agenda items. Under B, um, administration recommends the approval of the attached addendum to the contract with ESS Northeast LLC. And under C, administration recommends the approval of the attached contract with Red Rover Technologies LLC. Do I have a motion to approve item 7 A through C? Do I have a second? Any discussion? >> What's Red Rover exactly? Red Rover will be software that's utilized as part of our hiring process through human resources. This is a replacement product for what we already have in place. Um it's roughly the same amount. It's a replacement that would allow us to do online interviewing, acceptance
020of applications, um uploading of documentation for clearances, resumes, all of those pieces. Um so again, it's not it's not in addition to, it's in replace of. >> Okay. I I would just like to add as well, not with Red Rover, um we we have been looking at the addendum to the ESS agreement to add a retired teacher rate. Um so effect of this board meeting, we are uh we are adding a retired teacher rate that any teacher of the Altonary School District um that has retired and would like to come back and support our subpool. Um we have established a retired teacher rate which is the highest of of our rates. available through ESS. So any teachers out there uh watching, please share the word. We would love to have our retired teacher experts come
021back and support our classrooms throughout the district. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. All in favor of approving items 7 A through C, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Eight. We only have one item. Um the the board the board approved an initial act 48 program agreement for services between the Altun area school district and Nitney Learning Services at the September 22nd, 2025 board meeting. Administration recommends approval of the revised and final version of the agreement which we were provided. Um do I have a motion to approve item A? Do I have a second? Michael, thank you. Any discussion? >> Just want to reiterate that at the Alton area school district is utilizing all of our six contracted seats um at Nitney Learning and we are having a very successful partnership with
022them. >> Thanks Brad. Okay, all in favor of item 8A, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to nine, business operations. We were provided with one repository bid uh to review. We had a few capital reserve payments to approve. Uh under item C, administration requests and recommends approval to transfer $9,000 from the tax account to capital reserve fund. This amount represents the transfer track tax proceeds from the sale of the former Lumax property on Chestnut Avenue. administration requests and recommends approval to transfer $30,0005 $30,500 from the tax account to the capital reserve fund. This amount represents to transfer tax proceeds from the sale of Nitney Point Apartments. And finally, administration requests and recommends approval to transfer $25,875 from the tax account to the capital reserve fund. This amount represents the
023transfer tax proceeds from the sale of a section of the Park Hills Plaza property. Under D, um administration requests and recommends approval to contract with SurfPro cleaning, restoration, and construction to perform mitigation and reconstruction work at the junior high school. The work is necessary due to the flooding caused by a break in the fire sprinkler system water line. Approval was also requested to contract with individual contractors including but not limited to Crater Electric, Mountain Research and Between Systems to make specialized repairs related to the same incident. Payment with the exception of the $25,000 deductible will be made by the district insurance carrier. And under E, administration requests approval to advertise a request for proposal for an educational site to provide emotional support instruction to Alternate Area School District students. May I have a motion to
024approve items 9 A through E? >> Do I have a second? Any discussion on any of these items? Okay, seeing none, all in favor of approving items 9 A through E, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Under 10, new business um to approve the single audit and financial statement for the fiscal year and June 30th, 2025, which Mr. Scott discussed with us. Under B, administration rem recommends approval of for the Red Cross to use the Altuner Junior High School Fieldhouse on July 21st, 20 26 from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for their annual Blair Blood Blitz. Uh the events scheduled from 8:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fees will be waved and certificate of insurance will be be provided. under C. Administration recommends approval of the Altuna Police Department to use the
025Altuna Junior High School Gymnasium on March 7th, 2026 and March 14th, 2026 for their physical and written test. Lastly, under D, the Altuna area school district athletic office requests approval for PJW Wrestling Area 2 to use the Altuna Area High School Fieldhouse for a wrestling tournament on Sunday, February 15th, 2026 at a rate of $700. rental agreement is attached along with the uh certificate of insurance had been provided. Uh seeking a motion to approve items 10 A through D. Do I have a second? Michael. Thank you. Any discussion on any of these items? Seeing none, all in favor of approving items 10 A through D, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. We'll move on to 11. Committee reports. Do any of our committee chairs have a report to share? >> Just
026uh February 28th, Central Blair Wreck will be having its uh annual dinner at the Bavarian uh hall uh for uh for help with our our programs at Central Blair. >> Is this the citizen? my uh classmate Scott Filler I think is >> is the guy. >> Terrific. Thanks Dave. Um board president's report I have none for the best part of the night. Miss Krug with the students report. >> Good evening board members. Altuna Area School District students have been busy recently despite the cold weather. Here are some recent and upcoming events. The junior high school is set to perform Beetlejuice Jr. in the AJHS auditorium on March 5th and 6th at 7:00 p.m. and the 7th at 1:00 p.m. Four students from the high school received first place awards at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of
027Science Regional Competition and will advance to states in May at Penn State. 10 students in FBLA will advance to states in Hershey in April. Last Friday, AHS Thespian Troop 10718 presented When Bad Things Happen to Good Actors, a one-act play, including dessert for a fundraiser. Six students will attend the PMEA regional chorus festival. Eight students will attend the PMEA Regional Orchestra Festival and 13 students will attend the PMEA Regional Band Festival. These festivals will be held in February and March. The AHS swim team will attend the district swim meet on February 20th and 21st at Penn State campus. Care Club, a club for cancer research here at the high school, is holding a cozy basket drive. Students are encouraged to bring in items and donate homemade cards. Student council is beginning their annual pennies for
028pets fundraiser next week for the Humane Society. The AHS gymnastics team attended districts from February 13th to 14th and received second place. Girls basketball will be playing for the district 6 championship this Thursday at Mount Alawishas at 6 and students and counselors have begun the scheduling process. Counselors will be meeting with each student individually over the next few weeks to prepare for the next year. Cali Kungl placed second place at the district speech and debate tournament at Richland High School on Friday, February 13th and will advance to the state championships at Bloomsburg University on March 21st to 22nd. And finally, the AHS talent show will take place in the Blackbox on February 27th and all high school students are encouraged to audition to perform. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, moving on. Do we
029have a a superintendent report? >> Very brief. I just want to petition to to switch the order of myself and Camille. You're a tough act to follow every month. Um but just I want to echo I know that we had a significant uh issue at our junior high school last week with the water break. Um want to commend all of our staff members, our students, and our parents uh for their patience and understanding. Obviously, when you have situations of that nature that happen unexpectedly, um you hope that the plans that you've put in place uh get put into action and work. And I can tell you that our junior high school staff, administration, Mr. Robinson and his complete staff and administration, uh Mr. Neely and the high school staff, all of our students, so we
030moved 1500 kids over here to the high school for the day. Uh, our cafeteria staff made sure that they were fed. Our maintenance staff and and the entire organization here was extremely welcoming. We had hundreds of parents um that showed up to pick up their their students. Some of them were delayed because of them being in the cafeteria or getting a hold of them. They were extremely patient and understanding. So, I do want to thank all of our our citizens residents and our kids. The kids should be commended because the kids were phenomenal. Our high school students were very welcoming. our junior high school students were very understanding um and dealt with the day in the subsequent uh asynchronous at home learning days in a very very positive way. So you know making the best
031out of difficult situations and adversity is always a sign of character and I think we had a lot of people that demonstrated character over those couple of days. Um, special thank you to our police force as well as the Aluna Fire Department who were here on scene within a half an hour assisting um to to help you know mitigate and limit the amount of damage that was done to our school um and all of the teams of of vendors and outside people that came in to help over the course of of five to six days to make sure that our school was back up and ready for our students to safely return to school this morning. So, thank you to everyone involved. Thank you to the board for being extremely supportive and understanding. You know,
032you never like for these things to happen, but when they do, um they can't expose uh issues and and fortunately uh I think all of our people rose to the occasion and did a great job. So, thank you to our parents, students, staff. You guys all did a fantastic job. >> Okay, thanks. Thanks for your leadership during that. Um we'll move on to 12 for information professional contracts. Um, the following instructors have completed three years of satisfactory service, six ratings, and are entitled to tenure effective January 21st, 2026. Uh, we have Christine Benzel, Kyle, Megan Burley, Betsy Cone, Courtney Negle, and Emily Winters. Uh, next under 13, do we have an employee unions response? Uh, Mr. Solicitor, >> nothing this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Anything from middle management? None. Okay. Do I have a
033motion to adjourn this meeting? >> Just one. Mr. Papis asked to speak. Sure. Sorry, Mike. Give him a minute. >> I want to tag on to what Mr. Hat said earlier about what happened on Monday. Um, the text messages were flying as we all know. We were getting them and he said about if you can get in here, come on in here. I got here about 9:05 that morning. What I walked in on was nothing short of a mess and a crisis. Within 5 hours, that was taken care of by Mr. Robinson, Mr. Hamill, and the crews from our maintenance department and the custodial staff that was there. And Mr. Hatch noted when I went over to the high school at that point because they already got started. Our cafeteria staff, as you said, suddenly
034they weren't just feeding 9 through 12, they had to feed 6 through 12. Five of the girls left the high school or I'm sorry, the junior high cafeteria and went over there to help out. The other girls went to the elementary schools. They needed help, too. Justin, you're new to this district. You taught here, but you've come back to run our tech department, and you were doing a bang-up job. A parent got my attention about 1:30 and said, "Who set this up?" I said, "Our main department, Mr. Warner and his staff." And our tech department, Mr. Arthur, said, "This is impressive. The parents are being processed by everybody here in our administration and they're being taken care by the secretaries who were transplanted from the B from the junior high over to here to Mr.
035Hedge Mr. Harrington and Mrs. Flegal above and beyond the call to Mr. Neely Mr. Campbell and all your assistant principles above and beyond. cannot thank you all enough to our cafeteria staff again 6 through 12 they got them all fed those were still here and most importantly and I don't want to forget somebody our nursing staff but many people don't understand is a lot of our kids at the giant high school excuse me I'm battling a slight head cold have to take care of these kids with medicine and they're on you know they're being taken care of no one student did not get taken care of by nursing staff but the junior high are here that day those ladies were phenomenal And last and unleash our police services, Mr. Per and his crew again, they
036had to get the entire staff and all those students across 7th Avenue in that morning and then over to the A building as well. Nothing went wrong. In fact, as I said to Mr. Hatch, Mr. Anthony this morning, above me on the call, gentlemen, um we have great leadership in place and it showed that day before you guys left the junior high foyer and I didn't see any look of panic. No, nobody's went. It's like they knew what they had to do and they went and they did it. That's leadership. And they practiced it. It showed. And finally to Mr. Trevor Robinson and his department, you've got two great secretaries and Crystal and Jessica and they handled things on that end of it and got everybody over to the junior high to get it cleaned
037up. Like I said, four four and a half hours, whatever it was. Sir, we've given you this job for what, two years now. Plus, you have gone above and beyond in your position. You've made that your own. And most importantly, you've earned the respect of every single tradesman, HVAC, and custodian labor in this district and all the buildings. I know I've been in I've talked to them. Thank you, sir, for all you did that day. But again, to our principles, administration, phenomenal. I mean, I was proud. I got home that day. I sat in my car for a moment because we had a JC meeting that day and I almost cried. I thought, I'm proud of these people. We pulled it off. Everything could not have gone better. I'm proud of all of you. Thank
038you very much. Thank you for this time, Val. >> Yeah, thank you. I I would add on and thanks for sharing that that that's that's great perspective. Um your handling of the event revolted resulted in the first positive email I've received I think as a member of this board. I usually the public usually uh sending uh emails they're upset about something. This resulted in the first email I think I've received in my five year over four years that was like wow they did a great job. They couldn't have handled it any better. And I think I shared that with that email with everybody. But um so yeah, that must have been a special response that you guys put on. So thanks again. >> Thanks, Michael. Um now is the time I would uh accept a
039motion to adjourn this meeting. Do I have a second? All in favor, please signify