001United States of America to the stands nation for all. [snorts] >> Can I have a roll call, please? Sue. >> Mr. Mr. Man >> here. >> Mr. Francis >> Mrs. Irwin Adams. >> Mrs. McGinness >> here. >> Mr. Cook >> here. >> Mr. McCully >> here. >> Mr. Romanowitz >> here. >> Mr. Pacific >> here. >> Mr. Papis >> here. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Um before we begin, I would just like to announce that prior to this meeting, we did hold an executive session where we discussed personnel issues as we typically do. Thanks. Uh moving on before we get to hearing from citizens. Uh number two item on our agenda is uh administration requests approval of the accelerated opt out resolution certifying the tax rate will not exceed the act one index
002of 5.1%. Again this just sets the ceiling. It's not necessarily the rate we'd agree on in the future. Um, do I have a motion to accept this? Do I have a second? Any discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving this resolution, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Now, we'll move on to number three. And this is hearing from citizens. Uh, are there any citizens here who would wish to get up and speak to us? No. Okay. We will move on to item number four, minutes. Approval of the regular I'm seeking approval of the regular board meeting minutes from the meeting held December 15th, 2025. Do I have a second? Have a second. Any discussion, changes, alterations, anything. All right. All in favor of approving those minutes, please signify by saying I.
003I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to finance. Under item number five, we have a a list of payments to approve and b uh financial reports which we had the opportunity to review prior to the meeting. Um seeking approve seeking approve a motion to approve items 5A and B. Do I have a second? Any discussion? As I typically do, I'll just point out that um I think we spent about $1.6 million um on cyber charter tuition, which was about just under 20% of the total spend for the time period. Now, that's for several months of cyber charter tuition payment, but um I hear things are getting better, so we'll wait and see if they actually do, but uh I always like to point that out. Um, anybody else? Okay. All in favor of accepting items
0045 A and B, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Under six, we have the first reading of several policies. Um, policy 102 was a policy on academic standards. Policy 105 um was on curriculum. Uh policy 123, a policy on intercolastic athletics. Policy 210, use of medication. Policy 325, dress and grooming. And I think I should mention it's related to staff, not students. Um do I have a motion to accept the first reading of these policies? Do I have a second? Any discussion on any of these policies? Okay. All in favor of accepting the first reading of these policies, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to seven. Under A, we have uh a list of volunteers to approve all clearances and TB tests have been received.
005Under uh 7B, administration requests retroactive approval to submit and receive a donor's choose grant not to exceed $475. Funds will be utilized to purchase non-p perishable food items for students. Under C, administration requests approval of the attached affiliation agreement between Altuna Area School District and Capella University. Under D requests approval to implement the extended school year program for the summer of 2026 required by chapter 14 regulations. Under E, administration requests approval of the attached affiliation agreement between Altuna Area School District and Ganon University University. Under F, requests approval for Wanda uh Vanish to attend the Columbia Schol Scholastic Press Association conference in New York, New York on March 17th through the 21st of this year. Columbia University covers all costs except for the substitute. Secondary education will cover the cost of $720 for the substitute
006which will be charged to an account with many numbers. Um under G administration rem recommends approval for the district to host the state thespian conference on December 4th through the 6th of 2026. Under H, administration requests approval of the attached elementary field trip. Under I, they uh administration requests approval of a few secondary field trips. Under J, we are asked to approve the revised 2526 school district calendar due to the snow day on December 2nd, 2025. Okay. Per Haley Flegal's contract administration requests approval for course 610 educ I imagine educational educational leader thesis research one credit to be taken in the spring of 2026 towards continuation of her doctoral program. Finally, under L, administration recommends approval of the 20 25 and 26 M's level speech language pathol pathologist extern grant agreement between the Altuna area
007school district and Pan West IU1. That was a lot. So I am seeking a motion to approve items 7 A through L. Move by Michael second. Anybody? Second by Mr. Manowitz. Any discussion on any of these items? Seeing none, all in favor of approving items 7 A through L, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Under eight, administration recommends approval of the attached personnel agenda items. It was one of the briefer list I've recall seeing in a long time. Um, do I have a motion to approve item 8A? 8A. Do I have a second? Would anybody like to discuss any of the items under personnel? Okay. All in favor of approving item 8A, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Under nine, business operation administration requests approval of the
008following Amtra bus drivers for the 2526 school year contingent upon receipt of required clearances and forms. Jill S. Ley, Shannon S. Mlan. Under B, we were provided several repository bids. The Blair County Tax Claim Bureau has received and is requesting approval of the following repository bids which we were able to view. And under C, uh we are to approve the capital reserve list of payments. I believe there was only one if I recall. So approve uh looking for a motion to approve n items 9 A through C. Do I have a second? Mr. Papis, thank you. Would anybody like to discuss discuss items 9 A through C? Okay. All in favor of approving items 9A through C, please signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to new business under 10. administration
009requests and recommends approval to accept the proposal from ERIT to provide cyber security advisory services. This is a one-year renewal of a pre-existing contract with a total cost of 57,948.75. Under B, administration requests approval to advertise requests for proposals and post- rate form 470s for hardware licensing licensing and support to replace the wireless access points that will go end of life prior to the start of next school year. Renewal subscriptions required for existing existing network switching and three wide area network fiber connections between district buildings. The request for proposals will be processed through the -ate program and applicable discounts applied. Under C, administration requests permission to advertise a request for proposal to place a portion of the shingle roof at Baker Elementary School. Payment will be made from the capital reserve fund. Under D, administration
010requests permission to advertise a request for proposal to replace the gutter and downspout at Pleasant Valley Elementary School. Payment will be made from the capital reserve fund. Under E, administration requests permission to replace the fire alarm system at Juniatagap Elementary School. Between Systems as a sole source vendor will perform the service to ensure alignment with existing systems cost not to exceed $24,500 and will be paid from the 2526 maintenance budget. Under F, administration requests permission to advertise a request for proposal for manage print services, including copier, printing, scanning, faxing, and print management software and services. The existing contract expires July 1st, 2026. Under G, administration requests permission to advertise a request for proposal for photography services. The existing contract uh expires July 1st, 2026. H administration requests permission to advertise a request for proposal for
011garbage removal and recycling services. The existing contract expires July 31st, 2026. And finally, under I administration requests approval to advertise a request for proposal for the Alunary School District annual services. This proposal includes grass cutting and trimming services, shrub and tree maintenance, and weed control and fertilization. The existing contract expires July 1st, 2026. I will seek a motion to approve items 10A through I. Thank you. Second with Michael. Any discussion on these topics? Seeing none, all in favor of approving items 10 A through I, please signify by saying I. I anyone opposed? Motion carries. We will move on to 11. Do we have any committee chair reports? Uh board president's report. I will only say that I survived an attempted coup by one of our fellow board members. Um wasn't happy with my pace with
012these meetings. So hopefully I survived. [laughter] Um C student representatives report. Miss Krug, please share with us. >> Good evening. Altuna Area School District is beginning 2026 with an abundance of activities, sports, fine arts, and school events to start the year off right. As January is schoolboard appreciation month, on behalf of the student body, I would like to begin by thanking the school board for all of the work that they put into making sure that the school is the best it can be for the students of the Altuna Area School District. The first semester of school is coming to a close and classes at the high school will be switching on January 22nd. Student council will be hosting a cereal drive in home rooms and they will compete to see who can collect the most
013cereal from January 12th to January 29th for the food pantry. The AHS mock trial team competed in Pittsburgh on January 9th at the regional competition. They won two of their matches. The AHS cheer team recently competed at states and placed 14th in the state. The AHS hockey team will play at State College on sorry play State College on the outdoor rink at Penn State's Beaver Stadium on Thursday, January 29th. Puck drop is scheduled for 6:15. The game is part of Penn State's Winter Classic weekend that will feature both Penn State's men's and women's varsity teams over the remainder of the weekend. On January 6th, the wrestling team be beat Kisky 33 to29. Kisky was previously undefeated. The girls basketball team beat Harrisburg on Friday and their record is now 103. The district PMEA Chorus Festival
014was held from January 7th to January 9th and 12 students from the AHS vocal ensemble attended with six advancing to the regional competition. The AHS Thespian troop recently attended the Thespian conference from January 2nd to January 4th. And the spring musical, The Secret Garden, has been cast and the first rehearsal was today after school. The Altuna Area Junior High School will be the host site for the Blair County Junior High School Chorus Festival. Participating Blair County students will meet at the junior high school February 9th and February 10th with the two-day event closing in a public concert on February 10th in the AJHS auditorium beginning at 6:30. The Star Reader program is scheduled to begin its third year at Penn Lincoln Elementary and will expand this year to include Juniata Elementary School. Kickoff assemblies will
015be held at the end of January and the program will begin in February. On January 9th, all AHS schools and offices will be closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and January 30th will be a student half day. Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks. As always, the best part of the night is your report. Appreciate it. Um, moving on. Exciting stuff. The state of the the district from Mr. Hatch. >> So, I promised that I wasn't gonna be long-winded tonight because of uh someone said there might be a football game tonight. So, we're going to try to be as uh as efficient as possible. Would like to start off first by um recognizing two amazing friends of the school district uh that passed away recently. Uh Steve Sheets and Jim Lane. Um both amazing partners of
016of the school district will be laid to rest this week. um heartfelt, deepfelt sympathies from on behalf of the district to the families of those two fine gentlemen and uh thank you for everything that you have done uh for the school district and and may you rest in peace. Would also like to recognize we had uh tonight we had our schoolboard recognition uh ceremony prior to the start of the board meeting. I want to thank uh those that organized and participated, Mrs. Foreman, Mrs. Flegal, uh Mr. Harrington, and everyone else that was involved here at the high school. Um, we always like to highlight our students and tonight students from two of our family consumer science classes uh led by Mrs. Trumpower and Mrs. H Finnegan presented uh something we all love uh some great
017treats and and snacks and ordurves uh for the board prior to the start of tonight's meeting. So, we want to thank them uh for their ongoing and continued support. And I want to personally thank our our board of school directors uh for their ongoing collaboration and leadership within our community. You could not have a finer group of people representing our constituency and and doing everything that they can do to make this uh an amazing experience for our students in the district. So that being said, um this has been a rescheduled state of the district. Uh due to the board resignation and um eventual board selection process at a previous meeting, we had to postpone um our annual state of the district conversation. Uh a little bit different this year. We have provided updates from all
018of our departments to the board prior to this meeting and and given them the opportunity to review. Um we do this uh in the middle of each year to kind of review and and take a look at where we're at. Um setting goals and identifying where we're at within the goals that we've already set. Um so instead of all of us getting up and individually giving um a verbal summary, we've provided a written summary to to our board. And tonight we want to give the board an opportunity for any comments andor questions that you may have. um our only director that is not able to be here this evening, Director Puffer, um had a previous engagement. Um for those of you who know them, he is he is a PIAA official. Um and he had
019already had a game scheduled for tonight and was not able to be here or rescheduled for this evening. So um he is not here, but all of our other directors are here and and ready for comments, feedback, andor questions. Um, so it's kind of a little bit more informal than typical, but we'll just kind of open it up to anyone that would like to comment, ask questions, um, or just generate discussion. And again, this is something that we do like all the time. Um, so again, I don't want anyone to think that we don't have these conversations on an ongoing and regular basis. Um, because we do, but this is kind of a benchmark opportunity. And again, we we provided um you know, summaries and we try to keep them relatively concise um as to
020you know, where we're at with our within our departmental goals, our own goals, and just updating on our buildings and programs within the district. So, again, don't feel obligated, but if anyone has questions or comments or anything like they'd like to bring up, we we're here to answer. >> Brad, do you have any figures on the attendance improvements in front here? I unless there I don't know if there >> we do. So that they're gener generically in there. It's harder in the middle of a school year because the way that you you measure um habitual truency is if a student misses 10% or more of the days in a school year, they are considered what's called chronically absent. So that's kind of a figure that until they really hit 18 days of absence, they're not
021considered chronically absent. I can tell you that the number of student attendance improvement plans that would be if a student has six or more legal absences and at that point they're eligible for prosecution. We work with them on remediation. They could potentially have to go to the magistrate and you know develop an improvement plan for that attendance is is significantly less than it was this time last year and even more so from the previous year. Uh the biggest improvement that we are seeing because I'll be honest, elementary really wasn't a problem in terms of of that is at the junior high school and the high school level. Um the level of engagement with our ACA students, their level of attendance, um as well as our high school and junior high school, the number of kids
022at this point in the year, which is typically in the 3 to 4 to 500 range between high school and junior high school, is significantly less than that. Um we're seeing less prosecutions at the magistrate level and I can get you the the exact numbers compared to this time last year. Um but it is a significant decreases to where we are. What we're attributing that to is the interventions that are happening at the school level. um teacher, administrator, the the boots on the ground efforts where they're they're actively contacting, not just getting the rooc call when a kid is absent, but when a kid is showing, you know, consistency and not attending school or misses a couple days in a row, we're doing a home visit. We're we're we're doing a personal phone call. We're
023actually having teachers call from home rooms to say, "Hey, I noticed, you know, Johnny hasn't been here for a couple of days. How's he doing? Is everything all right? Is there anything we can do to help?" Um so again those kind of grassroots boots on the ground efforts are what we feel is making the difference in in really you know reducing the overall attendance issue and and if I had to look at from a from a performance standpoint because I believe attendance and I think these guys will echo that um really is is is sets the tone for how well you do in terms of achievement academically. You got to start by having them here. They got to be in their seats. They got to be engaged and then from there you can work on
024any academic deficiencies that you have. So definitely seeing a trend in the right direction. >> Real quick, when you introduce a new program, I see you introduced a junior high reading program. >> What's [snorts] the process of that? Do you actually go to a seminar or do you actually have people come in and present it to you? Is the staff involved in this or parents involved in in doing this? just give me a recap of how it's how it's initiated. >> Sure. We had a number of interventions that we were providing to our students um in in reading this past or last number of years and we weren't able to reach all of the students that that we wanted to reach at the same time. So, we looked at different programs out there that we
025were able to do small and whole group interventions with students and um we got together and we did find an intervention that provided that. And we did send our literacy coach and our special ed supervisor down to a training where they learned how to bring the that training back to our students, our teachers here. Then we brought the training back to our teachers here. And then now they are providing that intervention to the entire se seventh grade class of students who need the intervention and also to our sixth and eighth grade students on intervention. So that's how we kind of brought the program back. Initially we all met as a group and we discussed different interventions that were out there and kind of narrowed it down to this in particular intervention that we did bring
026to the junior high. >> Yeah. We we sent a small team to Texas um that that brought back with them like literally the person that invented the intervention and program went directly and learned from them and turned that around to our staff who were directly involved in the selection of that. We've been doing what we've implemented then with our instructional coaches. So, we have instructional coaches at both the elementary and the secondary level that take those initiatives and and they integrate it into our our inservice days, our job embedded training that happens during the day. So, they're going into classrooms and watching how this is being integrated, working with teachers instructionally, and then hosting and having regular sessions to where they discuss, you know, what are the what are the concerns, what are the questions,
027how do we update this? We also evaluate it through ongoing assessments that tell us whether it's working or not. >> The staff was involved, right? >> And Mr. Campbell and Allison Gates from the junior high school were the ones that kind of kind of spearheaded this. They're the ones that went out there and they they found that they thought we need to do something different and try something different. So, they're the two people that really got behind this and started that whole process moving forward. You know, I would just say that um probably the lack of a bunch of questions is because nobody here has to um seek answers because you you're you and your team are so open with us. We're in constant communication, it feels like daily, um about a variety of issues
028via group text, via emails. I know when somebody from the community reaches out to us about any issue, we filter it to one of you guys and the response is pretty immediate. And you know, I I just think uh we have a really strong relation. I mean, the purpose of a board is to support the district and the administration. And I think in the past sometimes it's been more of a challenging relationship and uh we're fostering a more supportive environment. So we're pretty tuned into what you you all are doing. We trust you. I think we're financially uh managed about as well as any school district. Uh thanks to Sue and and her team and you know with the technology and just all facets of this are really clicking. And the most importantly is we're
029um sending good young people out into the world um no matter what level, whatever they want to do, whatever uh their future is. Um they have great facilities, great personnel, great teachers, great leaders. Um so I think the state of the district is is really strong and and thanks to you and your team and your leadership. uh our solicitor uh years ago when we were looking to replace Dr. Priel said you won't find anybody capable of running such a complex school district as this that will want to stay here long and turned out to be true. So very proud of of what you do and appreciate Carl's council. Um and I think it's going really well. >> Thank you. And I know we all appreciate it. I know we talk all the time about, you
030know, we love coming to work, even though there are challenges dayto-day, but to see the smile on the on the kids' faces and the programs and the successes that they're having, not just while they're here, but when they leave here really is a tribute to the 1,200 employees that are here in all facets and everything that they do. Their hearts are in the right places. You know, as we always, you know, it is about a passion and a mission for for helping students. So, um, you know, the strength of this place is and always will be its people. Um, amazing teachers, amazing custodians. Everyone that works here, support staff, instructional, non-instructional, um, are here for the right reasons and and you are all here for the right reasons. Um, and we want to thank you
031for again for your ongoing collaboration. So, thank you. >> Okay. Anybody else? All right. Um, moving on, we we under 12, we had uh provide we were provided a summary from the technology committee. Um, great things happening there. You guys are on top of it. It's amazing the moving parts we have here and you guys are just doing a tremendous job. So, thank you. Um, moving on to 13. Um, employee unions response. Seeing none, middle management, no one. Mr. Solicitor, >> there isn't anything that I would have to say tonight that can't wait until next meeting. [laughter] >> Terrific. >> That being said, I will move for a motion to adjurnn. Do I have a second? All in favor, please signify