001Mhm. >> Good evening. Testing, testing, testing. Testing, testing. There we go. Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the school board of directors meeting. Tonight in an earlier session with a vote of five overall votes the school board of directors appointed Nancy Wilt to fill the vacant seat which was recently vacated by Anna Tubbs Ursillo. Right now, we would like to call up the honorable Rashad Santiago and Nancy Wilt for her official swearing. You can just raise your right hand at this time. And you will repeat after me as we do the oath of office for the Allentown School District uh school director. I, Nancy Wilt I, Nancy Wilt do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support, obey, and defend >> that I will support, obey, and defend defend the Constitution of the United
002States Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I would discharge the duties And that I would discharge the duties of my office >> of my office with fidelity. >> with fidelity. All right. Congratulations. I'm going to have you sign. [applause] You can sign and date. Yes, right there and then 4 23. Yes. I just came back from Arizona and I'm a little sleep deprived. Got you. Awesome. And that's not my voice. Congrats again. I'll see you around. And I'm just going to step out. >> Congratulations, Ms. Wilt. You can join us on the dais. >> [applause] >> And thank you so much to Judge Santiago for coming through tonight and doing this swearing for us. Thank
003you so much. We really appreciate you. And I'll be turning over the meeting now to Ms. Audrey Madison. And I'd like to call to order the Finance Committee of the Whole Meeting of the Board of Directors of the School District for the City of Allentown for today, April 23rd, 2026. Prior to tonight's meeting, an informational executive session was held. The purpose of the executive session was to engage in informational updates presented to the board on a number of district initiatives, as well as discussion of confidential personnel matters, and discussion pertaining to ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with the Teamsters, food service employees, and our security group. Discussion with council regarding Allentown Public Library non-compliance on fiscal planning and budgeting, informational updates regarding a proposed joint workshop with City Council, and negotiations related to the DaVinci contract.
004Thank you. The board welcomes and invites public comment. You may address the board on agenda and or non-agenda items. The first opportunity for comment is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only. Comment cards must be received by the start of the meeting, which is now. We will not be receiving public cards once the meeting begins. A copy of the public comment policy is located on the table next to the comment cards. According to our board's policy, any person may address the board in accordance with the procedures and limitations of the policy. Either on issues preserved in resolutions being considered presented in resolutions being considered or on other matters affecting the administration, management, or operation of the district. Remarks of a personal nature directed against any individual will be ruled
005out of order. If you choose to address the board, please fill out a comment card and hand it to the board secretary, Mr. Simonson. Comment cards are located at the podium near the door. Once recognized, please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Madam Superintendent, do we have a quorum? Yes, good evening good evening, Ms. Matheson, school board directors and members of the public, of course our families and my team. Um and to our elected officials that are here this evening. Before we begin this evening, we want to if I could everyone to please join me in a roaring round of applause and welcome to Jefferson Elementary School's instrumental choir a band and choir. Let's give them a ROUND OF APPLAUSE. >> [applause] >> UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MR.
006GUIDO, MR. KLECKNER, and Principal Custer. I want to also thank their families that are here tonight to support the students and all cousins and grandmothers and grandpas and abuelas and abuelos and tios and tias. Thank you for being here to to support our students tonight. Just give them a round of applause this way. >> [applause] >> I WANT TO THANK THE TEACHERS AND ALL THE STAFF AND administration at Jefferson for your leadership, your service, and all the love that you're pouring into our students. We appreciate you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Let's give another roaring round of applause for Jefferson [applause] Elementary School instrumental choir. >> All right. Hello everyone. I'm Liam Klippner and I'm the elementary school music teacher at Jefferson Elementary. Today, you're going to hear two songs from our choir. They're the first
007song they're going to do is the Jefferson school song, which we have not sang as a school district consistently in over 10 years. Um, the original writer of it was Marge Newman, um, who I'm I'm pretty sure has passed away since. And um, I rewrote a piano arrangement for this piece and revised it. And then the second song that they are doing is a um, original song that they wrote the lyrics for. It's a parody of a pretty famous song. We call it Old Jefferson Road. >> [laughter] [music] >> Jefferson Elementary >> [music] >> is our pride. We shout and wave and move. Many ages, many cultures, many races, we are the >> [music] >> best we can be. Jefferson Elementary we. >> [applause and cheering] [bell] >> are we. Learn till I can't no
008more. are [music] we. Learn till I can't no more. I soak in the bath. I [music] soak in the bath. I don't know why. I soak in the bath. Tell you to lose. You will [music] contribute. You will contribute. [singing] Now it's our duty to do. We are the Jefferson Dalian. >> [music] [singing] >> We are the Jefferson Dalian. We are the Jefferson Dalian. >> [music and singing] >> We are the Jefferson Dalian. >> [music] >> We rule the year. History will fear. We rule the top of the tier. We're so glad to be here. President [music] is her name. Winning is her game. Three years in a row. Got to be the same. We are the Jefferson Dalian. We are the [music] Jefferson Dalian. We are the Jefferson Dalian. >> [music] >> We are
009the Jefferson Dalian. Jefferson Dalian. Learn till I can't no more. Take my heart, >> [music] >> Jefferson Dalian. Learn till I can't no more. >> [music] [music] >> Let's give it up for THE JEFFERSON STALLIONS! >> [applause] [applause] >> AGAIN, I WANT TO COMMEND OUR STUDENTS, OUR STAFF, the teachers, our administrators, and everyone for their hard work and investing our students. All the families tonight who are here, the students' families, could you just please stand? Let's give a round of applause to the families. WE WANT TO THANK YOU for allowing us to serve you and your your children. And what a great job the students did. We're so proud. I'm like, I'm ready to you know, this was fantastic. So, thank you so much and have a great evening. Let's give another and thank you
010Principal Custer for YOUR HARD WORK. >> [applause] [cheering] >> YOU MAY BE SEATED OR YOU CAN YOU'RE WELCOME to stay at the meeting or you can exit if you like. Have a great evening. Thank you so much. That was so cute. That was so good. I must say, it's hard to play an instrument and sing at the same time. >> is. Those kids did it. Okay, that was beautiful. Beautiful. Give it up for THE JEFFERSON STALLIONS. >> [cheering] >> IT'S HARD TO WALK AND TALK AT THE same time. I um I have a little bit more uh Madam Chair, may I continue? We'll wait and see. And as we transition Let's see. We're closer to our first Before we begin our formal meetings um committee meetings this evening uh I want to take a moment
011to recognize several important moments of leadership that we've had uh within our school district. As our school board president mentioned earlier today we conducted interviews for possible candidates to serve on our school board of directors. And I'm extremely honored and pleased that we will we are welcoming back Ms. Nancy Wilt to the Allentown School Board of Directors. >> [applause] >> You know, I am extremely proud personally uh when I was named acting superintendent Ms. Wilt was the president of the school board at the time and I had the unique pleasure to work very closely with her. Um talked to her many late nights and early mornings and continuing after your her service on the board, she continued to be a strategic advisor to me to ensure that we were hearing the voices of the community
012as well as to helping me to acclimate to this great community. So, I thank you for Ms. Wilt for your commitment, your love, your leadership, and your really believe in the Allentown School District as well as to me personally. So, thank you so much and thank you for your willingness to serve. And we all look forward to working with you and having you read all those minutes and all those board agendas late nights again. So, I know you're looking forward to all that. So, and we have her binder. See, we were already we have her binder ready for her tonight. So, thank you. We're also very happy and I say this publicly often that I have the unique pleasure to work with some amazing elected officials who represented us at the state level, our state
013level delegation. And again, I I say this only cuz I've worked in many communities and I've never worked so closely with elected officials who are so passionate, compassionate, and really believe in the Allentown School District. And they are very vocal about their commitment to Allentown. And so, I want to thank them for being here tonight. Our chairman of education for the House Democrats, State Representative Schweyer is here tonight. He's our education's chair. >> [applause] >> And so, our majority whip, I love saying that. >> [laughter] >> Representative Schlossberg, we we appreciate you and thank you. Again, you don't You can give him a round of applause. >> [applause] >> Yes. Uh not many times superintendents get to work so closely with their elected officials. And Representative Schlossberg sits on my our our mental health task
014force. And he is very actively involved. And when he's in Harrisburg, he makes sure he even sends um coun- um Commissioner Great Brace is a part of it, but he is Both of them are fully informed and very active. And so, I appreciate both of them for their advocacy uh for Allentown and for our great community. So, thank you so much and we're so honored to serve with you. So, thank you. So, we have some amazing members of our learning community who they are so committed and dedicated. And we don't always recognize them enough for their hard work and commitment. They're just um they have many of them have these like quintessential backgrounds or quintessential spirits in which they just do things immediately. They don't always do them loudly, they do them quietly. And they
015really believe in Allentown. Their heart bleeds the green and the blue. And they even if they may represent other schools, but they know overall we're a green and blue as an organization. And I want to thank them. There were some incidents that happened within our learning community at various at athletic events. And so they quickly um get were very put forth their selflessness in order to really help others and show love and compassion and help to save people's lives. And so and they were people who were just in at an event. So I wanted tonight we are going to recognize them. And when we shared these heroic events with our state delegation, they were so happy and and also you don't have I have to say the state officials who go to the activities and
016the games and who are so active within the Allentown School District. And they were really happy to hear the heroic acts that took place. And so tonight they are here to recognize members of our learning community for their um heroic acts of kindness and given giving to within our learning community and the broader Allentown community. So at this time I'd like to call our majority whip forward, Representative Schlossberg, as well as Representative Schweyer. Are you assisting? Okay. And and Ms. Wilt is going to assist Okay. No. Okay. Ms. Ramos is going to assist. And if I could have the school board directors, if you could please assemble down here with us so as we recognize the members of our learning community for their leadership, for their service, for their acts of kindness to this great
017community. Because of their efforts, someone is alive today. Actually, two people, I believe, are alive today because of their acts of kindness and heroic ability. So, if you could just please join me to commend them for a job well done. We're just going to assemble and shake their hands. You're Okay. No, you can speak. We're going to shake hands. You're going to speak. Okay. On behalf of Representative Schweyer, who's had the first attack of shyness in his life, as well as Representative Tubbs Hill, Pete and I and Anna just wanted to in a in a very small way express our sincere gratitude to members of the Allentown community, the Allentown School District community, who engaged in life-saving members, excuse me, life-saving efforts on multiple occasions and helped to save two people's lives who fell ill
018at a at a sports game. It is deeply gratifying for me as a representative, for Pete as representative, for all of us in this room to know that if somebody is at literally the worst moment of their life and maybe potentially if in the absence of life-saving measures, the end of their life, that they can be saved by members of the Allentown School community. So, on behalf of Pete and I, I do have these proclamations here for you. We just want to express our sincere gratitude and say thank you for what you've done. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Do you want me to read their names? Yeah. Can I have those? If I can find them. Lori Abr- Abramcheck. She's not here. That's the only one that's not here. I'm sorry. Jen DeFrain? >> [applause]
019>> I guess you need that, right? Eugene Clay? >> [applause] >> Brent Brent Edwards? He's at work. >> [applause] >> He's at work. Randy Etia? >> [applause] >> LETICIA KELLY? >> [applause] >> JOHN DELA CRUZ? >> [applause] >> Richard Perkins? >> [applause] >> Thank you. I'm going to read their names. Um there is also the team from Darev who's potentially still at their softball game. So, I'm going to read their names, but they may or may not be here. That's okay. Uh Breanna Knipe? >> [applause] >> Danielle Vote? >> [applause] >> Leighton Adult, Angeli Carrera, and Jerico Rosario? >> [applause] >> I think that's the same one. My first time. There's three names on one. Alyssa Billy? >> [applause] >> And Itzia Baloney? >> [applause] >> Itzia I would be happy to. Whereas the House
020of Representatives is pleased to recognize and congratulate the dedicated public servants bringing a notable measure of pride to this state and whereas Danielle Vote, St. Luke's athletic trainer for Louis E. Dieruff High School, is one such person. They are selfless, giving of themselves, their time, and many talents to family, friends, and community. And whereas during the softball game on Wednesday, March 25th, as the bottom of the fourth inning was about to begin, a base umpire collapsed on the field having suffered a heart attack. And whereas while awaiting EMS arrival, Danielle Vote quickly attended to the umpire and recognizing the situation along with other safety staff and standers began bystanders began administering CPR. And whereas safety officers and staff noticed the appropriate chain of command, secured the area to maintain privacy, and ensure calm, ushering the
021players from the field to behind the bleachers where they formed a prayer circle. And whereas after EMS transported the individual, he was admitted to the ICU of Lehigh Valley Cedar Crest Hospital where he has recovered. >> [applause] [applause] >> So, I have one for me. Here you go. I think this is it. I got one. I'm good. I have um uh somebody who's not here. Whereas the House of Representatives is pleased to recognize and congratulate the dedicated public servants bringing a notable measure of pride to this state. And whereas Lori Abramchek is one such person. They are selfless, giving of themselves, their time, and many talents to family, friends, and community. And whereas during the basketball game on Tuesday, February 24th, 2026, a member of the Allentown School District Safety Team observed a fan who
022appeared unwell upon entering the William Allen High School Gymnasium. Staff immediately escorted the individual to a table in the lobby to monitor his conditions. Within minutes, his health declined significantly. And whereas while awaiting EMS arrival, the individual stopped breathing. Staff acted immediately to position him safely on the floor. At that time, an off-duty LVHN emergency room physician who was present in the lobby stepped in to assist. And whereas safety officers and staff secured the area to maintain privacy and ensure calm, orderly operations. Admissions were quickly redirected to another entrance, and normal entry procedures resumed within minutes. And whereas in coordination with APD, AFD, EMS, and the attending physician, Safety Officer LaQuera Kelly provided chest compressions as part of the life-saving response. After EMS transported the individual, our facilities team disinfected the area, and operations resumed.
023>> [applause] [applause] >> Go team. >> Just want to say when I heard about those heroic acts, I was very moved and honored to work with such amazing members of our learning my team. Um just the way they acted swiftly and I just I'm so appreciative of all of you and thank you so much and keep up the great work. We love you and God bless you. >> [applause] >> And of course, Mr. Ottia is leaving, but he was also named the Morning Call's Athletic Director OF THE YEAR. >> [applause and cheering] >> SO WE WANT TO THANK YOU PUBLICLY, MR. OTTIA. I think you everyone saw you on Facebook this week. >> [laughter] >> We surprised him um earlier this week for his hard work and commitment and we were just saying that you
024were named Athletic Director of the Year by the Morning Call and we are so proud. So thank you so much for your hard work and commitment. [applause] I [applause] if it's okay, I just wanted to also thank everybody. Want to welcome back um Mrs. Wilt. It's great to have her here. If I get another recognition this week, Dr. Burks, I'll probably be sleeping on the couch. So >> [laughter] >> So thank you so much and I want to thank I >> [applause] >> So I that I'm concluding my I don't have real remarks, but we can start the committee of the whole meeting. Yes. So thank you, Ms. Matheson. At this time, we are only taking public public comments on agenda items. Do we have any comment cards? We have two discussion items and 12
025action items on the finance agenda this evening. First, we have the capital projects presentation and discussion by Mr. Cuff. This is a discussion item. I just want to say the school board directors, you do have a copy of the presentation in front of you. Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. Welcome back, Ms. Wilkes. So, tonight we're going to talk about the capital plan, building the foundation for tomorrow. I'm going to speed through it since you do have a copy in front of you. Please take your time to review it at your leisure. There's a lot of information in it. So, I'm going to skip through a few of the uh front thing you know, front slides that we always have. Important to note on this slide, if you read it on your copies or
026read it at your leisure, you will realize that the debt to service ratio in the state of Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is 12%. We're at 4%. Mr. Cuff will talk a little bit more about that later, but that gives us quote-unquote more buying opportunity or bonding, being able to get money to finance some of these projects that we're going to talk to. Dr. Warnecke, if we could just context it a little bit. Absolutely. >> Okay, thank you. So, the last couple weeks, myself, Mr. Cuff, Mr. Fazio, and Mr. Wait Dr. Wayne McCullough have been looking at the Breslin feasibility study and looking how to peel it back, if you will, for the warm, safe, dry projects or year one projects, if you will, year two projects, year three projects, and projects in the future.
027And trying to get them aligned not only with our budget, but with our plans for the next 20 years. So, from a perspective of context setting, we're looking to invest in our school district with new buildings or renovations of existing buildings, so we can provide our students that amenity uh the physical amenity of a building to equate to the academic level so they can increase their uh skill sets and also feel welcomed in their schools. Our average school is from 1933, if you do look at them. We have about 12 schools that are nearly a century. We know that Harrison Morton was built during the General Ulysses S. Grant presidential administration, so about 140 some years. So, we have some old buildings that do deserve some service. So, that's what this capital plan is about,
028bringing our buildings forward for the educational opportunity of our students. Moving uh this this one goes quick. Uh so, we identified approximately $463 million, $464 million in deferred maintenance, uh basically new you know, trying to uh bring our schools up to speed in terms of just with uh simple amenities, think about it. You know, fire alarm systems, HVAC, uh painting, you know, things of that nature. So, we identified about $463 million worth of capital needs. For priority one, we're talking about 86 87 million, excuse me. For priority one, it's 26 27 million. For priority two, uh about $87 million, and the rest is uh there's considerable projects. Uh just to let you know by context again, the Breslin report was 222 pages. So, that is a lot. The next thing that we talked about, and
029this came up during PFMs uh presentation last month, about how do we replenish the capital plan? What does that look like? Ken So, this is showing that if we on an annual basis contribute $19.5 million dollars into the capital planning budget, we can start doing some of these projects. So, that's what this one does. The next one, we're talking about modernization of the existing schools that we have. Phase one as I was saying is warm, safe, dry and you could see some of those projects that we're talking about, the priority ones, priority two, roofs, right? We have a lot of roof area across the district. Secure entrances. Our schools are old, they weren't built with a secure vestibule when when you come in as a guest or a parent, you wait there until you're attended
030to into the main office. Fire alarms, HVAC systems. And you know, with Sonia Sotomayor the modular classrooms cuz we're growing out of space. We have to do something. Phase two, we're talking about continuing our program with guaranteed energy savings projects. Again, that could be the HVAC system in Harrison Morton as a an example. And then phase three is all that other stuff that might take us 20 years to do, but we want to do. So, that's the K through 8 planning, new schools, property acquisition so we can build that school. So, on and so forth. We have a total budget when we're talking about summer projects of about 13.5 million. And they can you know, we're talking about Sonia Sotomayor, life safety and communications and abatement and infrastructure. Infrastructure's the hard stuff in the buildings.
031Abatement, obviously, some of our floors still have asbestos floor tile which is in great shape. Uh but those are things that we want to start working on. Year two, we're talking about another 15 million dollars of possible work. Major HVAC overhaul at uh Sheridan, uh you know, changing some boilers at uh Roosevelt, talking about facility modernization at Muhlenberg and at Ruby Bridges, you know, the uh the secure entrances I just talked about. And then food service, replacement of equipment. Even though Miss Gina's capital somewhere else, there's some expenses that are going to come through uh the capital projects. The ESCO projects that I talked about two slides ago, Trexler, Dieruff High School, South Mountain, Mosser, Roosevelt, Central Stream Academy. How do we get our buildings to be act more acclimated in terms of uh interior
032conditions, comfort, HVAC, heating, water, piping. You know, a lot of our schools, if they're 100 years old, guess how old that pipe is? 100 years old in some instances. Major capital projects, we're committed to the portfolio. I thank God, and I say that here, that Dr. Burke's has a vision for innovation and bringing this district forward. This allows us to do what we're showing you tonight. And also, I'll be quite honest with you, some of the money's that we've been getting, and some of the help we've been getting from our legislative staff and our state representatives and uh Senator Miller has not gone unnoticed. It has helped us promote everything that we're talking about tonight. So, Bridgeview Academy, right now, we're looking at a potential new building, expanding the existing uh cube, if you will,
033to house 6th through 12th grade. A wonderful program of STEM innovation. Just incredible. Sonia Sotomayor, right now, we're talking about a classroom at 10 modular classrooms to accommodate a great program that is growing, and we need to we need to bring in third grade, and then maybe fourth grade and fifth grade. These 10 modulars will accommodate that. And then land acquisition. In some instances, we need to purchase property so we can build, so we can expand. No different than the new K through 8 over at the former state hospital property. We need property. It's a premium here in Allentown. Talking about the capital improvement. Now, just high school and athletics, 30 million for maybe fixing the pool. Again, an item to be discussed amongst the board. Dieruff High School, 18 million for upgrades at the
034practice field. Or could that be a could that be a project that we're working with the city of Allentown to look at Andre Reed Park? J. Birney Crum Stadium, that existing field house is made out of block. It's been around for years. It needs to be updated. So, that could cost almost 7.5 million. Again, all items that need to be discussed with the board. Central Administration Building, we are growing out of this building. Dr. Burks has done a great job of filling vacancies that have been vacant for years to strengthen who we are as as administrators to support the schools. With that said, we need space to sit. And then last one, Union Terrace and Rob Middle School. Again, that's through property acquisition. Without buying that property that you guys so gracefully allowed us to
035purchase, you know, by the field on Union Terrace, we will be able to now have land to which to develop, to build a school, and then house the students in that school from UT and also from Rob. So, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Can you just talk about the I don't want people to walk away that we just need seats here and that's why we need a new facility in the central office. So, that the proposed cost to upgrade this facility and The proposed cost to upgrade this facility, if we were to say, "Okay, for 18 months we're going to be located somewhere else." Is approximately 2200 $22 million. It's it's a considerable amount of money. Right? To upgrade this building. If we move somewhere else, we can absorb those costs A, with a more uh
036energy efficient building. Right? This is an older building now. With a more defined space. You know, where it's not a classroom that was a classroom, now has three or four people in it. An office environment. It might be an open office environment, but it would be new. So, we're looking at various properties. We're looking at lease options. We're looking at purchase options or stuff that Mr. Cuff can talk about as well. But, we have outgrown this space as well. So, it's it's it's hard to say that, but it's great to say that cuz it shows how much we've been doing. So, I hope that answers the question, Dr. Berks. So, shaping the future, the new K through 8. Again, this is just an example of one of the myriad of projects that we're working on.
037This school will redefine the standard for collective learning spaces, community integration, and technical technological access to Allentown. It's $135 million. As of tonight, and we still have to rectify the numbers, it actually came in 10 We did the bid opening this evening at 3:30. So, that number came in lower. We still have to delve through the uh the cost to really understand the cost. It's 208,000 square feet. It's a K through 8. It's 1,200 students are going to go in there. 23-month construction period. It's already being constructed. So, it's going to replace the aging Harrison Morton. Well, not not completely. And also be a state-of-the-art purpose-built educational environment. Operational, what is managing costs? We are investing in our schools because of, you know, the charter school landscape, how much we pay charter schools. We want
038to make an investment in our buildings to bring these kids back. Right? The We are paying a lot for them, but we they're also our students, so we want to bring them back. Mr. Cuff is going to talk more about that globally. Planning for tomorrow. This is a 20-year plan. So, we got things to do now. We have things to do next year, but it doesn't stop there. It's a total growth plan for the school district. So, again, please read your documents. The why. Allentown is a vibrant, growing community with a student body that is 74% Hispanic. Our schools are cultural hubs, resource centers, and launching pads for the next generation of regional leaders. Every dollar mapped out in this capital plan, and again, please review it, from boiler replacements to new K-8 Academy, is
039an investment in the future of the Allentown School District. We are ensuring that the physical environment of our students walk into every day reflects the high value we place on their limited potential. Thank you. Little more than 3 minutes, Ms. Ramos. Thank you, Bonnie. Any questions? We We'll move to a second presentation. Uh-oh. This one on the budget presentation discussion, or are you going to ask some questions now? >> was a really short question. Was Jefferson on the feasibility study? Yes. It was Okay. >> Yeah. And we're also Yes. Okay. My thought was to postpone questions till after both presentations, so that we can Okay. So, ask Madam Chair, may As Mr. Cuff assembles, just want to context a little bit more for the board. We want to share with you we've had a feasibility
040study was conducted by our architectural firm, the Breslin Architectural Firm. And so, we wanted to distill down this lengthy document to show you the types of projects in which are being recommended to us to address in various phases. So, we will provide the board with a comprehensive word document that will share in a course to the public of those particular projects. It's still in uh in revision the revisions stages of that document, but we want to give you at a high level the types of projects that are underway and the cost associated with them. And so, Mr. Cuff is going to provide an overview just for discussion only uh of our budget and and I'm just going to join him just in case there's some questions from the board. Thank you. Where do you want
041to start? So, as an organization of Good Evening School Board of Directors, for the record, Dr. Burke, Superintendent and CEO for the Allentown School District. So, as an organization, all our decisions are anchored in our mission and vision as it relates to our academic programming as well as our fiscal and human capital resources. Uh a couple with, of course, our core values and our strategic plan Lighting the Way, a Blueprint for Innovation and Excellence 2030. These are the pillars that, as you know, that drive our strategic plan. We have a comprehensive timeline that we've been sharing with the board for each presentation about um uh the budget process. And today, we're providing you for discussion only our thinking about the the budget for the 2026-27 academic year. Tonight, you will see a presentation of our
042current financial picture as we're projecting for the next academic year as well as it's good that Dr. Burke is well trained to just keep on talking. And so, [laughter] got to have some jokes. So, tonight the committee of the whole meeting, that was a lot of people laughing here. >> [laughter] >> So, tonight we're the presentation for discussion only. We will present in May our proposed budget for the 26-27 academic year. We also will put that particular budget on display for the public to be provide for feedback for 20 days. And then in May, we will have a budget forum in which we're inviting the school board of directors as well as the public. It's May 20th at Hayes Elementary School. We will explain our budget process as well as how our finances are spent,
043when where the allocations are made, what type of revenue we receive from local, state, and federal uh governing bodies. And we also, prior to that budget meeting, all school governance councils will reconvene and share the school level budgets with their school governance councils. The word I want to commend the school leaders and the school governance councils at their schools, they've been very actively involved in decision-making this year. And I want to thank the board for its support of our school governance council structure. And at June 18th, we will present our final budget to the board for final adoption for the 26-27 academic year. Mr. Cuff is going to talk a little bit about the finances at a high level. And I know from some school board directors, it'll be a repeat, but we want to
044make sure that you are fully versed. It takes seven times, that's what the research says, to understand something, as well as for the public. So, Mr. Cuff. Great. Thank you, Dr. Burke. Good evening, everyone. So, as Dr. Burke said, a lot of the information we're going to share this evening is going to be a repeat, so I'll try to be concise, brief, and make sure I cover everything that needs to be covered this evening. As you Many of you well know, our majority of our revenue is broken into three components, which is our local revenue, our state revenue, as well as our federal revenue. We are the benefactors of having a large state subsidy or state revenue support from our legislature, so Allentown is very beneficial and very appreciative of the support we get from
045our state level. You'll see here here I have all the state all the sources compiled here. Our budget is roughly $511 million, a little over half a billion dollars. You'll see here in comparison to prior years, overall our total revenue increase is approximately 5.9%. The majority of our support comes from the state level, and you'll see the increase there. The major area in the state level, and I'll touch that in a minute, is going to be the ready to learn money, as well as the adequacy funding the debt holds. So, I'll touch on real estate budget real quick. You'll see here we have a 1.8% of local increase. This increase, I'm going to make this clear, this increase right now does not entail any type of tax or millage increase as it as this currently
046is listed right here. You'll see the increase in real estate comes from the assessed value of our properties growing. So, that's what that 2.2% is. So, right now we're looking at a 1.8% increase in local revenues. Our next area is our state revenue. As I stated, this is the bulk load of where we're going to receive most of our money, and you'll see roughly a 30% increase in our ready to learn money. This is the adequacy funding which I talked about in the prior meeting. This stems back to the fair funding lawsuit that districts like Allentown are the beneficiary of. And you'll see here and I'll draw to you one other area here and I'm going to highlight some of the effort that our transportation department and they're finding additional funding for us going forward.
047So, you'll see a a substantial increase in our transportation subsidy as well. There's one other area here that we're going to see a slight increase and it will be released in May 1st. It's the money we get for our homestead for our homestead reduction. When that gets released in May, two things are going to happen. One, we'll get a dish It's the property rebate line. I apologize. Two things are going to happen when that gets released. One, that will increase a small portion of our revenue, but also when I talk about our homestead and you're going to hear that in a couple slides later, that will increase the amount of homestead that each property who's registered for the homestead reduction receives. So, again, you'll see here our total state increase from prior year currently sits
048at 7.7%. Federal revenue is is relatively flat. We're still waiting to hear from the feds. Generally, that doesn't come out till the beginning to the middle of June. Um typically, the last couple years it's been a relatively flat funding that's come from federal. So, right now it says 0.70 cuz there's been a lot of fluctuations from last year. And that's why that looks the way it does right now currently. So, next is our expenditures. Our expenditures are broken into several areas. Our instructional, obviously, we're a school district. There's support services. These are the services that we provide. This is all the support you see in the administration building, the support you see for transportation and maintenance. That's where that comes from. Non-instructional are the areas that we do for our kids, a lot of the
049community work, a lot of the areas and the athletics and things of that nature. The other two areas are facilities and acquisitions, the work and the support that we do there. And other expenditures, this is where a lot of the debt service. And I'll explain what debt service is when I go to the next slide. So, what I did here just to make it help so people can get a a idea of what is covered in each which department. And you'll see here through instructional, you'll have your regular education, special, vocational, post secondary education. Support services as I just stated, this all the support areas that are supporting the process of educating our students and educating and supporting our teachers and our buildings. Non-instructional are student activities, our community services, and debt service. Debt service,
050just to put an analogy on it, your debt service is basically your home your home line of credit. So, basically this is what we use as a school district when someone says our debt service, this is basically money that we borrow to build our buildings and keep the infrastructure afloat. So, you'll see here I categorize all of our expenses on down as typical with a with most businesses, in particularly more with the school district, the majority of our expenses are coming our salaries and benefits. They're personnel related. Another area that we have a high amount of our expenditure, and I talked about this several times in some of our previous um meetings, and you'll see there there's a large increase in a 500 area, 500 object code. This is where we hold or we house
051the cost for charter schools. I talked about this several times. We're looking at roughly a 11 You see 11.7% increase in our charter school cost. It's a real cost that we have to um we're going to have to tackle, and more than likely unless there's some major movement among the state and re- redefining how charter schools are funded, this is a cost that will probably continue to grow. So, what and as Dr. Bird said and Dr. Warnebe said, we're in a process of trying to improve our facilities so that we know that could we would we like to bring everyone back? We would like to, but in real out reality, we know that we can bring back a few of those kids and bring them back into our our buildings. We believe that we have
052the program that would benefit a lot of the kids in the Allentown School District area." So, I'm going to quickly go to the next area. So, you'll see right now we are we are a balanced budget. By state code, we are required when we submit our budget into the state is required to be balanced. It's to be balanced with your revenues and your expenditures or a combination of expenditures and and and fund balance. We are not in that situation right now. We are currently we are presenting a budget balance which we are right now we are a fiscally strong district. I want to share that. So, this is what we're looking at right now. As we go into the next slide, I'm going to talk about some options we have for funding our capital projects.
053So, I'm going to stop right there. Are there any questions? I know I covered a lot, but I'm going to stop quickly. Are there any questions from the board? Okay. I have a couple of questions, but they really pertain to both presentations, so I'll wait until you're finished. Thank you. Okay. So, I'll go into the next area. So, this area here I'm going to talk I'm going to recap some of the uh information that my colleague Dr. Whartonby talked about. So, he talked about how we have a needs for infrastructure and a need for capital improvements. So, there's one thing to have a capital improvement plan. There's another thing to have a capital improvement financing plan. So, this is what he talked about that we've been putting together. Dr. Whartonby along with my other colleagues
054as well as Dr. Bergs and Ms. Ramos, we've been talking about how do we fund the the plan that was put forth. So, and I think that's crucial cuz everyone likes to hear how we're going to get new things. Everyone likes to hear how we're going to have a new car or or we're going to add this to our house, but you have to also think about how you're going to build it, how you're going to pay for it, and how you're going to maintain to what? Keep fiscally responsible. So, I'm going to talk about this in the next couple slides of how we're going to do that. So, just to recap on what um Dr. Warneby said, a lot of what we're doing is to our capital improvements are driven by better student outcomes
055and safety. We're going to improve air quality, we're going to improve security. So, it's us and we have to be fiscally responsible as we approach some of these areas. So, to be fiscally responsible and I'm going to talk about this in a second, we have to have that financing plan. And this is what we're looking to do, and this is if a lot of you who were here back in March, we had PFM. PFM, for those you don't remember, that's public financial management. They're our financial advisors. And one thing they talked to us about was how what our forecast will look like, what it look like if we if we just rely strictly on state subsidies. They talked about what our forecast will look like if the subsidies fall off, and what it look like
056if we if we potentially did a millage increase. So, that's what we're going to look at as we go forward. So, as you saw on the previous slide, what we did was taking the PFM recommendation and their wording into account, we are suggesting a promoting a 2.9 millage increase. So, what I'm going to show here quickly, and I'll go through it and we If anyone has questions, I'll I'll be around afterwards. So, the the average residential assessment for property in in Allentown area is $107,000. And I'll repeat that, the average for a residential property is $107,000. Our current millage currently sits at 22.6432. I'm looking at the middle box now. So, what we did was we took the number of houses that are on that are available and we took the number of houses on
057homestead. So, the average residential tax right now for a property is $1,412. So, if we assess the 2.9% increase, you'll see there that it's it'll go to a millage of 23.3 and that the average increase will be approximately $71 per household. Now, if you remember earlier, I made the comment that once they come out with the new homestead amount, that $1,032 that reduces homestead owners will actually increase. Historically, the trend has been that 132, which is current the current rate for this year, that will most likely increase. So, we're looking forward to the what gets released on May 1st so we can actually plug in the higher figure and we can show what the reduction or what the actual expense would be assuming a 2.9% increase. I'm going to pause for a second and go
058back to the original slide and you'll see here this is what we had a $71 increase per for an average residential property. Okay? I know I went through a lot quickly, so I'm going to pause again and then if someone has a question, I'll be more than I can answer it, but there's a little more I want to bring after this. Does anybody have questions at this time? Council? We did residential cuz the homeowners cuz actually Great question, first of all. What we want to do is we want to focus on those who receive the or eligible for the homestead rebate. So, we we focused on our residential properties is what we did cuz that's the bulk load of our properties as well. Anybody else? Yes. So, I know when we originally started to propose
059the capital project, we talked about um increasing taxes over a period of time. Like every year, maybe small increases. When we do the 2.9%, um well, how long would that last? Is that the set rate because I see when you see 2.9% and then that's going to bring us in 363 million. Are we saying to the public that that's the set rate that we're going to increase and we're never going to increase again for for a while or Great question. So, let me just give some clarity. So, 2.9 doesn't necessarily bring in $363 million. What the 2.9 rate does, and I should have clarified this, what it does, it enables us to have to borrow. So, Dr. Wormsley talked about a lot of projects that are out there. He talked about the K-12 building coming
060up. We talked about the 10 classroom modulars. We talked about the bridge uh the Family Community Resource Center. These are projects that are already in play. So, we know we're going to have to We know coming up we're going to borrow probably in the next couple months and issue bond issuance for the K-8 building. Shortly following that, we know that we have coming up the the potential expansion for the Bridge Road Academy. We know that we have other items in the Breslin report that we're going to have to finance. So, what PFM, go back to their presentation, what they were trying to project is, "Hey, we know you have upwards of 300 400 5 million 500 million dollars in projects. So, we we locked it off with certain projects which is that 363 came in.
061And this is we know that we're going to borrow at least that amount going forward. Now, what this does is and I should have prefaced or I should have made it clear, I apologize. What this does is this lets us know that we have the borrowing power going forward to achieve and pay for those projects is what this means. So, your question was is is it going forward? I think particularly with our scenario here where in this district, I think what we need to do is every year we're going to have to reevaluate where we are, what we receive from the state. So, I don't want to blanketly say, "Hey, we're just going to do this all throughout." Cuz I think the the true assessment here and every school district's going to do this and
062we we need to do this particularly Allentown cuz we're the beneficiary of a of a lot of state subsidy and a lot of state support. We will have to reevaluate that every year to see where we're at and what needs to what needs to happen. Cuz as Dr. Warneby had stated and you'll and you'll we see it all the time here when you walk through, you go through the community, a lot of things happen. A lot of things happen within within a short period of time that we have to react to. So, as those things arise, then we can make that determination, but I know initially this will help us get the ground footing for where we need to be as far as funding our capital projects improvement. And what is our ceiling for our
063millage? Like the highest we can go to? >> highest the great question. The highest we can go when we talk is your Act 1 index. Mhm. Our Act 1 index is 5.4%. So, your base I believe is 4.4. What the state does is they make an adjusted index depending on what they call the they call it poverty levels what they call it for lack of a better term. So, they make an adjustment for every district. So, our adjustment is up to 5.4%, but we're not we're not there right now. There are other districts who are maxed out who are maximizing their increases to that Act 1 index. We are not there. Right. And then in our um debt deficit right now, where do we stand with that? Because I know it's not clear. I know
064we still have like a little bit of debt that we still have to clear up right now. Yes. >> So, when we get when we do this increase, would it go towards clearing that up as well? And then this capital project that we're working on >> So, so we have the potential to attack our debt a couple ways. Mhm. So, one thing that's probably going to come up when we come back in a couple of months that we have to do the the next it um borrowing or next general obligation issuance for the KDA building they have a technique our lenders have a technique what's called a wrap around. So, what they'll do is they'll find somewhere out there with our current debt and they'll be able to take that and wrap it into our
065upcoming debt at a lesser rate so that it's is more fiscally beneficial. And what they try to do when they wrap it around, they try to smooth out the cost so that the district doesn't see a great spike in your debt going forward. But I want to bring to our attention one thing and we're we're actually in we're in a good position in some regards. As Dr. Warrenton B had said, our current debt ratio is at 4%. The average is 12%. So, that says two things. One, we have room to to get there, but two, the sad part about it is this is a reflection that we there items there there capital improvement things that we have not done that we should have done and I think now with our fiscal strength, this is an
066opportunity that we have to be fiscally responsible and take care of some of these projects cuz again, if you go into think about your own home finances, it's cheaper to do things now than it is later cuz the longer you put it off, it's going to be a greater expense down the road. So, this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to be fiscally responsible as we approach some of these items and put a financial plan which I talked about put that in place so that down the road for a lot of us it may not affect some of us but it will affect some of the younger people around. So when they're sitting there you're sitting over there it'll be a better better environment better school district for everyone. Yeah. And this increases
067our bond rating when when we do things to this level. You read my slide. You're ahead of me. Thank you. So one thing I and this is the last area I want to discuss we couple years ago we did a a bond every time you borrow money every time you do a general obligation issuance you have to go through what's called a S&P rating a rating call. So we went through that couple years ago and our our rating increased um two notches which is actually a great a great thing. So with the increase and I'll just state this in our last when we borrow $15 million we save approximately $30,000 on the premiums and we save approximately $350,000 on bond insurance going forward. So and I say that cuz keep in mind the next our
068next issuance our next borrowing is going to be approximately 10 times 10 fold that. So we have the potential to have that increased our savings as we go forward. So one of the areas that will after we had our S&P rating after we got the improvement we got the the attaboy the pat on your back one thing they shared with was that hey how are you guys going to have a consistent funding stream? How are you guys going to handle yourselves going forward? You you guys improved but we need to make sure that you guys are fiscally responsible and that you're stable going forward. So this is this is the plan. These are the things that they're going to ask for when they come back in in a couple months and say hey you guys
069have these plans how do you plan on funding it? So this is what we're doing. We're We're trying to be ahead and be fiscally responsible as a school district. Is there anybody else with a question? I have a couple questions. So, just to recap, this millage increase is largely twofold to increase our chances of an improved bond rating, and then to cover our debt services over the course of Dr. Worthen we said around 20 years, with possibility for further increases in that period. Correct. Okay. So, um my concern that I have with this is that capital projects are a finite period of time, right? At some point that cost goes away. A tax increase does not. So, we're looking at imposing an indefinite cost increase to taxpayers for a finite time period project. After those
070projects are done, where does this money help us? 25 years from now, 30 years from now, going forward from there? >> great question. I think there are a lot of areas that are going to pop up, and then just it through my history of working in K-12 industry, costs are constantly going to rise. So, and I've never I'll be honest with you, I I've never seen a district that hasn't had capital project needs. So, I even [clears throat] though I think once we go through these projects, keep in mind as Dr. Worthen we stated, and let's look around, we have 24 buildings. And I think that there's always going to be a need I think something's going to pop. We address the the immediate issues. I think as we progress through, that that list potentially
071will continue I'm not not going to say it'll grow exponentially, but that list of needs uh will always be there. I don't think in in even in a 10-year time frame, there's no way that we could put new all new buildings up throughout the throughout the school district. So, there there's always going to be a need for capital improvements. There's always going to be additional expenses keep in mind, so salaries increase, cost of living increases, um a lot of transportation costs. So, there's going to eventually there's going to be exponential needs that we can benefit from going forward. And in theory, that also would go with the same for the funding that we receive from our state. Correct? Correct. Yes. Um Great. So, another question I have is we're proposing 2.9%. What are other school
072districts around us looking to do? >> So, great question. So, right now, and not not to name every school district, every district in the Lehigh Valley is higher than us right now currently. The average, if you take us away, the average is is approximately almost 4% for the other districts in the Lehigh Valley. Mhm. And that $71 average increase, that is calculated based on those who can claim the homestead reduction. >> Correct. And it's based on it's also based on this year's homestead amount. Once that new amount comes out, that will probably decrease that amount some. And what is the value for those who don't qualify for the homestead reduction? You would add back the homestead amount is 1,032, so it'll be 1,000 The percentage is still the same, so the amount would still be
073the same. They're just getting a flat 132 off of their bill. So, that's still $71 would still be the same even if you're not a homestead. Okay. You're just you're just benefiting from being a homestead um participant. Right. Cuz that's a flat that's a flat discount. It's not a percentage discount. Thanks. One thing I'm concerned about is yes, the Parkland School District, Saucon Valley School Districts have higher percent tax, but a lot of those people have higher income. I guess that's my concern. I I know that we have a need for these finances. I'm concerned about the higher taxes in the Lehigh in Allentown in particular. Anybody else? Can I just Yes, of course. Again, I think you raise a great point and one thing I I for years, if you go back and you
074look through the history around this area, we've been flat for 3 years. With cuz we've been we had great support from our legislators and we were were and again, we're doing we're we're in a good situation. We are actually a fiscally strong district. What we're doing is we're trying to prepare so that we're able to to get these buildings. I understand no one I trust me. I I've done this for 30 plus years. No one likes it. But you have to be at the same time I've seen it if you're not fiscally responsible and you don't plan, it you pay the cost down the road and that's what we're trying to avoid. I think if you look at our history, we couldn't do a lot of these things. So we're at the position now that
075we're able to do it, so we need to take advantage and be responsible as we go forward. When when PFM provided um the data stating like the increments for us to increase, was this the lowest one that they provided to say like start here? >> It was 2.9 and they they gave two options, 2.9% and 3.9%. >> Okay. Again, so just to put it in context, the 3.9% would the 2.9% allowed us to do $363 million of borrowing and keep a stable position. The 3.9% jumped up to $560 million of borrowing and still keep a a stable level. Press the button. Your microphone. What if if let's say we weren't doing proposing these capital projects. What is our deferred main maintenance um uh cost right now? Just on keeping the current buildings going as they
076were. I'm going to if I'm if I'm wrong, but as you stated, the the Breslin the present study has a cost roughly currently of about roughly four 400 460 some odd million dollars of deferred maintenance cost currently. So, if we [snorts] if we do this tax increase and we we put forward all of these capital projects and then we we now have this um allocation from this increase, that could then go and be applicable to some of the schools that maybe are not on the the agenda for complete overhaul, but you know, it tend to the the maintenance that they need, whether it's, you know, an aging H vac system or heating system. I know there's some schools that struggle with Yeah. All that. So. >> it's all on the table, to be honest with
077you. But I I'll go back to my early statement. I think currently due to the age of our building we're going to be making we're going to look at everything every year. I mean, we have to have certain items like for example, the K to 8 building, we're going to look at Bridgeview. Those are items that are the ball's rolling, you know, we're rolling on those, but there's going to be items that are going to are issues that are going to jump up every year that we're going to that we're going to have to react to and make some quick decisions on and be able and be able to pull it off. It's one thing to look at say, "Hey, hey, this is the issue." But if we can't pull it off, we're we're in
078a we're in a really awkward situation. Right. Anybody else? In that case, thank you very much. Gives us things to think about. Okay, thank you. And those were two discussion items. Now we can move into a series of action items to move items forward to the meeting later this evening. Uh first of those, Mr. Cuff is requesting approval from the school Board of Directors to authorize the solicitor to enter into agreement or agreements for the parcels located at 26-44 North 9th Street and 901-909 West Hamilton Street in the City of Allentown. Okay, thank you. Explanation about that, please. Yes. So, we're we're looking for authorization for the solicitor to enter an agreement or agreements for the parcels listed at 24-26 through 44 North 9th Street and 901 through 909 West Hamilton Street in the City
079of Allentown. Setting the total assessment of these parcels at $5,027,400 for the year of 2025 and $4,668,300 for the year of 2026. For each of the subsequent tax years until assessment pursuant assessment in the change assess- I apologize. Tax year until a change in assessment pursuant to applicable law. So, just to give you some context, this this property here is the big PPL building up the street. The building was purchased recently at a low rate. So, just so you understand the process, when our solicitor who represents us in in tax reassessment, we hire a an appraiser who goes out and appraises these facilities here. This facilities here is going It used to be commercial. It is being It is being changed over to a residential property. So, [snorts] what's going to happen is as they
080go through the process of changing the property and building up apartments in that property, the assessment will change and will be back every year, more than likely for the next couple years, to address the the change in property assessment in this particular property. Is there any question about uh, what he's just commented on? So, I'm just curious, what was the differential? Like, what was their existing sort of assessment and then what did it get adjusted down to? I mean, I see the figures here, like It's roughly a roughly about a 30% decrease in property value, but that property value will increase as I stated over the next 2 years. It'll go actually it probably should surpass where it was at by the time they finish putting all the the apartments in there. So, the the
081issue became once is was the selling price of the property when it was sold. Mhm. So, that that dictated where what [clears throat] our leverage was. So, that was sold at a the property was sold to sell for $9 million. And that dictated how much flexibility we had going forward. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? May I have a motion to move this item forward to the meeting later this evening? So moved. Second. I hear a maker and a seconder. Is there any further discussion? All in favor, say I. I. Opposed? Then the motion carries. Mr. Cuff is requesting approval from the board to reduce to for vendor changes and ancillary benefits employer paid and employee paid. Yes. So, currently there are two ancillary benefits that the district is contractually obligated to fund. That is accidental
082death and dismemberment insurance as well as long-term disability insurance provided to eligible employees. So, that's a that is a that is insurance that we have to provide for every employee within the district. There are also other benefits that the that been that they have. These are benefits that are voluntary that the um, employees will pay for. So, what we did was we had our provider go through this last spring in the last couple of months and seek out options out there to make sure that we're getting our best bang for our buck. So, what we did was we found new carriers for those services. So, you'll see for group group life, accidental and dismemberment, is at a cost of 140,000, representing a a discount of 7,656 over a 5-year period per year. We also see
083a cost for group term life disability at 183,640, representing a savings of 154,47 also. And these are the two that we are responsible for for writing for all of our employees. And the other ones are ones that our employees will that they can volunteer to take going forward. So, keep in mind, this is the benefit. No one is getting lesser services. We're all getting getting their same service. We just went out, we shopped around, we got the cheaper cost, and every employee has the same coverage that they had prior. Any question or discussion? May I have a motion to move this item forward? I make a motion. Second. I'll second. We have a maker and a seconder. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? The motion carries. Mr. Cuff is
084requesting approval from the board for the district to join Public Health Insurance Cooperative PSHIC to provide stop-loss insurance for the district's health insurance plan. Please give us some explanation of that. Yes, ma'am. So, this here is the follow-up step. If you remember last month, the board went and we issued we approved going forward to be self-insured for our employees. So, what stop insurance is, stop insurance is an essential for organizations that self-insure, which is what we are, because it limits the financial risk. It protects against unexpectedly large claims, either from a single individual or total group cost, allowing the organization to maintain predictable expenses while still benefiting from the flexibility and the savings of being self-funded. Stop insurance over time Sorry, over time self-insuring will stop loss often results in savings compared to fully insured
085plans because of organization avoids insurer profit margins while still having a safety net for host claims. What this means is we're basically controlling what we did what we contracted out for before. But the stop insurance what it does is it avoids us from getting hit from a person who has a singular high claim or a a single accident or something to that or illness is what stop insurance does. So this is a product of our previous move of going self-insured, but overall this is the overall savings and better benefit for our employees as we go forward. Any questions? May I have a motion to move this item forward? I'll make the motion. I second. We have a maker and a seconder. Uh is there any further question? All in favor? I. Opposed? The motion carries.
086If If If you will agree the next three items are for furniture for schools and I'd like to approve all three of the items at the same time. The items include cafeteria tables at a cost of $109,112.27 from the vendor Amtob Furniture which includes items needed for the expansion of Sota Sona Sotomayor and at a cost not to exceed $358,683.97 from the vendor STS Innovative Interiors. That's item one. And fine And it was items one and two, excuse me. And finally for Virco to provide furniture to various schools at a cost of $187,290 $187,298.96. That is correct. Anything that you need to add by way of background? >> you covered it. >> [laughter] >> Great. Thank you. What you say getting through all those numbers is interesting. Is there if there's no question about that,
087may I have a motion? So moved. Second. We have a maker and a seconder. Would there be any additional discussion? All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. Mr. Cuff is also requesting approval from the board to enter into an agreement with collection recovery services, a third-party debt collection agency, to assist in recovering funds owed to the district. Give us some explanation of that. >> Sure. I did board approval to enter an agreement with collection recovery services, a third-party debt agency, to support Allentown School District in the collection of past-due payments owed to the district. These services will target outstanding accounts from individuals, businesses, or organizations that have not remitted payment despite prior internal collection efforts, allowing the district to more effectively recover delinquent funds and strengthen our overall fiscal management. Any question?
088May I have a motion? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Is there a second? We have a maker and a seconder. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. Dr. Warrent Bay is requesting approval from the board to move forward with GC Zarnos and Company to provide commercial painting services to nine different schools. Give us a little bit of explanation, please. Absolutely. So, this is one of the summer projects that we were talking about in the previous slide. It also piggybacks off of what Mr. Cuff just asked for for furniture. That was an other item that we were looking forward to do during the summer. So, basically we're looking at nine schools. You can read it on in your document that need painting. Obviously, that's one of the deferred maintenance things that both
089the Breslauer report came up with as well as our school quality of review where we talked to the building principals and they provide us information about their individual schools. So, we're looking for these nine schools to a tune of $77,615 worth of painting efforts for this summer. Any question? May I have a motion? I'll make the motion. >> I'll second. We have a maker and a seconder. All in favor? I. Opposed? Then the motion carried. Dr. Whartonby is requesting approval to move forward with the E-Plus quote for cloud cloud fishing EV complete Oh, to my to migrate email archiving into the Microsoft cloud. Thank you. I'm going to let Mr. Jose Rivera, acting >> I would think >> executive director of IT, explain this one. Good evening. So, we're requesting approval to move forward with
090this purchase of cloud fishing EV complete. And this is to migrate our email archiving to the Microsoft cloud. Uh as part of as part of our ongoing exchange online migration, we have an opportunity to streamline email archiving while also remaining compliant with open records requests. And basically email email archiving serves as a secure centralized vault for communications, which is critical for fulfilling open records requests. It automatically captures and stores copies of emails to ensure legal compliance while providing advanced e-discovery tools so administrators can quickly search terabytes of historical data to fulfill public records requests accurately and on time. To accomplish this, the district requires this tool called Cloud fission EV complete. This software will automatically move our massive backlog of all email records into our new Microsoft cloud system, allowing us to finally turn off
091our outdated archiving servers. It safely transferred all historical data dating back to the year 2000, ensuring that processes that ensuring that the process is seamless, legally compliant, and does not disrupt staff access to their past emails. This initiative directly supports the district's lighting the way strategic plan. Specifically, it aligns with priority six, organizational effect effect efficiencies and effectiveness by helping to develop and maintain fiscal sustainability and operational systems. It also addresses priority number seven, technology for universal learning by aligning district capital to enhance state-of-the-art technology and upgrading our technology infrastructure. How will this affect our students? While this is a back-end IT infrastructure project, it is highly positive it has highly positive financial financial impact on the district uh that directly benefits our resource allocation. By making this one-time investment to migrate the data, this
092will save the district about $68,000 a year in enter enterprise vault renewals and an estimated 75,000 in upgrading three end-of-life servers that currently support it. This secures significant ongoing annual savings for the district, freeing up vital funds that can be redirected toward student programs and resources. The total cost is one-time uh cost of $31,914. Any questions? Any question? May I have a motion? So moved. And it was there was there a second in there? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Then the motion carries and we'll move forward. Thank you. Ms. McNamara is requesting approval from the school board of directors to move forward with PowerSchool's connected intelligence data lake and analytics and insights to support district-wide data storage, integration, and reporting capabilities. Hi. Um, good evening, [clears throat] Dr. Brix and school board of directors. I
093actually mind doing it all together. No, I don't This is There are a couple of motions. The second is requesting approval from the board of targeted PowerSchool system enhancements necessary to support core operational and instructional functions within the district student information system. And a third, it she's requesting approval of the multi-year renewals of existing PowerSchool related services that support curriculum development and enrollment analysis across the district. Without objection, we could combine all three. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Um, while we, get our slides up, um, just going to give a brief overview. Uh, so in our time together this evening, I'll be sharing with you, um, some data infrastructure recommendations, um, as mentioned, which include a proposed data warehousing solution, uh, some PowerSchool operational enhancements, and renewals of select PowerSchool services, um, and a
094summary of summary of recommendations, uh, and costs. So this, uh, this initiative, uh, connects to our priority six organizational efficiencies of our district strategic plan uh lighting the way um 2030 a blueprint for innovation innovation and excellence. Any questions? It may have a motion to move all three items forward. >> Oh no, I'm not I'm not going to sorry. >> [laughter] >> my fault. I apologize. Um >> This tells you how technical technologically [laughter] capable I am. No worries. Um and uh you do have these slides in front of you as well. Um So jumping right in uh currently our uh data systems are a bit fragmented. Uh there's substantial manual lift with uh certain critical processes uh such as attendance tracking and intervention compliance. Um and uh student historical records particularly for inactive students
095um are housed in a whole 'nother system uh as well as on paper in the basement of this very building. So we are hoping that these proposed recommendations lead us to a place where our data system supports automated compliance um integrated reporting and the ability to proactively respond to student needs with timely interventions. First on the recommendation list is a request for approval of a data warehousing RFP solution um through PowerSchool. Uh as alluded to earlier the district is currently transitioning data systems and is also undergoing a data migration process involving historical legacy data for both active and inactive students. As a result the school district launched an RFP process for solution to have these data safely stored in a central location. Uh an internal committee came together um and identified PowerSchool product PowerSchool's product
096as one that best fits our needs uh as outlined in the RFP. The products we want to highlight uh here this evening are the data lake uh connected intelligence, which stores unstructured data like transcripts and uh files for retrieval. The data warehouse analytics and insights uh which stores structured organized data for reporting and the MTSS platform for the tracking of tiered student interventions. A second on the recommendation list is a request for approval for operational enhancements to support core operations and system optimization. Uh the first product is the enrollment school locator. This product will allow us to reduce what is a currently manual process of assigning home schools uh to newly registered students. Uh the second product is the attendance intervention suite. Uh this product will allow us to to improve attendance compliance activities and
097track or automate those activities and track attendance interventions. The third product is the SIS test environment and this product will allow us to test system changes safely without risking the integrity of our live student data. Lastly is a request for approval of multi-year renewals uh for for curriculum and enrollment analytics. The first product um uh for multi-year renewal is our curriculum writer and which was previously called Chalk uh and it was actually uh the district was using this Chalk product uh prior to PowerSchool acquisition of Chalk. Um and the second product is a multi-year renewal for enrollment analytics, which supports the district with enrollment projections for financial and instructional planning. So, everything altogether, we are centralizing critical student data for active and inactive students, um automating critical compliance and student support functions, and maintaining critical
098instruction and projection services. Any questions? Madam Chair. May I have Miss Equanimeous, thank you uh for the presentation. Can you use non-technical language to tell why the importance of the data lake for the board and the public? Sure. Um well, I guess I'll try to do my best. Um the data lake uh so, we have the data warehouse and then the data lake. The data lake is the part where, again, as I mentioned, the unstructured data, which is uh more like your documents. So, like transcripts and things. Of course, you know, we have students who uh have graduated, who always come back and request transcripts. And so, this allows us to store it um safely and also to be able to retrieve it and also it being connected uh to the whole PowerSchool ecosystem um
099as well. The move about the move from Sapphire and having things in one place and >> Yes. Yes, as I alluded to earlier, we do have this fragmented system going on here, but the thing is, we are in the middle of of a migration process. So, we're migrating from one system, uh Sapphire, to um fully implementing PowerSchool under year one. And so, this will allow us even also to store um all the data related to and documents related to inactive students. So, we do have transient populations coming through and in out. And in order so if there's a student that might be inactive and currently they live in Sapphire, our our staff our school staff are going from one system to look for an active students and documents there to PowerSchool. So we want to
100kind of bring everything together in the same ecosystem which allow for more greater efficiency. Everything is there, there's one process to get an inactive student who is coming back to us which we want to bring more students back to our school district who may have been here before and um so that's a quick automated process like a quick process not automated but a quick process to get their documentation and data back into our SIS and as well in this same ecosystem. So hopefully that was less technical than what I shared earlier. Thank you for the question Dr. Briggs. Anybody with else with a question? May I have a motion to move these items forward? We have a maker, do we have a second? Second. We have a second. All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed?
101Then the motion carries. At this time we are taking public comments on non-agenda items. Do we have any cards? Is there any old business to come before this committee? Is there any new business? And may I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? Thank you. It was long but I think we did a whole lot of things that just really need to be done. Everybody good to continue? No one needs a break? Anyone needs a break? I need to. Okay. Five minutes then? Five minutes please. Five minute break. >> on the power supply. I know you can >> Mhm. >> I'd like to call to order the policy committee of the whole meeting for the Board of Directors of the School District of the City of Allentown. Do
102we have any public comments tonight? No? Okay, we'll just move right on then. Any remarks from our superintendent? Well, I just wanted to commend Thank you, Mr. Nikolov. Just Good evening again, everyone. And I want to thank the board as school Board of Directors, as well as the our team for working so diligently on the policies. And also all the councils that we have within the district have been giving us feedback. So, we have a student advisory council, family advisory. Now, we have a faculty and staff advisory council and our interfaith in. So, we will continue to bring things before those particular councils to help give us feedback on policies. So, thank you, Mr. Nickoloff. Thank you. We have six policies tonight, all of which are first readings here. Mr. James is going to go
103first. He has policies 340 and 342. If it's all right with my colleagues, we can take these in one vote. Mhm. Good. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Nickoloff and to our school board directors and Dr. Berges. We are presenting tonight two new policies. Policy number 340, which certainly deals with responsibility for student welfare. And then the second policy is 342, which deals with jury duty. The first policy outlines the district's general guidelines for employee oversight, supervision and responsibilities regarding students while in school. This policy is to ensure appropriate oversight and responsibility for student welfare by all employees, administrative, professional and support employees. The jury duty policy certainly provides authority around regularly employed administrative, professional and support employees shall be protected against loss of employment for time served on jury duty. Thank you. Do we have
104any questions for Mr. James? Seeing none, may I have a motion to move these forward? So moved. Having a maker and a second, all in favor? >> Second. I. Thank you, Mr. James. Thank you. Next, Dr. Worthenby has policy 705. >> Good evening. This is policy 705, which is facilities and workplace safety as a new policy for the Allentown School District 705. It's necessary to establish a clear, comprehensive, and legally aligned flame framework for maintaining safe, healthy, and secure facilities for all students, staff, and visitors. It formalizes the expectation for hazardous hazard prevention, emergency preparedness, workplace safety, while providing the authority and flexibility needed to respond to evolving safety, environmental, and public health conditions. Basically, this is a policy that uh was orchestrated right after COVID. Some of the information in there talks about PPE,
105per- uh uh personal protective equipment, and face coverings. And it also talked about health and safety plan, which is a legacy of the the uh COVID era. The one thing that it does do for us, it establishes or tells us to have a workplace safety committee. This workplace safety committee is part of the workman's compensation requirements, and by having this committee, we save 5% on it. It's approximately $1.8 million a year, so $90,000 by just simply having this workplace safety committee. So, this policy establishes that as well. So, thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Dr. Wartenbe? Seeing none, may I have a motion to move this forward? I make a motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thanks, Dr. Wartenbe. Thank you. Next, we have Dr. Coleman, and she has policy 823. Good evening. Our
106director of health services, Ms. Crystal Perez, will share on Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Hi, good evening, school board of directors, Dr. Burks. This is a new policy, policy 823 for opioid antagonist. As a means of enhancing the health and safety of its students, staff, and visitors, the district may obtain, maintain, and administer doses of an opioid antagonist in other facilities for emergency use to assist a student, a staff member, or any other individual believed or suspected to be experiencing an opioid overdose. An opioid antagonist is a drug or device approved by federal law for the emergency reversal of known or suspected drug overdose, including naloxone hydrochloride, which is commonly known as Narcan, or other similarly acting drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. The superintendent or designee, in consultation with the school
107nurse and the school physician, shall establish appropriate internal procedures for the acquisition of stocking and administering this emergency medication. So, essentially, what this is, it is establishes district authority to stock and administer Narcan in emergency situations. It is designed to protect the health and safety of students, staff, and visitors to our schools. It is evidence-based best practice and aligns with state law and public health recommendations addressing the opioid crisis. Training for staff includes PA Department of Health training, which is free, online, on-demand, 1-hour training courses to be able to utilize this emergency medication. Any questions? No, just a comment. I'm so happy that we're doing this. It's one thing to have our policies about, you know, not having drugs and, you know, in our premises, but to react to where we are on the reality
108of the situation, I think this is an excellent idea. So, thank you so much for bringing this policy forward. Absolutely. you. May I have a motion to move this policy forward? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. All right. Next, we have Ms. Ramos. She's doing policies 901 and 902. I'm going to ask Ms. Reese to present 901 and 902 this evening. Thank you. Good evening, school board directors. Tonight, I am presenting um policy 901, public relations objectives, and policy 902, publication programs, for your review and adoption. These policies, while not new to the district, have not been updated since 1999. Uh and since then, the public relations and communication landscape in education has evolved greatly. Uh these updates ensure that our policies reflect today's standards and best practices for transparency, proactive, and modern, two-way
109communication and engagement with our students, staff, families, and entire learning community. So, policy 901, which is public relations objectives, that's what we're looking at right now. It defines the philosophy behind our outreach. The primary purpose is to establish and maintain communication that informs stakeholders and the public while involving them in our educational goals. So, we're moving beyond a space of we're just going to put information out there into the world to actively involving our students, our staff, our parents, and the community in discussions and decision-making around educational programs and even board policy. Um a key objective would be to communicate factual information, avoid rumors, and manage communication crises effectively. Um it also clarifies that public relations is a shared responsibility and we're all tasked with making sure that everyone feels welcome and maintaining high morale
110within our community and earning respect in the public eye. We can move to policy 902, which is publication program. So, if if 901 is kind of why we do what we do, 902 is the how. It very simply outlines how we should distribute information to the community committing to using all reasonable means of communication to keep the public informed on matters of importance specifically regarding district finances, programs, operations, anything that our stakeholders may find important. Um updating these policies is a statement of our dedication to transparency and effective communication. We want to ensure that our residents are not just passive recipients of information, but active participation and know what to expect from our schools. Thank you. Any questions? Do we have any questions on those two? >> Oh, you asked that. And we're comfortable taking
111both of them in one vote? May I have a motion to move them both forward? So moved. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Ms. Reese. Do we have any public comments? All right. May I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. So moved. All All in favor? Aye. We're adjourned. I like to call to order the education committee of the whole meeting of the Board of Directors of the School District for the City of Allentown for today, April 23rd, 2026. Are there any comments? All right. Dr. Berks, do you have any remarks? Thank you, Ms. Sierra. Um just really excited our team is going to present this evening our summer programming, our internship, and various opportunities for our students as well as for our staff to participate and continue on with our educational programming today
112as well as other uh you need partnerships to build the capacity of staff throughout the district. So, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Berks. Tonight we have 12 action items. Dr. Coleman is requesting approval from the school Board of Directors to purchase Zaner-Bloser cursive handwriting for grade three including associated professional development um development in the alignment with Pennsylvania Act 2 of 2026. Yeah, just want to say good evening. Just want to make note that various members from our team will be sharing. Good evening school board of directors and Dr. Burks. Tonight I'm requesting the approval to purchase cursive handwriting for third grade. This is in alignment with Pennsylvania Act 2 of 2026. We used to teach cursive. We are bringing it back in third grade. That will build our foundation for our students as they move
113forward through their ages. Cursive does help with engaging neural pathways associated with memory, language development and executive executive functioning through a structured model practice evaluate program. This will take 15 minutes a day of in third grade for instruction. May I have a motion to move this item forward? >> Second. >> [laughter] >> All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Seeing hearing none. All right. Next, Dr. Coleman is requesting approval from the school board of directors to purchase 11 Project Lead the Way courses for Bridgeview Academy of Health Science Innovation and Technology. Thank you and good evening everyone. Kyle Kaufman, director of innovation and instructional technology. Presenting for your consideration a request for 11 Project Lead the Way courses for Bridgeview specifically. By courses we mean curriculum, the required materials, all of the hands-on resources
114necessary, as well as the teacher professional development Project Lead the Way requires that all teachers be trained before they can teach their their program. Those programs include within the program computer science pathway, computer science principles, computer science A, cybersecurity, principles of AI, Um, well as connection to sorry, introduction to engineering design, aerospace engineering, and computer integrated manufacturing. Within the biomedical pathway, there would be the principles of biomedical science, human body systems, medical interventions, and biomedical innovation. There will be a consumable refill cost that varies year to year depending on participation and various other factors in terms of usage of the consumables. Anticipating in the future that would be around $60 $3,000 maximum per year for the consumables. These are high-tech classrooms, high-tech resources. There is that cost associated with it. Implementing Project Lead the Way
115at Bridge View Academy aligns perfectly with our mission as an innovation themed high school providing a sophisticated activity, project, and problem-based APV instructional design that transcends traditional rote learning. By centering the curriculum on that hands-on, real-world challenges, Project Lead the Way empowers students to move beyond the classroom to develop the high-level critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and ethical reasoning that's essential for leadership in technical fields. The program's efficacy is backed by rigorous data showing that Project Lead the Way students significantly outperform their peers in core competencies and are about 15% more likely to enroll in post-secondary institutions. Furthermore, the curriculum is uniquely effective at closing achievement gaps for underrepresented students ensuring that our innovation program remains both inclusive and high-achieving. Through Project Lead the Way courses, students will have the opportunity to earn industry-recognized credentials and
116or potentially college credits. By adopting these industry-informed pathways, we are not just teaching technical content, we are fostering a future-ready mindset that prepares our students, our graduates to navigate and lead an increasingly complex global economy. The cost is not to exceed $330,000. Question, did I hear you say you you will be introducing project-based curriculum in which grade? Yeah, well, it's so the the this particular programming package, the Project Lead the Way, um is designed as project-based, activity-based, and problem-based. That's the nature of the curriculum design itself. So, it will align to what we already had envisioned. It provides the teachers with the resources to do exactly what they need to do day in and day out versus them designing it from scratch. Uh a lot of these materials come um with tremendous resources ready to
117go. Yes. And I want to encourage the school board of directors to research project-based curriculums because I I've been able to experience it over the past couple of weeks and it is amazing. It is phenomenal. The statistics from it from the students achieve um whether they're graduating or moving on to um higher education, it's around over it's over 90% um from what I what I learned. So, it's great that we're at least starting to integrate that into our day-to-day at ASD. And and tagging on, I think the key thing to project-based is having the resources available. So, this cost provides all of the hands-on resources necessary to do that project-based learning. Thank you. Is there any more discussion? Um may I have a motion to move this item forward to our next meeting? >> Is
118there a second? All in favor, say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing seeing none. All right, Dr. Coleman and Mr. Herman James are requesting approval from the school board of directors to purchase Benchmark Advance 2022 instructional materials for the new elementary school classrooms and to implement >> [clears throat] >> Benchmark Advance 2026 as a core curricular resource for kindergarten and grade one. Good evening again, school board of directors and Dr. Burke. Tonight, we're requesting um Benchmark 2022 renewal for our new classrooms. Last month you approved math, science, and social studies classrooms curriculum for our new classrooms. This is for our um renewal for new classrooms. The most exciting part of this board memo is bringing in Benchmark Advanced 2026 for our kindergarten and first grade um students and staff. This directly aligns to our goal in
119the strategic plan to increase reading proficiency by grade three. We really need to focus on foundational skills and this 226 2026 edition addresses foundational skills in a more strategic and explicit way than the 2022 edition. It also addresses the needs brought up in our school quality reviews as well as our teacher surveys where they need more decodable books, they need more support with explicit instruction, and that's what this program does. So, it will have new articulation support, which means there'll be sound wall cards with detailed mouth expressions on how sounds are made. It will have articulation videos so students can see the mouth and how the how the mouth moves to make the sounds. It will take the text and take away the repetitive patterns to make them truly decodable books so kids will have
120to use the phonics that they're learning to decode the books. It is going to expand the teachers decodable library so they will have more decodable books to meet our student needs. It will focus on instructional routines. Teachers will have a QR code where they can scan it and hear for um the phonics uh from the writer that created the phonics on how to teach it and we will have sustained professional learning with this program. We are getting an additional seven days of professional learning. This program is not a complete new program. The only part of the program that is new is the phonics piece, that foundational piece. The stories that the teachers are used to, the comprehension questions, those remain the same as the 22 edition. It is really focused on the explicit instruction of
121the phonics program. Um, we already have professional learning set up for May 19th, so all kindergarten first grade teachers will be able to understand that it's still the same program with an enhanced phonics component. Any questions? I would like to say we are getting this at a 64% discount based on our we're not using the 22 edition anymore. They applied those credits to us. So, if we were buying this program for three years, it would be over a million dollars, but we are paying $398,000. Okay. Any questions? All right, may I have a motion to move this forward? Second? All in favor, say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing and seeing none. All right. >> [clears throat] >> Dr. Coleman is requesting approval um, for Allentown School District to participate in Project HERO in partnership with
122University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and Catalyst at Penn GC. Good evening, Dr. Burke, President Noel, and Board of Directors. Today, we request for the Board's approval, alongside Mr. James, request for the Board's approval for the Allentown School District to participate in Project HERO, Helping Educators Resilience and Optimism in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and Catalyst at Penn GSE. This federally funded initiative will provide district and school leaders with structured support, data tools, and professional learning to strengthen educator well-being, resilience, and retention at no cost to the district. Project Hero is a $6 million research initiative funded through the Education Innovation and Research Program and led by Dr. Michael Golden in partnership with UPenn GSE and Catalyst. The initiative is designed to address the ongoing teacher shortage impacting urban
123school systems by strengthening workforce conditions, improving staff well-being, and increasing retention. Through this partnership, ASD will engage in a research-informed scalable workforce strategy model supported by the People Bench platform. This model enables districts and schools to analyze workforce data, identify strengths and risks, and implement targeted strategies to improve staff experience and organizational health. Participation is structured through a collaborative model that includes district leadership um working to set the strategic direction and parameters for workforce planning, um a workforce data team providing key staffing and retention data to inform analysis, but working with school leaders engaging in professional learning, participating in peer learning communities, and leading school-based workforce staff um excuse me, strategy development. We're excited. Um this will have an effect on students. It would allow us to increase staff stability and reduce instructional disruption, stronger
124school culture and climate, improved teacher effectiveness and the retention, and more consistent access to a high-quality Tier 1 instruction. This is coming at no cost to the district, fully grant funded, including platform access, expert support, and professional learning. Thank you. I don't know how we acquired this, but bravo. Thank you. >> Bravo. So I want to commend our team and particularly Dr. Coleman for our hard work and for our partners at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. They're making huge investments in the Allentown School District for our staff as well as our students and some other efforts that are underway that we are working on to create the conditions that we want to basically strengthen the capacity of our staff as well as as a result of course ultimately to impact outcomes for
125students. So thank you Dr. Coleman. I just want to say that publicly for your advocacy for these resources for our district. >> Excited. Any other questions? All right. May I have a motion to move this forward? >> Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Seeing none. All right. I'm just going to keep saying Dr. Coleman. >> [laughter] >> Dr. Coleman is requesting approval from the School Board of Directors for AVID memberships, professional learning, and AVID library package for our secondary schools. Good evening again School Board of Directors and Dr. Burke. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. When you approved the program of studies in 2000 in December of 2025, you expanded our AVID course offerings to the high school level. So the eighth graders that are in our middle schools
126in the AVID courses can move into ninth grade and have that. With that comes a lot of professional learning for an AVID teacher but also a school. A school community starts to embrace the WICOR strategies which is writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading which are the successful skills that students need to be college and career ready. This aligns to our academic excellence and creating pathways for tomorrow in our strategic plan by improving student achievement and expanding access to college and career readiness opportunities. This request encompasses the memberships for the schools, the curriculum for the schools, the libraries for the schools, as well as that professional learning that teams will school teams will embrace this summer. Any questions? Hearing none, may I have a motion to move this item forward to our next meeting? Second. Um
127all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing seeing none. All right. Um we are requesting the approval from the school board of directors um to implement its summer 26 um 2026 programming lighting the way to summer learning and exploration. Good evening again. Good evening. Tonight I will highlight how our summer 2026 program and service serves as a strategic lever to accelerate learning for all ASD students through a focused commitment to building skills, confidence, and community. I will briefly walk through our vision and strategic alignment, program model, student experience to include the instructional focus and enrichment opportunities, our partnership connection, and overall expected impact. Lighting the way to summer learning and exploration is a free program available to all Allentown School District students in grades K to 12 pending the availability. Students will engage in
128both academic and enrichment experiences each day including field trips and hands-on learning opportunities. The program will will run June 22nd through July 23rd, Monday through Thursdays, across neighborhood-based school sites throughout Allentown. This work is grounded in Lighting the Way 2030, particularly our commitment to ensuring every student has access to rigorous grade-level instruction and the support needed to succeed. Why it matters. This summer, we are intentionally working to accelerate learning and position our students for a stronger start to the 2026-2027 school year. Our program is anchored in priority one, academic excellence. Specifically, our goal is to increase reading proficiency by grade three and algebra proficiency by grade nine. At the core of our program, the core experience, is broken into three parts: academics, targeted literacy, math, and algebra readiness, and credit recovery. Enrichment, daily opportunities for
129our students to explore, build confidence, and engage, all within a safe, structured, and supportive community environment. Because we know that confidence fuels confidence, it was important that the that we um that we provided enrichment experiences and togetherness for our young people. Our model includes 24 neighborhood-based sites strategically designed to increase access, participation, and community connection. At the elementary level, students will focus on foundational skill building in reading and math paired with exploration experiences that build confidence, curiosity, and a sense of belonging. This program is designed for every ASD student, including our multilingual learners and our students with IEPs. We will leverage trans language in honoring and using students full language assets. Continue our focus on explicit instruction, clear modeling, guided practice and ongoing checks for understanding ensuring access to grade level learning for all. For
130our secondary students, we offer targeted pathways including credit recovery, algebra readiness and math acceleration and grade recovery. Summer Bridge for students entering grade ninth. In addition, Dr. Savoy will share more about our youth intern corps and internship opportunities. We are especially excited about our kindergarten readiness camp academy. Preparing our youngest learners with the foundational skills needed to enter school ready to learn, grow and thrive. So our kindergarteners will join us for a five-week experience this year. We are intentionally providing specialized individualized support, extended school year services for students with IEPs will continue. Continue support for our immigrant and refugee students ensuring every learner is supported. Our enrichment ecosystem includes arts, language and movement for our younger learners. You'll see that there's a like three three phases segmented into three phases. So daily our young youngest
131learners, our elementary students will receive arts, language and movement. We're excited we'll be able to leverage the expertise of our related arts educators. Um we are excited about um across the grades we'll offer technology and innovation opportunities and for our our high schools, targeted high school opportunities as well to include um opportunities for our young people to engage in the arts, drones, programming micro earning micro credentials. Creating well-rounded engaging experiences for our students. We're also excited to expand summer athletics, supporting student wellness, teamwork, and engagement. We are looking to um make um expand our leagues, basketball, net sports, soccer, flag football. All of these may not be leagues, but we're working to be work with our partners and be very strategic to have the league experience um extend to the summer. Our community partners formal
132engagement, I'm sorry. Our community partnership formal engagement began on April 7th, but we've been in communication with our partners along the way. And our our goal is to continue to expand our partnerships and have real conversations with our partners not just for summer, but throughout the school year. Um but we are excited. Um we were able to meet with our partners on April 7th. We had a chance to share our vision for our summer program in supporting of ensuring alignment. Um we shared our interest application. Applications and agreements are due April 30th. We're looking um we have a a timeline. Um June June June 12th, all of our partners that are looking that will support our program will engage in site supervision, required training, and all the summer execution requirements were highlighted in our summer
133during our summer summit with our our summer partnership summit. So, I know Dr. Burke always says like, "What are the key messages?" So, just want to highlight key message today. Our summer 2026 program is a critical acceleration lever. Across [snorts] 24 sites, students will experience language-rich, [clears throat] structured instruction, hands-on real-world learning, enrichment, and field-based experiences. And just want to emphasize that this is not remediation. This is intentional acceleration aligned to tier one instruction. This is us working to ensure that more of our young people are ready to engage in a strong 2026-2027 school year. This is how we move the needle, and this is how we deliver on lighting the way 2030. Thank you. Is it okay if I can go into the formal request or Should I go ahead and do it? Okay.
134So, we are requesting approval to implement our summer 2026 program Lighting the Way to Summer Learning and Exploration, a district-wide initiative designed to accelerate learning, increase engagement, and ensure students are prepared for the 2026-2027 school year. Again, this program will be free and open to all ASC students in grades K to 12 and will operate across 24 neighborhood-based sites to increase access and reduce transportation barriers. Students will engage in daily targeted literacy and math instruction, kindergarten readiness, algebra readiness, and credit recovery, arts enrichment, arts enrichment, wellness, and field-based experiences. The impact for students include making stronger literacy and math, increased engagement, greater readiness for the upcoming school year. Success will be measured through early literacy progress, math and algebra readiness, student attendance and participation, overall readiness indicators entering 2026 and 2027. The total The total
135cost will not exceed 1.5 million. Funding through federal, state, and local sources with no additional cost burden to the district. This work represents a strategic investment in accelerating learning and expanding opportunity for all students. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions? So, we did do both, so how should we vote on this? Should we just No, I just I just want to recuse myself from this vote because my organization Fund for the Foundation does host um the summer interns at our location. All right. So, for the voting, I'll just say the first one that we did and then we'll do the second one. Is that okay? All right. No, it's okay. You can take it. Once again >> Or just Yeah, it's noted. Just poop. Okay. Um so, may I have a motion to
136move this item forward? So moved. >> Next. Second? Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing and seeing none. Okay. If I'm correct, we're on that item. I'm losing my place a little bit. Give me one moment. Okay. I believe I'm at this part right here. So, Dr. Savoy is requesting approval from the school board of directors to amend approved funding for translation and interpretation services for the remainder of 2025 to 2026 school year by um 50,000 to contract with FCI, the language experts for translation and interpretation services. I we're going to go back to um the guidance plan. I can do that but we can go back. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, [clears throat] Board of Directors and Dr. Burke. I am in front of you to ask
137for the board's approval to amend a previously approved um request for translation interpretation services um funding. Right now, we need additional funds for the remainder of the 2025-2026 school year by $50,000. We contract with FCI, the language experts for translation and interpretation services. This service is an in-person, virtual, written, and it is essential they we also um it is essential to for us when translating documents. I will say um we have been uh providing translation and interpretation services for approximately 3 years now as one of the goals that was laid to us by the federal government and we translate we have the district has approximately 42 languages. So we need translation and interpretation services to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our families. This is aligned to priority two, safety and well safety
138and whole child development in addition to family and community engagement. Okay. I kind of have a budget question. Is it budgeted better in our next year? Yes. Okay. I'm coming to you next next month with that [laughter] one. Good job. Good job. All right. Any other questions? May I have a motion move this forward? Oh. I I missed something you were saying. Did you say they're all in person translations? No, it's in person, virtual, written, and in person. >> say I will say I had an experience with a virtual that was not very effective. Thank you. We'll note that. And maybe you can give me feedback so that we can give them feedback in that process, too. Okay. Okay. All right. Can I make a motion move this item forward? Second. All in favor say
139I. I. I. All right. Any opposed? All right. We can move on to the next one. The next request is to approve the Allentown School District's 2026-2029 K-12 guidance plan. This is a requirement from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This plan was created with in collaboration with all of the counselors within the Allentown School District. This is also aligned to a previous um, policy that you approved. I believe it was in um, December or November. It was policy 146 where we are responsible for developing a student services plan. This is one component of that plan. The 2026-2029 K-12 guidance plan is a comprehensive counseling framework developed through the collaboration again of the district's counseling and college and career readiness personnel. The plan delivers integrated services and monitoring support for students' academic achievement. It establishes a
140comprehensive standard aligned career curriculum across all grade levels to support realistic career planning K-12. Also, students cultivate essential social and emotional competencies and a tier level of support. And the plan provides a comprehensive service to facilitate seamless transition from school to life after graduation. The plan is currently posted on the district's website under special projects on on the drop-down menu. Thank you. Any questions? All right. We may have a um, we may have a motion to move this item forward to our next meeting. I have a motion. Any second? I second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Seeing none. All right. Um, Dr. Savoy is requesting approval from the School Board of Directors for the district's partnership with Valley Wealth Alliance. In our efforts to ensure that there is a um, unified support
141around the strategic plan, we are I have come to you I get maybe every month to ask your approval for um, MOUs and partnership as it relates to safety and whole child development. Valley Wealth Alliance has been a partner in the Allentown School District, whether it was through um, school leaders or 21st Century programming. This is an agreement with Valley Youth Alliance to support them in completing a six financial literacy sessions at Lehigh Parkway Elementary School and at elementary schools identified as community schools in partnership with the United Way of Greater Lehigh Valley. This is again financial literacy and it is aligned to our expectations as it relates to Pennsylvania Department of Education financial What is it? Personal finance standards. All right. May I have a motion to move? So moved. Second? Second. All right.
142Any opposed? I mean, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing seeing none. And then we can move on to the next. You'll be doing the rest, so you could just Just go from there. >> Okay. Um so, the next two are part of the summer programming. The first one I am asking for your approval to facilitate Excuse me. Allentown School District's third AI Institute at a cost not to exceed $118,000. This program is the $118,000 is not just for the summer. It's for the summer and going into the 2026-2027 school year. Okay. The description is behind the the board memo. The Allentown School District AI Institute is a comprehensive biannual curriculum spanning the junior and senior years of our students and is engineered to cultivate advanced artificial intelligence literacy and sophisticated human AI
143synergistic competencies. Um This um program engage students in research internships community impact and they receive college credit. This goes on again from the summer through 2026 27. This partnership is in part this program is in partnership with Penn State University Lehigh Valley campus. Are there any questions? Okay. To move this item forward to our next meeting. A second. All right. All in favor say I. I. All right. Any opposed? And then saying none. Thank you. The last one that I have is this is your where I am requesting your approval for our Allentown Youth Internship Corps. This program I believe is in its fourth year with the Allentown School District. Fourth year. This is my third so it has to be the fourth. Fourth year. So we will continue this process every year. We get
144better and better. In addition to the AI Institute, those students are also considered our interns and they will receive $19 an hour. Our goal is to employ 150 of our students grades four I mean eight $15 an hour. I'm sorry. $15 an hour. $15? You said 19. I'm sorry. For the intern, yes. I'm Thank you. The employing 150 students throughout our high schools and a few students in middle school that are over 14 and over. Something that is very interesting and advanced this year compared to previous years, we have accounted 28 external partners and I believe about three of them four of them are paying our students. So, we are not paying that is fabulous for us. >> [applause] >> Because it demonstrates um an investment of these community organizations in our students and that's
145what we're aiming for our 150 students. We want other people to pay for them, but this is also giving our students work-based learning experiences that is also aligned to priority three. Any questions? May I have a motion to move this item forward? >> the motion. Second. All right. Any um all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? And seeing none. All right. >> Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have 21st Century. >> I was going to say you had one more. And Madam Chairwoman, she assembles. I just want to commend the team um Ms. Singer um Dr. Savoy and team for all their hard work and building these relationships with our partners across the city so that they can host our students so that they will have authentic learning experiences and help prepare them
146for college, career, and life beyond high school. So, I want to thank the team for that. Thank you. I'm back. This year in addition to what I just said about our community partners, this year the 21st Century Community Centers um grant that we have, we Oh, thank you. We had a a a formal request for a proposals for agencies, organizations, community-based organizations to support the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. This is important for the Allentown School District because when we talked about we talk about quality instructional programming, quality enrichment programming that is aligned to our strategic plan and the priorities in the strategic plan, we want to ensure that programming that our students are engaged in are aligned to that before school, during school, and after school. So, for the 21st Century Learning Centers, um
147it operates in conjunction it will operate in conjunction with the district's summer learning program, and they engage students in cohorts in grades K through 12. So, we will have one comprehensive program, but 21st Century is separately funded. So, and they have these they will have these contracted um MOU memorandums of agreement upon your approval with the providers that you see listed, and these providers did go through a process of being evaluated by a rubric, a quality rubric that we also shared with some of our other partners as it relates to what our expectations are around partnerships. I am asking your approval for this program, 21st Century Learning Centers program for the summer and the 6-2027 school year, not to exceed $2,972,321.97. Any questions? All right. May I have a motion to move this item forward?
148So moved. Second. All right. Um all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. At this time, we are taking public comments on non-agenda items. All right. We're all good. Is there any old business to come before the board? Any new business? May I have a motion to adjourn? Make the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. All in favor say I. >> I. All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. Do we need a break, or we just get Okay, everyone's good? Oh, okay. Great. Great. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Board of Directors for the City of Allentown for today, April 23rd, 2026. The Board welcomes and invite public comment. You may address the board on agenda and or non-agenda items. The first opportunity for comment is at the beginning
149of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only. Comment cards must be received by the start of the meeting, which is now. We will not be receiving public cards once the meeting begins. A copy of the public comment policy is located on the table next to the comment cards. Per our board's policy, any person may address the board in accordance with the procedures and limitations of this policy either on issues presented in resolutions being considered or on other matters affecting the administration, management, or operations of the district. Remarks of a personal nature directed against any individual will be ruled out of order. If you choose to address the board, please fill out a comment card and hand it to the board secretary, Mr. Simonson. Once recognized, please come to the podium and state your
150name and address for the record. We will now have the roll call. Mr. Secretary, please call the roll. Mr. Demore. Mr. Johnson, Dr. Johnson. Here. Ms. Matheson. Here. Ms. Michaels. Here. Ms. Morris, Mr. Mr. Morris. Here. Here. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Right here. We're here. >> [laughter] >> Mr. Nikolov. Here. Ms. Noel. Here. Ms. Sierra. Here. And Ms. Wilt. Here. We have nine members present. Thank you. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And for my board president's remarks, I'm just going to be very brief. I want to congratulate everyone that
151received an award at the You Are the Light Celebration this past week. It's It's just so amazing to see hundreds of families and and and administrators gather together to celebrate each other. And I love the fact that you were being nominated by your peers. Congratulations, Mr. Simonson, on receiving an award. [laughter] THANK YOU FOR ALL THE WORK THAT YOU do in the district. It does not go unnoticed. We really appreciate you. And congratulations to all the students, all the faculty and administrators, I am just always always always so blessed to serve this district. So, that ends my comments for tonight. Dr. Brooks? Thank you, um President Noel, to school board directors, good evening to my team, of course, to the public, family, students. Tonight, I have a few remarks, and I'm going to be as
152succinct as possible. But, in the spirit of keeping the board informed of the strategic plan, we made a commitment that we'll be very forthcoming of information of our progress as it relates to the strategic plan and our um and the entire process with engaging the community. And so, tonight, as part of my remarks, I have a very short presentation that Dr. Zimmerman is going to facilitate for us and sharing with where we are as it relates to our dashboards. So, Dr. Zimmerman's coming now for a brief overview. She's only going to take 5 minutes, and then I'm going to talk about the rest of my my remarks. Dr. Silverman. Board members, thank you for having me. I am going to go off script in the first 30 seconds, but I really like to try to
153make presentations engaging when I can. And as Dr. Burke mentioned, I am only going to give you some brief updates tonight. So, since I have some of our most important community members here, our student representatives and also our school board, I am asking you to please indulge me for just a minute and participate in an activity that is actually going to help me uh uh grapple with a question that we currently have internally, and hopefully engage you for just a minute and set us up nicely for my updates. So, it's been a long night. If you can kind of just shake out shake out your feelings for a second, and then I'm going to ask you thank you so much. Um I'm going to ask you just for a minute to close your eyes, if
154you don't mind. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath. And then I want you to imagine that you have a child. Maybe you're imagining your own child or the child of a loved one that you want great things for in life and that you care about deeply. And for just a second, forget that you're in this boardroom and forget about the Allentown School District and forget about the strategic plan. I want you to just think about why you signed up to be on a school board and what you want for this child. And it has come time for you to pick a school for your child. And in this perfect world, you have several options. There is no private or public or charter school. They're all great and they're all going to teach your
155kids traditional reading, writing, and arithmetic very, very well. So, you need to decide on a school to pick. And what you want to do is you want to send this child to the school that provides the best opportunities for them to participate in forward-thinking and enriching activities. So, I'm going to say that again. You are looking for the school that provides the best opportunities for this child to participate in forward-thinking and enriching activities. You can open your eyes. When you think about forward-thinking and enriching activities, what did you think of? Okay. What kind of activities are you thinking of? Oh my goodness. It's been 10 years. >> [laughter] >> So, they did a lot of uh hands-on activities. They had art, they had music. They did a lot of physical moving around and a lot
156of learning alphabet and handwriting and Okay. >> They would come home happy every day and excited about the new things they learned. I love that. Um I heard art, music, and I heard some maybe project-based or engaging learning. Anyone else? Forward-thinking and enriching activities. Yes. When my kids were at UT and prior to all of our cuts, we did a program called Odyssey of the Mind, which was a team-building forward-thinking um enrichment program that was outside. It was out after class and uh I'll be I'm proud to say my my daughter's group, they built a Rube Goldberg corn shucker um and they went on to states. So, but it was a it was a cluster of you know third, fourth, fifth, sixth graders that were all working together to create this in uh unique experience.
157So, they they learned how to to build and they but they also learned how to work as a team. They were not allowed to have any adult um engagement. There were adults there to make sure everything went as as >> [clears throat and cough] >> planned, but it all had to come from the minds of the students. So, they really had to think outside of the box and um it was really impressive. That's awesome. So, I did hear after school, so outside of the classroom, but that sounded really amazing and also the collaboration across grades. I think probably was great for scaffolding development. I don't want us to take too long, but do any of our students want to tell us something that you do or like that is forward-thinking and enriching? I don't want
158to put you on the spot, but I hope that there is something. That's okay. It's actually tough question. So, um the reason I asked that is I actually was setting us up for what I'm going to talk about. And that's okay, I'll just tell you about it. So, I wanted to remind you that all of the data work that we do in the district is tied to our mission and vision. It's tied to our strategic plan. And I have read a lot of strategic plans recently. I am in a small working group with other fellows in my fellowship cohort that are also doing strategic plans. So, I've seen theirs and I like a little healthy competition. I recently read Philadelphia's and I would like to say that ours is better. Does that go on the
159record? Yes, it does. Perfect. So, in terms of visuals, ours is definitely better. And what I think that we did very well is we captured our community's vision. So, I think that I wasn't here, but I believe we engaged 7,000 community members and we captured their vision. And one of their visions was priority three, goal two. Increase PK-3-12 participation in forward-thinking and enriching activities. And that's really awesome, but my role here is to primarily answer one question. How are we doing on that strategic plan? And while I love that we captured the mission and vision, what I think Philadelphia did better than us is that they didn't just they probably didn't capture the vision well enough, honestly, but they captured the indicator and the parameters of what the vision was to make it easier to
160measure. So, they have very specific, what we call smart goals. They are goals that are tied to specific indicators with specific targets. And the increased PK-12 participation in forward-thinking and enriching activities is an awesome vision, but we all just sat here and had different definitions of forward-thinking and enriching activities. So, a lot of the data work I do is not even getting to the point of tools, it is defining some of the terms because not just in Allentown, but one thing about humans is that we really like to use colloquialisms and we like to use terms that intuitively mean something to us, but can be very difficult to define. So, I know that we want tools and we want to see things and I'm going to give you some updates on those, but I also
161want you to know that we are developing a system of continuous improvement that also involves capacity building. So, we spend a lot of time trying to parameterize how I'm going to measure whether or not our PK-12 students are participating in forward-thinking and enriching activities and all of the other great vision captured within our strategic plan. So, just to give you a little bit of the structure of the data within the system that we're building is that it almost has three levels. So, level one is public-facing. This is where we provide you as the board, families, and community with access to information about district progress and school context. But then we have level two. This is the underneath and that's where district and schools monitor progress more actively against strategic priorities. This is where dashboards support
162continuous improvement throughout the year. And then there's level three, which is about the day-to-day work. How staff use data to support students, track what's happening, and make decisions in real time. And so, we are building all three levels. So you may not always see two and three, but they are happening and they are going to move the needle on all of the things that you see in level one. This timeline specifically shows you which dashboards we are sharing publicly currently in our timeline. So um the main reason I'm here and I will talk about it in just a slide or two is that the attendance dashboard as of maybe an hour ago is officially on our website. So when you go home tonight, you'll be able to see it. Over the summer we're going to
163launch two more. One is the school profiles dashboard, which is our local school district version of state scorecards essentially. So if you've heard of this idea of SA scorecards, we're going to have an ASD version for all of our schools. And then at the end of the summer we will launch those district strategic plan KPIs. And this one is really meant to give you that snapshot progress of how we're doing. And once we define what forward-thinking and enriching activities are, you'll know if our participation in those are increasing. And we actually are defining them. We had a very um spirited discussion about all of the things that we think are forward-thinking and enriching justice week. And then of course over the summer we will develop some more level one public-facing dashboards in addition to all
164of the work we're doing internally. So just to give you a little bit uh more detail on those three dashboards. The first one is the strategic plan snapshot dashboard, and that's where those questions that I asked you guys are the questions that I'm asking all of our central administrators and our school leaders right now is I'm asking them to define some parameters that are a little bit broad or vague, and I am also asking us to set 2030 targets. So the idea, I call it internally the Domino's Pizza Tracker dashboard, but every year you'll be able to track in real time the progress we're making towards those 2030 goals. I have given one example here, but the idea is to have roughly 24 in alignment with our strategic plan. And I gave you this one
165because I do want to note we lost ground last year, and this is one that we are struggling to make traction in. And so, uh transparency is not always the most beautiful story. What I think is really cool about this is that even at the highest level, even when you just get this Domino's Pizza Tracker snapshot, it starts conversation about root cause. So, this was actually a pattern across the state, and the big hypothesis is that last year was the year that the state switched to all online testing. And so, just seeing that, we are doing all of the strategic action working around our structured literacy initiatives, but we knew that this was a problem, and we had some insight into what the cause might have been. So, this year, a very high-level quick thing
166that we did was we worked collaboratively to have all of the schools do a practice state assessment testing day, where we mimicked the environment, and we had students come in and take the Firefly assessment, which is PA's benchmarking assessment that is mimics the state assessment, and they were able to practice what it actually feels like to take the test on the day. To get out some of those nerves, some of those IT technical glitches, because we all struggle sometimes to use our computers in high-stakes environments. This next one is those school profiles I told you about. So, these will be the school cards. They will uh allow families to understand their school communities better, and it will include enrollment, attendance, graduation rates, state test performance, and school discipline. These are developed. I am not showing
167them to you yet because our school leaders are currently doing some validation and figuring out what else they might need and might be missing to help them benchmark their progress. And then finally, the attendance dashboard. As I mentioned, it is live today. We will share links with our staff, family, and community using our traditional communication platforms. There will be a press release, and then some social media posts as well. So, just to let you know, when you get home tonight, if you want to get in bed and look at our current attendance, you can go to the family and students section of our website and you can find attendance and it will link you to some attendance resources, things that families can do to improve attendance, as well as the dashboard. And then I will
168try really quickly just to tell you we are doing a lot of internal data work. So I love our public dashboards, but there's a tremendous amount of internal work out happening to create dashboards for level two and level three. And so one of the things that came up is that before you can make any bar graph and I make bar graphs in my sleep, they're great, but you need to do the data centralization, the data structuring, the data access, the data governance before you can actually make an accurate visualization. So we recognize that that is a pretty big undertaking at ASD. That is part of the reason that we came here tonight and requested a new data lake so that we can put information in one place and it will facilitate the process faster. At
169the same time, we're also doing a lot of internal work to define the things that we even want to visualize and figuring out how to ask questions and what problems we want to solve. So to give you an example of that, you're probably wondering do schools know about all of this? And that's a great question. They do. Currently, it is primarily our school leaders. So we have rolled out several dashboards with school leaders and over the next several months, the Office of Performance Management and Accountability and I cannot take credit for this. This is Chief Equity and Mayor's baby. She is bringing a lot of really interesting experience from other school districts on how to support school improvement planning and we are going to support them in chunks, which will actually help you because you
170will get school improvement plans on time, which is always great and they will be data informed. And then they will use the dashboards not only to inform that, but also in their ILT meetings next year and in their quarterly check-ins to monitor that performance on those school in progress school improvement plans so that we actually see that progress. And so what is the next level of We need to finalize those KPIs for the strategic plan monitoring dashboard. We're going to launch those school profiles publicly. We need to build out the classroom and student student level data tools, that level three really, and then continue the internal capacity building on data usage and setting those expectations for how do you progress monitor and how do you continuously improve using data. So, that is all I have
171for you. Thank you for your time. Sorry I took a while, but I appreciate you all indulging me in my activity. Thank you, Dr. Zimmerman. Uh so, again, as I mentioned on framing, that we want to set the stage that and we have we've shared that we're going to share with the board as well as the public, um where we are as it relates to our strategic planning process. We we made a commitment to have public-facing dashboards, so as you can you can go to our website now. It'll talk about I want to underscore the importance of attendance and it is on the dashboard on our website why all the research around why students should come to school. We also have uh several efforts uh underway within the district to address chronic absence rates, and
172we want to thank our community partners who have said they want to assist us in ensuring that our families uh know the importance of kids coming to school. And so, we will share more details with the school board, and I know many of our school board directors are very impassioned about this topic. So, we will invite you in various activities across the district to help us elevate um the awareness of attendance. You know, as we close the month of April and prepare to enter May, I want to take a moment to recognize the incredible work that's happening across the district. You just saw some of it. Uh many of the committee uh of the uh agenda items that came before you during the community of whole meeting committee of the whole meetings. Uh we as
173an organization, we are we believe in continuous improvement. So, we were building a broader foundation on various areas to create greater efficiencies in support of our staff across the district as well as of course pouring into the lives of our students and engaging our broader community to move our district forward. I want to thank our team cuz we were receiving forging great partnerships and expanding our partnerships with projects like the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the district received recognition for our communications efforts from the Pennsylvania School Public Relations Association. We are also being recognized for we're recognizing many staff members across the district and I want to commend everyone as Miss Noel said you are the light recipients for this month. We want to elevate publicly Mr. Krulik
174Kruliknap. He was received a national award by the Tyler Technologies organization for his work in creating efficiencies around transportation. I mean I mean that's a serious award to get an award around transportation. So and they flew him to a national conference and highlighted [snorts] Allentown. So thank you Mr. Kruliknap and your team for your hard work and commitment. Also we want to recognize and he did leave leave in the during the community of the whole meeting but we like to win as an organization and recognize the great things that our staff is doing but we want to elevate Mr. TIA for being the named director athletic director of the year. Woohoo! By the Morning Call. So we want to thank him for that. We also had the Juilliard School in our classrooms across the district
175in high schools this month and as I mentioned previously to the school board of directors we are the only the second district in the nation that has this type of partnership with Juilliard and we are the only one this level of intentionality. There's another district we won't name them cuz they They they say we're always competing with them and it's not the School District of Philadelphia. So, it it is but but we are the only ones with such intentionality. So, I want to thank the team for rallying around this and celebrating the arts and all of our partners who are supporting us with this work. As we look ahead to May, we are excited and I need a drum roll. We want to recognize our teachers. It is Teacher Appreciation Month. So, let's give a
176roaring round of applause >> [applause] >> We will celebrate our teachers across the district during the first week of May. Um it's so important for us to recognize the work that they're doing every single day. I know there were some teachers here earlier. Uh we are We thank them for their leadership in the classroom and the relationships that they are forging with our students uh and their families. And we we just commend them for a job um well done. Um As we move uh toward the close of the school year, we're also preparing for a number of of end of the year events. So, the School Board Directors, we sent you several meeting requests and we're hoping that you will be available to attend some of those activities. We will have a serve day in
177which our interfaith community as well as our families are coming together and they're going to serve our schools. So, our schools have identified various projects and the community interfaith as well as families will go in and read or work on school beautification projects or help tutor students for that day. So, we're really thrilled because this came from them. It's something they want to do to serve our community. So, if you're available on May 15th and if you're a member of the public and if your organization would like to participate in Serve Day, I'm sure that our 25 schools will have projects for you to help them with. So, we invite you and I think we're looking for people who know guard have gardening skills. So, everyone who is a horticulture expert, we we invite you
178to come over and help us plant some things. We also in addition to all these great accomplishments of our students and staff within those particular activities, we will have a movie premiere on May they're going to give me the rest of Miss Anderson wrong day. May 21st, our students from Sotomayor Dual Language Immersion Academy and the Stream Academy and Miss Weirmus is going to tell us about where they're going to be cuz I want to make sure that we have everyone that we can pack the place out for the students. Just think to be elementary students and you're creating an a film and so can you just tell us for a moment? I can May 21st I believe 5:00 p.m. I will be at the Civic Theater on 19th Street. So it's going to be
179a red carpet event so if everyone could you please dress up and we're going to have your pictures and we're going to really showcase the work of the students that night. This month is also National Dental Hygienist Week so we want to give a round of applause to Miss Lori Beverly Miss Lori Beverly Susan and Veronica are certified school dental hygienist. I'm going to say miss cuz I don't say people's first names Melissa but Miss Lori Miss Beverly Miss Susan Miss Veronica of I want to thank you for those practitioners for supporting our students health and wellness and all the preventive care services and thank you Miss Perez for your leadership with that team. I want to take a moment to recognize another outstanding educator and congratulate Miss Karen Goldman who was recently named the
1802026 Eleanor Long Educator of the year. So let's give her a round of applause. >> [applause] >> This prestigious recognition reflects her more than two decades of service instructional expertise and unwavering commitment to supporting students with visual impairments. Her work represents the very best of our district and we are incredibly proud of her accomplishments. So I want to thank everyone for their hard work and as I say we get better together. All our strengths are needed and as an organization we are building a foundation for all of us. So we want to hear all the voices of helping us get better as an organization. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brooks. At this time we're only taking public comments on agenda items. Thank you. May I have a motion of
181approval of the minutes? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Dr. Johnson. Yes. Ms. Madison. Yes. Ms. Michaels. Yes. Mr. Morse. Yes. Mr. Nikoloff. Yes. Ms. Noel. Yes. Ms. Sierra. Yes. Ms. Wilt. Yes. Ms. DeMoro. Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. I'm going to go a little backwards tonight. I'm going to ask for the student representatives to go first before we do our reports. Um I'm going to call on representative um Brianna Potter from Allen High School to give her report. Good evening, everyone. Here's Allen's April 2026 Board Report which highlights significant achievements and activities across academics, athletics, and student organizations. Our environmental club hosted a West Park cleanup on on April 9th, 2026 to pick up trash located throughout the park. Athletics. Allen baseball has
182won seven straight games to move to 9-3 overall and currently ranked as a number two team in District 11 behind only Parkland. Allen baseball also enjoyed their annual game at Coca-Cola Park this month. The Canaries had a big day at the plate beating Dieruff 20 to 1. Congratulations to Allen Allen baseball's Tucker Heiser on being nominated as the Morning Call Athlete of the Week. Tucker is three of Tucker is three zero with a 1.56 ERA and 23 strikeouts this spring. Allen softball pitcher and girls wrestler Damaris Arias was named Lehigh Valley Life Star of the week for the East Penn Conference after her shut her shut out wins over Dieruff and Lincoln. Choral highlights. Guest at Moravian University to participate in the conducting class midterm review. Performed for William Allen High School spring concerts. Performed
183at the annual ASDF High Notes Gala and an important fundraising event for the arts in Allentown School District. Four of our four seniors will be attending college in the fall. Some have yet to decide which college they will attend, but they will be attending. Student Students helped organize a donation from The Caring Place last Wednesday, April 15th. The donations included juices and Wawa breakfast sandwiches for Miss Sterner and Mr. Labram's classrooms as well as some snacks for the social work office. We are presently busy preparing for our May 1st field trip, the Lehigh Valley Mental Health Awareness 1.2 mile walk, which will also have a resource fair including 60 plus community resources, drawings, a DJ, photo booth, and community award ceremony for our students to be recognized for their for the for winning the I
184Am the Evidence Award. The William Allen Unified Track Team completed its fourth season of competition. The The Unified Track Team's focus is to is to foster inclusion by pairing students with and without intellectual disabilities. We had meets versus Northampton and Emmaus. [clears throat] It was another successful season for athletes and coaches. Students competed in the 100 and 400 meter runs. The field events are the mini javelin, shot put, and long jump. We also had two teams run the 4 by 100 relay. Our journalism and media studio attended the fourth annual journalism summit at LCT on Tuesday, April 14th. Our students ran a live podcast of the conference and had students from all over the Lehigh Valley / Pocono region provide insight into topics. They also interviewed Jay Smith, founder and editor of the Lehigh Daily,
185a local news source for the Lehigh Valley that started in June of 2024. NJROTC Cadet Lieutenant Junior Grade Wilianys Cordero was honored this past Saturday by the Daughters of the American Revolution with a medal for her hard work and dedication this past school year. The recently approved Ed Stinner Field will have its fine its field dedication ceremony on April 25th, 2026. The ceremony will take place after the Allen Darr Softball game. The game begins at 2:00 p.m. and ceremony to follow. All are welcome to join as we honor the legacy of Coach Stinner and officially dedicate the field in his name. And that is it for Allen's Board Report for April. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next up we have Yasmery Munos Gutierrez, [snorts] Which Brew Academy. It's on now. Good evening. Okay. Good
186evening from Which Brew Academy. Our art department is proud to invite you to our end of year exhibition. The Garden of Art will feature fashion design, 2D, 3D, and digital art. This event will take place at Which Brew on Thursday, May 14th from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. No tickets are needed, but we'll see you there. Last [snorts] month our we saw our students meeting with faculty, family, and even their peer mentors to communicate with their academic progress behavior and attendance data. Student success is built on the shoulders of these relationships at Bridgeview, and we're proud of all that our students shared. The Phoenix Flag Football Club has started its spring schedule. Our co-ed team plays on week Our co-ed team plays on weekends, and our new women's Our co-ed teams play on weekends, and our
187new women's team played their first of an eight-game schedule this week. Our peer mentoring program is winding down for the year. Next week our seniors will be helping our students with practice to manage test anxiety with preparation for their Keystone exams. We will be holding a celebration event on Friday, May 8th. Several seniors who have taken a leadership position in developing the peer mentoring program will be bringing this project to the Multidisciplinary Project Expo on Wednesday, May 13th. Stop by and join our students in goal-setting, community-building activities. Peer mentoring is only one of over 16 projects that will be on display at the MDPE on May 13th. Our STEM classes will be specially well-presented including projects designed within every one of our core science classes. We are especially proud to also be sending five projects
188designed by students as part of our English language development program. Our senior capstone projects continue to have an impact on our community. Students have chosen a wide variety of community needs to address with their projects. We'd like to bring a few of these to your attention. Next week, there will be two collection drives led by our seniors in cooperation with our school social worker. We're asking people to send gently used clothes clothing, as well as toiletry items to school with their students from Monday through Friday next week. From May 4th to 8th. Senior Raven Sentana will follow up her job shadowing experience at the Lehigh Valley Humane Society with a collection drive of items that are needed for the ongoing care of animals in the shelter. On May 15th, seniors from Bridge Street Academy will
189continue our tradition of supporting the Central Elementary School field at J. Birney Crum Stadium. Speaking of school traditions, 13 Bridge Street Academy students will join others from across the district serving as poll workers on primary election day, Tuesday, May 19th. Are you planning to vote that day? May 4th is the deadline to to register to vote. At Bridge Street, we are halfway through our spring voter registration drive, and we have already registered enough students to vote to earn the governor's civic engagement award for the eighth straight year. You can learn all about these projects and more at our capstone exhibition titled Capsule in 2026 from ideas to impact. The exhibition will take place at Brough View on Thursday, May 28th. Details will be sent out with invitation closer to the dates. And that's the news
190from Brough View Academy. Thank you and remember it's always together we rise. Thank you. And for a report from Anaya Holder from Dieruff High School. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Thank you. I'm going to start with our sports. Jaleesa Rosario has reached another high school career milestone. She has been named The Morning Call's 2026 Girls High School All Area Team. Last Wednesday, Yeah, sorry. Last Wednesday, I ran my 100th I I have attained my 100th first place finish win. Sorry. I've reached my goal of 100 first place finishes in my high school track career. I also became the sixth Dieruff athlete to achieve this career milestone. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you. Our girls basketball coach, Coach Piston and her players have been running a youth girls pro basketball program. The
191Little Huskies program has 106 young girls participating from grades third through fifth. These young females come from eight Allentown elementary schools. The participation from Ritter, Mosser, Sheridan, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Dodd, and Lehigh Parkway highlights how this program brings young female students together from across the district. On April 10th, 40 of our AP physics and AP US history students spent the day in New York City where they explored the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and more. These students spent the day connecting science and history from the classroom to the real world. Last Wednesday, April 15th, we hosted a college and career fair for our 11th grade students. These students were able to explore 22 different tables featuring opportunities from the workforce, military, trade schools, community colleges, and universities. The National Honor
192Society hosted their spring annual blood drive where they were able to collect 30 units of blood. They also inducted 40 new member members into their chapter last Friday evening. Next Friday, May 1st, they will go to the go to Whitehall where 130 combined regular ed and special ed students will participate in Special Olympics. Our Spanish and art honor societies also held their induction ceremonies last week where they celebrated achievements of more than 20 students. Mursal Mashi earned second place in the Celebrating Legacies and Unsung Heroes Essay Contest in honor of Black History Month. One of our seniors, Christopher Dornicky, has been accepted into four prestigious universities. He received full academic scholarships from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. Christopher plans on pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. Our musical Chicago teen edition starts tonight and will
193will continue through this Sunday, April 26th. The dates are Friday, April 24th, Saturday, April 25th, and today, April 23rd. All three of those are going to be at 7:30. On Sunday, April 26th, it'll be at 2:00 p.m. Come support our theater program as they've worked extremely hard to prepare for this show. Thank you. Thank you so much to our student representatives. You guys are dismissed for the night and thank you for so much for serving on this dais. Have a great evening. Yeah, I'm letting you go home. It's 9:00. >> [laughter] >> Go get some sleep. Okay, and now for our information reports, is there a report from the Allentown Public Library? Um no, I don't have a report at this time. Thank you. Any report from the Allentown Recreation Commission, Ms. Diane? Ms. Diane?
194I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is there a report from the Allentown Recreation? Yes, the meeting was canceled Okay. Thank Thank you so much. There is a report from the Allentown School District Foundation. No, Diane, that's my turn. Yeah. With a mission since 2009 to encourage, promote, support, and fund positive educational experiences for Allentown School District students, ASD Foundation is dedicated is a dedicated partner of the school district in various initiatives. On the 16th on the 16th annual High Notes Gala held on March 28th, it raised over $121,000, and net proceeds will support the future literacy, STEM, civic education, and arts program as well as graduating senior scholarship. I think that's worth an applause. As part of our support of the arts, 12 middle and high school students performing groups will receive a total of $23,000 in
195grants ranging from $1,500 to $3,000 each. Special thanks to this year's top three gala sponsors, Breslin Architects, Gallagher Insurance, and Lehigh Gas Foundation. We received a $2,000 grant from the Iron Pigs Charity to help fund our fall 2026 middle school Latin dance competition. A $10,000 grant from PPL Foundation to expand our I Am on the Bookshelf Student Author Program. And a $14,000 grant from the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation to support our literacy volunteer program June of 2026-27 school year. We partner with William Allen Arts Alliance, Muhlenberg College, and ArtsQuest this school year to support Mr. Bob McFetterch AP art students in their photography pursuits. Our role was to fund the purchase of cameras and other equipment and to provide Allen's Allen students photographers with the opportunity to photograph foundation programs and events for monetary stipends.
196Most recently, ASD Foundation was selected as outstanding community partner by the Chief Science Officers of the Lehigh Valley. A program facilitated by the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21. This award stems from our support of the West End STEAM Day through a teacher innovation grant to Miss Nicole Lesko- Leskois. Leskoski. Leskoski. A STEM instructional coach who advises the Chief Science Officers program at Allen. And that ends my report for tonight. There's a small report from the intermediate unit. All 14 CLI CLIU member districts unanimously approved the budget with a weighted vote of 569 votes to zero. And that ends my report for tonight. Any report from the um LCTI? Uh yes, Madam President. And so we had a good discussion and presentation from Dr. Lisa Greenawald of LCTI where she presented the budget for fiscal year
197July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Uh we passed the motion for us to move that forward for discussion by all nine participating school districts including Allentown School District. Uh we expect to add that to our May board agenda and just a little bit of detail um in their expenses, they expect to spend million dollars approximately in general fund, 3 million from the academic center and ASD's responsible uh for approximately 26% of the general fund at 5.8 billion and 843,000 uh net for the academic center which is about 1% proportion. Um and that's based on a 5-year average enrollment of 605 students from Allentown School District and increasing at LCTI. Thank you. Is there a No, there's no report from them. Thank you. May I have a motion of approval for the Board of Directors
198report? So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Matheson. Yes. Ms. Michaels. Yes. Mr. Morris. Yes. Mr. Nickoloff. Yes. Ms. Noel. Yes. Ms. Sierra. Yes. Ms. Wilt. Yes. Ms. DeMora. Yes. Dr. Johnson. Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion of approval of the policy agenda? So So moved. Is there a second? I second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Michaels. Yes. Mr. Morris. Yes. Mr. Nickoloff. Yes. Ms. Noel. Yes. Ms. Sierra. Yes. Ms. Wilt. Yes. Ms. DeMora. Yes. Dr. Johnson. Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion of approval for the secretary and treasurer's report? So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Mr. Nickoloff? Yes. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes.
199Ms. Dimora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. I have a quick question for the solicitor. Um, do being that I'm abstaining from item F on the superintendent's report, do I have to separate it or can I just state that I'm abstaining and vote for rest of the report? You're going to have to separate it. >> Separate it, okay. Uh, I'm going to ask for a motion to separate item F from the superintendent's report. So moved. >> Second. Any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes. Ms. Dimora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? >> Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nickoloff? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. Now, may I have a motion of approval
200for item F on the superintendent's report? >> Second. And just to be clear, item F is the summer learning. Please call the roll. Ms. Noel? >> Paul, sorry. I'm abstaining from item F because my foundation, Fine Feather Foundation, does Do I say this? And I will you should note it on the board secretary's uh memorandum. Memorandum as well. Okay. Okay. Because when you have a conflict of interest, it just has to be noted on a memorandum. >> on the paper, right? Yes. I'll add this to the paper for you. Because my my organization, Fine Feather Foundation, hosts student interns from Fine Feather Found- from >> Understood. Allentown School District. Okay, understood. Yes. So, that would be Ms. Noel. She's abstaining. >> Abstaining. Okay. Now, you can continue with the roll. >> Thank you. Uh Ms.
201Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes. Ms. Demora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Mr. Math- Ms. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nikolov? Yes. Motion passes 8 to 1. Ms. Noel is abstaining. Thank you. May I have a motion of approval for the rest of the superintendent's report? So moved. Second? Didn't we Didn't we do that first? Didn't we do that? Yeah, but we didn't do the approval for We did the We didn't do the full roll call. We did, and then we did your item F after that. No. Can you look at No, I I separate I separated the item first, then we voted on the item. Now, we're voting on the full This is the full report. >> report. I tallied. The first thing we did was the motion to pull F.
202And then there was a motion to approve F. Now, I'm asking for a motions for the everything else except that. Okay. Okay, we're following? All right. So, now it's everything except that. Please call the roll. Ms. Noel? Yes. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes. Ms. Demora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nikolov? Yes. Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. May I have a motion of approval of the personnel report? So moved. No, we just did the superintendent's one. We just did the I'm sorry, there's a motion and a second. It's late. >> [laughter] >> Any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes. Mr. Mr. Mora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nikolov? Yes. Ms. Noel? Yes.
203Motion passes 9-0. Thank you. Tonight, the board approved new administrative hires. Mr. James, would you come forward and introduce our new hires? So, good evening uh school board directors, Dr. Burke. I gives me a great uh honor and pleasure this evening to certainly introduce three of our very own from Allentown School District to promotional and growth opportunities within our district. First, I would like to introduce Dr. FREYA DE CONDE. >> [applause and cheering] >> DR. DE CANDIA is the principal of Union Terrace Elementary School. >> [cheering] [applause] >> She is currently the assistant principal of Sheridan Elementary School. And she's certainly an Allen High School graduate, so we're so happy about having our very own in the district. She just recently received her doctor degree. Just >> [applause] >> hot off the press. And we're
204very glad for the work that she's done in the instructional programs at Sheridan. So, congratulations to Dr. De Candia. Let's give her another round of applause. >> [applause] >> We're also excited to have with us Mr. James Perez. >> [applause] >> MR. PEREZ IS currently a part-time finance and budget analyst with Allentown School District, but is now moving to a full-time capacity with us. We're so excited to have him. He currently works with our 21st Century programs and will now be certainly supporting us in other areas in finance and budget. And we're so excited to have him as a part of our family and our team. So, congratulations to Mr. James Perez. And our final final final promotion tonight is Mr. JOSE RIVERA. >> [applause and cheering] >> MR. JOSE RIVERA was uh is serving
205now as our acting uh executive director of information technology and he is now going to be serving as the executive director of information technology. >> [applause] >> HE HAS BEEN WITH THE DISTRICT FOR MANY, many years and we're so excited about the work he has done. He was one of the very first uh technology technicians, the first. Thank you, Dr. Burks. The first technology technician in Allentown School District and we're so excited of the work that he's already done in the acting role and we're looking forward to all the great things he's going to do as our the executive director of information technology. Let's give it up for Mr. Jose Rivera. >> [applause] >> And let's give it up for all of our three current employees who are growing with us with promotional opportunities. THANK
206YOU. >> [applause] >> GREAT. MAY I HAVE A MOTION OF APPROVAL OF THE finance report? I make the motion. Second. Any discussion? Wait, did you get the did you get the person that moved the motion in the second, Mr. Simonson? Uh no. Okay. Do it again. I'll make the motion. Okay. Who has the second? Okay. Any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Sierra? Yes. Ms. Wilt? Yes. Ms. Demora? Yes. Dr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Matheson? Yes. Ms. Michaels? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Mr. Nikolov? Yes. Ms. Noel? Sorry. Yes. Motion passes 9-0. At this time, we're only taking public comments. Any? None? Okay. I'm understanding that we have some old business. Um Ms. Moore, you had a question. Yes. Is your mic on? Double Is it pressed? Is it Okay. Okay. Um so, while I was reading
207tonight's paperwork earlier this week, I know I Googled PowerSchool and I noted that they had a data breach back in December of '24 and they ended up paying ransom. I just wanted to make sure that they've taken care of it and I want to know what steps they've put in place to prevent it from happening again because this is our data. This is about our kids and our teachers and I want to make sure it's safe safe and we're not helping them pay another ransom. Absolutely. Um is the PowerSchool Yes. Can you hear me? If you could come up to the podium. To the pod Alan Tomteem, can you hear me? Okay. >> [laughter] >> If I were any smaller, I'd get invisible. Good evening. Good evening. I have Joel Hill with PowerSchool on Zoom.
208Okay. They were unable to make it. Mr. Ali, can you just say your name for the record and your role? Ali Nasse, Director of Procurement. Ali Nasse, can you hear me? Yes, Joel, yes, we can. All right, very good. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board and Dr. Burks. Thank you for allowing me to be with you tonight. I'm not sure if you can see me or not. I'm on Zoom, um, but here to address the cybersecurity incident that occurred, uh, in 2024. So, um, to answer your question, what happened, uh, on December 28th of 2024, PowerSchool became of became aware of a potential cybersecurity incident involving unauthor- unauthorized access to certain information through one of our community-focused customer support portals. It's called PowerSource. Uh, over the succeeding days, our investigation determined that an
209unauthorized party gained access to certain PowerSchool student information system customer data using a compromised set of credentials. Uh, our priority at that time was to ensure that we understood the scope and protect any ongoing threat and contain the situation. Uh, based upon our thorough investigation, the compromised data included teacher and student tables of data. As soon as we learned about the potential incident, we immediately engaged our cybersecurity response protocols and we mobilized a cross-functional response team, including our senior leadership team and third-party cybersecurity experts. We also informed law enforcement. Our client base was notified just four days after the incident was discovered, which is pretty unprecedented whenever it comes to cybersecurity incidents. A full report by CrowdStrike has been provided and is accessible, and no other PowerSchool applications beyond the student information system were impacted
210by the cybersecurity event of 2024. Today, so for me as an employee of PowerSchool, and I apologize I didn't do my introduction. I'll I'll save that for the end. Um today at PowerSchool, every one of our applications has multi-factor authentication. So, you're probably familiar with this from your phone, but the system recognizes who you are before you can get into any PowerSchool solution. Additionally, the PowerSource uh Yes. I apologize. Yes. Um Did you hear up to but what's going on today? Okay, perfect. Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, yes, today as a current employee of PowerSchool, um I have to multi-factor into every one of the systems that I need to touch. So, you probably are aware of what multi-factor authentication is or MFA. It's what you use when you when you pick up
211your phone, it recognizes your face. It does the same thing for me to get into any PowerSchool solution. Additionally, the PowerSource uh tool that I mentioned, you have to be on PowerSchool's VPN or virtual private network in order to access that system as a customer support agent to perform any of your functions. Because, as I said, it was a set of credentials that at that time you could put in the credentials, get in there like you're the support agent. Now, you need to multi-factor and be on our virtual private network in order to get into the system. Additionally, our customers have to actively open the bridge between our system and your student information system in order for us to get into your system at all because before what happened was the malicious actor got into
212our power source. They ran a script which data mined information from power source and that is what the ransom was all about. That is impossible now today given multi-factor VPN um and the and the the district would have to open up access for us even though it is our system our company's system, you have to actively open that up for us to be able to connect to that system to do support functions to work on your system. Additionally, there is very rigorous training that I need to go through every single year. I just did it this morning actually uh on on cybersecurity and uh many different types of uh courseware that I need to go through. Additionally, for our client's PowerSchool uh paid for 2 years of identity theft prevent uh protection as a as
213a another layer of uh our commitment to our customers. We take security extremely seriously. Uh we have a a dedicated information security officer that that is his job to make sure that our systems are as safe and secure as possible. Any additional questions as far as the uh data incident or the cybersecurity incident of 24 goes. Thank you very much. You answered the question I had. Thank you. And by the way, to those that did not uh get to meet me last time I was out on site and I apologize I wasn't able to be in person. Um my name is Joel Hill. I'm PowerSchool's senior account director for Pennsylvania. So, I work with Allentown >> [snorts] >> um in the capacity of any new PowerSchool application that you're bringing on board, as well as
214those renewals uh that were presented tonight. Those go through me as well. Uh so, I appreciate everyone's time tonight, and I live uh about 50 minutes south of Allentown in Daniel Boone School District. If I'm ever asked to come on, I'd be happy to be out on site with you. I just had a family event tonight. Thank you all. All right, thank you so much. Is there any new business to come before the board? May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? So moved. Second. Have a great night, everyone. Meeting adjourned.