001the first opportunity for comet is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only please turn in comment cards within about the next 10 minutes so that we can uh have have your comments on the records okay we will not be receiving public cards uh after that 15 minutes a copy of the public comment policy is located on the table next to the comment cards or back on that uh podium right if you choose to address the board please fill out a comment card and hand it to the board to secretary Ms Pollock would you raise your hand please right foreign please come to the podium state your name and address for the record and kindly limit your remarks to three minutes we will now have roll call and secretary would
002you call it please Miss Brown president miss Conover president Miss Harris oh I'm here miss Matheson here miss Noel Brown here Brown Noel Miss Ortiz here Mr Palmer present Dr Santana here Ms will nine members present would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence 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 then Downingtown I have no formal remarks this evening Dr Burks do you have something you'd like to share with us at this time yes good evening president Matheson uh school board of directors and to members of the public first I want to acknowledge that this week or yesterday specifically was administrative professional day also
003known as our clerical support of administrative assistants so please join me in given the round Applause for all the great work that they do on behalf of our learning community as well as across the districts across the the state the Commonwealth and nationally yesterday members of our we've launched an initiative called central office connections and so members of our central office went out into schools and acknowledged all the administrative assistants across the district and in this building as well for their great works I'm so honored for all the great things that they're doing on behalf of our children and families as well as our staff so thank you so much since our last meeting um and I just want to say we had um I have a few comments tonight and so I will make
004a presentation um the reimagining um our district the transfer central office transformation and then we will have a presentation from our colleagues like at Executive Education Academy Charter School so that will be the order of under my the superintendent's remarks this evening uh since our last meeting we had our second you are the light celebration we are excited each month we acknowledge the hard work of members of our Learning Community uh teachers support staff Administration as well as our children and so we just want to thank all the team members it was held at Dairy school high school we had some wonderful presentations and so I want to thank everyone who was identified as being you are the light of this book for the month of April I think it was March group tonight our
005board will confer yet another early graduate from William Allen High School Liliana Delgado she's unable to attend this evening she is currently performing at her spring instrumental concert at William Allen High School we wish her the very best of luck in the next chapter of her educational Journey which includes departing for basic training with the U.S Marine Corps in the coming weeks a little later on um Mr Buck is going to share about her academic background and we are so excited for her so please give her a round of applause it's musical season everyone who's getting Janome knows I love the Arts and I love singing and I had a great time last week in um last week celebrating with William Allen High School they had their production Little Shop of Horrors and I was
006walking around and having a good time so I want to come in all of our teachers Mr seckler and Mr Moser Miss Bianco for a fabulous uh presentation um at Allen High School and this week jar of high school is performing two sickles Seussical thank you the musical this weekend so I want to thank um Miss Carson and the dearest and Derek's directors uh for an amazing presentation I had an opportunity to see them a few months ago when they were practicing so everyone who's here tonight we invite you to come uh view our students because they're doing an amazing job and uh finally and then I'll get into my presentation I invite everyone here we're going to have a budget Forum on May 3rd it will be held at the public library and so
007we are going to share with the broader Community how we spend resources um we'll get into explaining in detail what a special funds what are restricted funds how we allocate resources as I mentioned in previous meetings we're using a student-based budgeting model that focuses on Equity so each school and each School leader is being empowered to be CEOs of their schools and so and they're going to engage they in this part of the budget process they have engaged their stakeholder groups within their schools but we will continue on and we want to be very open and transparent with the community as to how funding is spent in our district as well as get an understanding as how you should help us advocate for resources for our students and our overall learning community uh at this
008time next on the agenda I will begin to present our new organizational structure and this is for um potential board action so I'm just going to go out in the public for that foreign so as a community all of our resources and the way that we are organizing our district is based on our mission as well as our vision of an organization we also will focus on our core values and then presented here today and this presentation will appear on our website once it is completed foreign values as an organization and people ask why do you do this every time well we have to be reminded that if these particular efforts are not listed the organization should not in spend its resources or its time unless it's aligned to its Mission Vision or core values
009as an organization we're working on coherence and alignment of everything that we do internally as well as externally and this will be our theory of change we are just establishing Network Improvement communities as a district and which our central office will be designed to be in direct service to our schools to our children and families and of course the educators we will organize the district into five offices if the board approves of course our office of financial operations and services in the office of learning and teaching an office of schools and instructional leadership and office of talent management and labor relations and an office of Performance Management equity and accountability the way we are going to redesign or reimagine our organization is based on Research from the University of Washington the center of educational leadership
010and it's it's designed it's designed with five dimensions and number one I just want to pay a close attention to with the board because there's research that suggests that one the teacher is one um the the most influential is a major driver of school Improvement and student increasing student outcomes second to the teacher the next greatest lever is the principal so we want to focus on learning focused Partnerships with school principals to deepen their instructional leadership practices so we're going to organize again we're going to organize into these Network Improvement communities in which we want to have executive directors and we're going to align our business office as well as our HR functions in the line aligned to the school of seven or eight schools within our district so there'll be direct support to them
011this is our organizational structure it just gives you an overview of those five departments as well as the positions that will fall under those departments so for example there will be a chief who's responsible for these various these five components and various executive recorders and re and people who report and um as a part of those Network Improvement communities where are you going where are we going our next level of work a pending the approval this evening of our organizational structure structure we will post these documents that I present tonight on our District's website we will have jobs we have job descriptions for all the positions that are vacant that are part of this new organizational reimagining of the district we also will make some internal administrative reassignments that we are bringing tonight for the
012board's consideration and we will have continuous leadership development onboarding and coaching support as we engage in this theory of change for the district are there any questions and that concludes my presentation tonight thank you I'm sure um I believe it would be the appropriate time to make the graduation of Liliana a formal um since our Allen staff is celebrating their Spring Concert we would like to request Mr Buck to come forward and recognize highlights and celebrate with Atlanta as our early graduate going into the military Mrs Mathis thank you very much school board members thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Liliana Liliana Delgado is a daughter of Jessica kales who has lived in Allentown since the fifth grade attending Central Rob and William Allen High School Liliana has completed
013all of her coursework to graduate early so that she can start her career in the Marines before the end of the school year she'll be leaving on May 5th while in the Marines Liliana plans to study for a future career in administration with a focus on Logistics and Supply Chain management while at William Mountain High School Liliana was a member of the swim team chorus dance team and school band where she plays OBO cello and saxophone Liliana would be here this evening with us however she does not want to miss her last performance with instrumental band tonight which is at 7 pm at William Allen High School the William battle high school administrative team and staff will greatly miss her and wish her all the best in her future endeavors thank you very much may
014I now have a motion from the board to Grant the conferring of the diploma for William Allen student Liliana Delgado as she has completed All-State and local requirements for high school graduation can I make that motion all right Miss Phoebe first and Mr Palmer's second the second's the motion is there any discussion on the motion just want to wish your congratulations and best of luck in all of our future successes sure hearing no other discussion would you call the roll please Miss Conover yes Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes Brown Noel yes Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes Dr Santana yes Miss Wilt yes Miss Brown yes nine zero vote passes thank you thank you at this time we are only taking public comments on agenda items once recognized please come to the podium state
015your name and address for the record and please limit your remarks to three minutes and by now you should have turned your comment card in for either this public comment period or for the one that comes later Excuse Me Miss Matheson yes um as a part of my report I want to call out attorney Peterson so she can introduce our colleagues from Executive Education Academy Jim Prince point of order Madam president I believe that comes later right now what we're not going to do that doing the superintendent report which comes after okay because we have to have public comment on agenda items on agenda items first correct there is a point of order I think that's the way it's listed in the agenda is that the presentation comes under item 12 the superintendent's report yes
016yes I believe that's what that's what we do next yes can you just do that into the kind of remark right yeah okay I think something has gotten a little bit out of uh okay sink here I'll do whatever you like no let's allow the public comment first I believe that has to come before right oh look do we have any comment cards on agenda items yes Amber Clark urina Ramirez thanks for coming in from back there foreign state your name and address and remember that your comments are limited to three minutes okay hi my name is hi my name is Ramirez I listened to 425 Max Street Allentown PA um I need I I come in today and I come in the worst meeting because uh I need it's possible you can help me
017because I have three cases and I need opportunity for this school because uh is your free time in this country and my cases um I have one five years 12 and 11 and I like this school because I respect is good and great school and please can you help me for opportunity for my kisses in this school thank you yes yes she didn't need me I guess Elena tirado hello my name is Elena tirado 33 North West Street Allentown PA 18102 um again I have a 14 year old that I have taken out of the Allentown School District at um fourth grade he's been homeschool since and has shown a lot of signs of um anti-social and it's it's becoming more of an issue for him and as I speak to a lot of parents
018they have children that are going through the same things we've petitioned a few um we've made a petition for parents um to uplift the caps on these uh charter schools now again the Allentown School District may not be for all children but for those children that for parents that really want their children to go to their school I believe that they should have the rights to pick and choose the school that their children should go to and therefore I really really would like to see the um the caps on the charter schools uplifted so that my child can at least have the chance to go to a school that he wants to excuse me that he wants to go to and not a school that he is being forced to go to so thank you
019siani Alvarado do you mind if I have my kids speak first [Music] what's the name juvenile Ortiz and Jessica Ortiz did you fill out a card I did I'm on I'm on bed rest so I would like to have my kids speak and then speak after them and then make it home if possible only about three minutes that's fine thank you they both filled out a time card okay oh my God do you mind if I remove this I can't pick her up thank you my amazing we wanted to talk about how you do that everybody should be able to choose a student so if you want to tell you this area go ahead thank you could you state your name first please hi my name is Justin Ortiz I go to a different School
020my two siblings go to the Arts Academy and I'm very happy for them they've been in the school for a few weeks now and my sister went to my school and she was very scared to go to the school because she because her teacher used to yell at her um she since she went to the Arts Academy she had a positive positive positivity and I saw a change in her she was happier than she usually was and I was very happy for her and I've been are in the Arts Academy wait list for since I was in kindergarten and now I am in fifth grade almost going to middle school and I would love to go to the Arts Academy because the teachers over there has positivity they see what's wrong with other kids they're
021very kind and they treat students well and I would really like to go there if I had a chance and that's all thank you okay so honesty on the Alvarado I also live in Allentown um my daughter now seven is one of the reasons why I'm here to I would like for the cat to be removed um my daughter originally loved to go to school and then we seen some things that should not have happened at school you know we um parents think you know maybe it's just something new and they'll get comfortable almost a year past and that's that um that year and you know Mommy instincts kicked in put on the list of Arts Academy and somehow my two younger kids ended up being able to get accepted to Arts Academy best thing
022that I've ever been able to do my daughter was going through at the time of five years old my daughter was depressed she would cry scream and every day I would go home crying leaving my daughter at home at the school crying and kicking because she's scared to be at school and I don't wish that feeling on any parent any child um there was times there was times that she would say things that no mother should have to hear her child say um now don't get me wrong her last school is great it's just our children should be able to choose where they should be learning our children should be able to um tell us that they're not comfortable and Mommy I want to go to a school that I'm comfortable and I'm happy to
023go learn and not all children get to have that choice so therefore how is our kids supposed to succeed if our kids aren't happy to go to the school that they go to and aren't comfortable um I'm a mama four so all of my kids are different they all have different personalities and I should be able to choose if they should be able to go to different schools than the one that they're mandated to go to um now that ever since she got switched to Arts Academy you know it's it's amazing my daughter wakes up before her alarm she goes tells me that it's about time that time is over she's excited she runs out the car runs into school every day it's my daughter just went back to her herself you know I don't
024wish the what we went through for that year and a half without going into details of what was going on no child and no parent should have to go through what we went through and there's you know everybody should have the choice the our children should be able to choose where they should be able to go to school and be comfortable and be happy on where they attend thank you Charlotte Castro Issa Rivera Sanchez good evening my name is Issa Marie Rivera Sanchez I live in 918 Wesley Street here in Allentown this is my son Bentley Ramos he is currently in Union Terrance in fourth grade as a mother and as a Frontline worker as a social worker I've been able to see the needs and struggles of the family in Lehigh Valley Northampton and
025Allentown of course I understand that schools are not completely responsible for the formation and education of our children however schools shares a huge part of the formation of each children sometimes a teacher is the key for a child to change their life completely I can ask hundreds of questions than not being able to get an answer for half of them I just know that we're running out of time we're living in a time that any of our children that that our children are not safe or treated equal I can't say from a position as a parent how poor the special education is the transportation the security the nutrition and I keep going on and on in the beginning of this year I have to train my kids what they should do and I'm sorry if
026I get emotional if a shooter go into their school understanding that there was a lockdown in my son's school because the police was chasing a guy in Jordan Park but that is one of the many struggles that I go through up till today and I appreciate what you say in the beginning my son is suffering from the services that first students is providing to him he's been mistreated he's been telling to shut up that he's not allowed to talk to any of the kids and I make the accommodations to transport my kid already in the mornings and I asked him I will do it in the afternoon but he don't want to because that is the time that he does have to spend with his sense I have another kid that she's in Building 21
027Eliana still Leon but she's almost done she's in intend rate but this little guy here he's going to really soon he's going to be in second you know um what is the name sorry fifth grade sixth grade he's going to second screw I'm sorry and I really like his school but I am so scared that he have to go to Route I don't want that from my kid I sent an enrollment petition to Executive exchange school and they said they can't he can be accepted please allow me to keep my kids safe and in a and have a better education if you guys can provide that to him Michelle Mason hi yeah my name is Michelle Mason um I'm I live in Allentown 11 11 North 25th Street um I've been in this District since
028we moved here from New York in 2007. um and um as a parent here in this County in Lehigh I have multiple children first of all and I see that children need to thrive in different environments and um many times there are different situations and different schools where some children may perform better and I saw that with my children my three youngest children were able to attend charter schools so um I'm here to say that um that you remove the cap for numbers ASD students I've been into the charter schools and I'm speaking here on behalf of the many parents that would like to send their children to Charter Schools just like I was able to do um and also um of course I'm asking that parents have a choice of where they go to
029I live here in Lehigh I used to live in New York and in New York they had changed some of their school regulations to allow parents to have a choice so I'm simply asking let parents have a choice parents need to have a choice of where to send their children in Lehigh County whether they send them to whatever public school they want or whatever if they want to Charter School or private school they should have choices and not just be having to be subjected to sending their children to whatever District school and like I said I have multiple children and I I don't have my older children that attended schools in the district and they did well and I have school children and the Charter Schools they're doing well also thank you for the time
030and thank you for listening and please um consider the request so that more parents can have school choice and I really believe schools will be way better and will perform way better when there is a choice that can be made thank you Milagros Parker hello my name is malagos Parker I live at 934 North 5th Street in downtown um I was a graduate of William Allen High School class of 09. um I have my kids you know and I wanted them to be graduates as well um from Alan but at this point I want them to be graduates from a charter school another school other than Allen or dear up or even Trexler where they're at now um my son has ADHD ATD and odd I have requested multiple IEP meetings and nothing has been
031done he is failing his history and I've gotten one email from the teacher the teacher said your son is in danger of failing my class that's it that was the email um he didn't suggest anything that I can do he didn't send any homework home or anything um and I just feel like the Allentown school district is overcrowded there's too many kids for just one teacher and I just feel like if there was the cap that was released you know and let us choose our schools you guys sent home the letter saying that Allentown school district has the lowest scores and that we have a choice you know but with this cap we don't have a choice where is our choice you know um I just I just really want you know my kids to
032have a different experience than I did especially in this time with all those school shootings and weapons brought and all that stuff like a change something thank you David de la Rosa foreign board I'm here representing the eacs student body as I have in previous meetings and I'm going to be very simple and Frank with you the reason why I'm representing those voices right now is because our students are overachievers our students are leaders our students are athletes and I'm going to say one thing they're not just overachievers they're just not athletes and they're just not leaders for themselves but instead they are representing the city of Allentown students from Bethlehem Emmaus and especially this city take pride in Allentown take pride in the Allentown school district and take pride on the ground that they
033have standing on why is that you may ask because of schools like Executive Education Academy charter school because as Charter Schools we're just like it that instill these values that instill them to understand that even with people that may confront them people that may start conflict that there is more to that than just a title now these charter schools are seeking your help these students these families these parents because they're not limited to their own self-desires but instead they pursue the the interest of every life that sits in a chair at those schools so I ask you board because they have made an impact on their communities I cannot count how many of them are right now those athletes reaching out to students at Allen and Dara reaching out to students at Rob and Trexler
034mitigating in the issues of this city without any obligation to do so but they do it with their own will so no longer can this board ask from these students no longer should this board ask from this from these schools what can you do for us because they have done more than beyond for you so the last thing I want to leave you with is instead of asking from these Charter Schools what can you do for us instead of asking from these overachievers what can you do for us I ask you one thing what can the city do for them after all these years what can the city do for them because when they are those future Business Leaders when they are those future athletes when they are those future when they are on the
035world stage there will be one thing that they will be holding their on their hands and it'll be the city of Allentown not Executive Education Academy Charter School it'll be the city of Allentown we are one city so remember board what can you do for them because they are counting on you just like they have left an impact on every single one of your community every single one of your schools thank you board I appreciate your time Mrs Skinner good evening I stand before you today identifying as a board member I am in favor of lifting disimposed cats because Pennsylvania families can choose from traditional Public Schools public charter schools public magnet schools private schools online academies and homeschooling as I stand before you identifying as a board member this is what we represent and
036this is what we're standing on so to impose this cap would not be standing on what we represent thank you that concludes our public comment on agenda items thank you thank you at this time may I have a motion for the approval of the minutes so as well as our second Dr Santana Mr secretary to please is there any discussion on the motion will you please call the roll Miss Harris yes yes Miss Matheson yes Miss Brown Noel yes Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes Dr Santana yes Miss Wilt yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover yes nine zero vote passes thank you uh this leads us to our reports from the various committees and commissions that we are also a part of from the Allentown human relations commission Ms Brown do you have a report
037yes um I would like to state that the Allentown human relations commission is currently accepting applications for new Commissioners the meeting is held every first Thursday and do do we also are happy to partner with any diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and that's the end of my report thank you for the Allentown Public Library Ms Harris Miss World there wasn't a meeting so we have no reports the Allentown Recreation committee commission um Mr Palmer Ms well um not too much to report other than to say that um The Parks and Rec commission would like everybody to know that all summer seasonal jobs are posted on the website are also posting on social media in particular they're looking for lifeguards and summer playground instructors um what's that said everything Millennia Park will be having a ribbon
038cutting shortly um but that is not part of the minutes that I reviewed before coming here um I do know that they're doing final touches on that as as um the last time I drove past um and there will be an official ribbon cutting but it's not um at this time I don't have that report um and also just going back to the jobs um seasonal um again summer playground um and if you're a 15 year old and looking for a job the cashier's positions um folks who are 15 are eligible to apply for those and then summer Athletics will be um up in in full swing they'll be offering um summer basketball um baseball t-ball Etc that's it okay anything else um from the Allentown School District Foundation I'm doing the reporting the foundation
039board met on Thursday April 13th Dr Ross joined the meeting and the board was pleased to meet him and to hear what he had to say the foundation will fund 33 scholarships from an endowed fund for graduating seniors those are scholarships that repeat on a yearly basis so that there's a chance every year in addition there will be 37 000 in one time only scholarships seniors at all three high schools I hope the student board reps are hearing what I'm announcing should apply through their guidance offices and to find out about the the scholarships that are available Friday April 28th is the last day for students to submit to their designs in the stamp art contest that's been a successful contest I've been seeing the winning entries on Facebook every year I hope again we
040will have uh something really nice to look at when they've judged the entries the high notes Galo is a spectacular event this year the students from Allen and daref performed musical selections and preview scenes from Seussical in The Little Shop of Furs and during the the spring shows that are now in production in the in those high schools and and that concludes that part of my report the carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit excuse me that we're not reporting that one oh um lcti that's also my report this evening and enrollment for next year is in progress this year enrollment is online only it has been extraordinarily successful in all of the school districts that have uh are a part of the lcti community uh in Allentown I checked it today um with the help of the
041guidance counselors the online registration has been extremely well received people find it useful and it gives all the information that they need uh in the near future there will be a signing day uh as employers signed students much as we would sign individuals to sports teams uh to what will become their careers in the Lehigh Valley Allentown has the moving on this has 12 students in Cooperative education with local employers this year that means they are already out and working and finishing their high school credits as they go the careers range from auto collision through health and dental care and into modern print technology senior recognition at night for the students at Ultra lcti will be May 31st at the ppnl center the seniors will have gotten all of the information about this so that
042they can invite their families to come and we have been concerned about our students having money to buy equipment that they need for certain programs at lcti there is we've got the news last night our meeting that there is uh uh an enormous amount of grant money available so that if students apply and use every student has been notified that that money is available uh through email and if they submit the application from the link that is in that email there is every chance that there uh need for their money for the equipment will be available to them that's the end of my report safety task force Miss Brown has gone over Mr Harris there was no safety meeting City youth initiative Mr Palmer uh there was no official meeting due to conflicts however there
043was a discussion about um setting up committees and then official fundraisers that brings us to our student Representatives Jameer Chapman will you tell us what's happening at Allen foreign good evening everybody and bear with me it's a lot to read it's a lot so it starts with William High School welcome to acting principal Mr Frank Derrick William Allen High School student Advisory board members continue to meet with superintendent Dr Burks to build community and a positive and welcoming School climate for all ASD students recent meetings are focused on strategies to engage Rising sixth graders and incoming freshmen for the 2023-2024 school year by creating student leads celebrations as these incoming classes begin their next milestones and ASD the leadership commitment and innovation of these students inspires the adult mentors who have the opportunity to support
044their endeavors qunari newspapers and coma's yearbooks students attend the Keystone student journalism Coalition Conference at Kutztown University on Wednesday April 12th students learned about broadcasting and television journalism met with other student journalists and other Publications from other school districts from around the area and toward the campus debate team has been scrimmaging this spring resolve should Pennsylvania bend the sale of assault rifles round two was on Thursday April 13th during Mr worm customer's third period AP government class the entrepreneurship series continues with almost 100 students in attendance learning and listening to local business owners about starting their own businesses we are thankful for the number of local businesses that volunteer their time to come and impact the William Allen youth our April session will be on Friday April 28 2023 from 11 30 to 1 30.
045feel free to stop in and see the amazing interaction with our students and local Business Leaders the social studies curriculum committee continues to work on stage two and three of the courses members of the social studies Department have been working this year to provide students a new social studies curriculum for the 23 and 24 Academic Year teachers are currently designing lessons units and assessments based on understanding by Design model the department is excited to present the students of William Allen even more engaged in learning opportunities as they continue their in-depth study of the social studies as a DD Club on April 17th 10 Allen students from the student against destructive decisions Club attended the 2023 youth conference hosted by nearby High School it was a highly productive morning spent learning about factors that could impair
046driving while having positive interactions with youth from area schools music production Club the newly formed music production Club has expanding their knowledge of digital audio platforms to create their own percussion music tracks or beats membership is growing the student government Association was able to meet with Mr Derek on his first full day at island and discuss with him some ideas for this year and next to better engage students in their school the island cheer team banned Ankara performed for the pssa pep rally for the students of Union Terrace Elementary School also performing at the pep rally was the union territs dance team the students at the union terrorists have been working hard to prepare for the test and a well-deserved celebration this was the first PSA pep rally since before Colbert that the Allen teams
047have been invited to join in and we are excited to return to more schools in the future students from Corral Dance Academy and little shop actors all performed for the ASDF Holly notes Gala on April 1st on Friday April 21st 33 students from Islands Art Club took a field trip to the Allentown Art Museum students participated in a guided tour and a Hands-On art making activity in the Museum's classrooms after lunch in the Arts park across the street students then got to explore the museum on their own and sketch from observation their favorite artworks in the museum the curtain rose on April 20th for the William Allen spring musical the little shop before if you've missed the show you missed one of the best performances to come from William Allen High School the cast and
048crew did a fabulous job and now we'll wait to see what the Friday nominations bring on May 11th an addition on May 11th Elon Mercedes who played Seymour will perform grow for me at the Arts Ovation awards ceremony where he will receive the honor as William Allen's recipient Miss fritzman's life skills students are exploring Robotics and electronics with Sphero and Elizabeth the new s-t-e-a-m activities have students highly engaged in technology and have promoted conversations around what's next regarding the future new careers and how new technology presents personal and professional opportunities for growth in a variety of areas students will be traveling to the wildlands Conservancy on May 8th to continue their four-week butterfly unit where students research migrations Symmetry and Conservancy efforts students created four posters with butterfly specific information which are displayed at the
049library and are invented or invited to display their work at the high school science fair the life skills support students in the copy shop a word based Learning Classroom at William Allen High School have been very busy with copy shop tasks the students in the coffee shop learned various work tasks which include stapling papers hole punching papers writing papers using the copy machines refilling the copy machines with papers refilling staplers sweeping floors wiping tables and delivering work orders to stop students learn how to recognize designated work areas of work tools a student's acclimate through the tasks and coordinating procedures performed at the coffee shop students are expected to display initiative and dependability as they Master the work task and increase their skill level from September of 2022 to the present the students have processed 568
050work orders completing 1900 tasks requested on those work orders the real life work experience is invaluable for the Life School students and they take pride in their work as they complete work orders in addition to the other job tasks in the coffee shop supplemental learning support science classes have been collaborating with sections of life skill and autism Support classes to present to them topics related to habits for environmental science supplemental learning support biology classes share the fruit enzyme lab for a cross-sexion collaboration learning about enzymes present in the food the island unified track team had a great first season they completed in three track meets against Emmaus Pocono Mountain East and East Stroudsburg South and East Stroudsburg North the first homie in Island history was very successful service electric cable TV reported on the beat
051and the segment aired on April 17th J Bradley from Lehigh Valley news also wrote an article underneath and it was published on April 18th the team is looking forward to Growing next season the Life School support and autistic Support classes our Island took outside and created paintings on various areas of the building from their perspective one of the autistic support students gifted his drawing to welcome Mr Derek to Canary Nations the life skill support pre-vocational skills classes began a unit related to outdoor maintenance occupations students are currently working on developing the skills necessary to start a plant from seed and care for it for six to eight weeks similarly to a nursery worker students will develop skills in the area of functional science as well as plant identification by keeping a plant growth journal in
052which to collect data and sketch the progress of their plan the cause would then explore potential locations of employment in the Lehigh Valley such as dance chance Greenhouse Lehigh Valley Home and Garden Center Home Depot Laos nursery department students will complete a simulated application for nursery worker at the conclusion of the unit Allen Athletics is approaching the end of their spring season some of the highlights this spring include the baseball team defeating Gareth at Coca-Cola part A softball team also beating Daryl at home as well as a win on senior night the island boys volleyball team is off to a great start under first year head coach Natasha Leon including a win against Bethlehem Catholic the island track and field team has seen a large increase in students participating and will have several students qualifying
053for League championships upcoming events include the alandere of track meet on May 2nd at 3 30 pm at JBC Stadium the island athletic award ceremony will take place on May 22nd at William Allen High School's auditorium at 6 pm and the island Athletics College signing date will be held on May 31st at 4 pm and the NGC Media Center for all things Allen Athletics please visit allenathletics.org and that concludes the report of course Kimberly Arias we please report from building 21. good evening offer letters for next year's incoming freshman class have gone out we are excited to welcome the class of 2027 so building 21. students will be receiving invitations to join us during our summer bridge program where they will meet their advisory and get ready to Rise Like a Phoenix students and families
054who have not yet responded to their invitations are asked to enroll and to do so as soon as possible Building 21 has been piloting the district's a lunch partnership with Subway and Domino's we've never seen students in our cafeteria eating so happy and so much we like to thank everyone involved in bringing back the grab-and-go breakfast program we're reaching a far greater number of students with the most important meal of the day balloon 21 has earned the governor's Civic engagement award for the fifth year in a row this year 96 of our eligible seniors have registered to vote which is our best result yet several of our students will also be earning individual awards from the governor's office for serving our community as poll workers and translators on both election days this year our senior
055caps Capstone project continue and some upcoming projects include the sat on Saturday May 6 students will be leading a park cleanup at Fountain Park at the end of May our students will be supporting the Central Elementary field day at J Bernie crumb we would like to offer a huge shout out to gratitude for to Mr Dan Bosque and Community Action for funding all the outstanding expenses for our flag football program thanks to their support our team has already begun competing in games through the Mountain View Community league and this Sunday they will travel for a full day of competition at a tournament in New Jersey students in our Healthcare pathway participated in lvhn sports medicine day on March 29th we appreciate lvhn for supporting our students career exploration on April 20th we hosted an ice
056cream social to celebrate our students for attendance and academic progress families join their students for their sweet celebration on Tuesday and Thursday this week our 10th grade social studies students held their annual Model United Nations conference this year's challenge was halting the spread of nuclear weapons yesterday students from Building 21 joined students from Bethlehem Area School District and traveled to Harrisburg to join students from across Pennsylvania for a day advocating for fair funding for all our schools students met with legislators joined in a press conference and even met with the Pennsylvania's first woman speaker of the house discussing the funding challenges for facing our schools thank you to our Allentown representatives for speaking with our student reps and to our Lehigh Valley Neighbors in Bethlehem and for partnering with us in this important cause some
057upcoming events we're looking forward to is on May on Monday May 1st our students will be attending Lehigh County's law Day event this year's theme is the first amendment on Wednesday May 3rd many of our students will be traveling to the unit Universal technology institutes women in stem events on May 27th our school will celebrate our senior Proms and last but not least the date for our annual Spring Fashion Show is almost here this shows title this show this year's show is titled fantasy will take place at Building 21 on Thursday May 11th doors open at 5 15. the show will begin at 6 Building 21 our students were at the allentown's art walk on Thursday April 20th promoting the event which led to several out several Allentown businesses adding their support to the event
058we hope to see you all there thank you that is all Eliana Rios please report for tariff good evening to start off hours Seussical the musical kicked off tonight as Dr Burks first mentioned the first show started tonight at 7 pm and we are proud of our crew that has put so much time and effort into the musical to produce an amazing show for all to see tickets can be bought at the door or online as we will still be holding shows tomorrow and Saturday starting all at 7 pm we are excited to announce our annual husky Fest that will be held in the rear parking lot of deer on Friday May 5th from 3 to 6 PM all are invited to come and enjoy a nightfood with games and prizes food stands and ice
059creams music by there of grad DJ best music and guests from local colleges and military branches and this year will be our first year with a dunk tank so we're excited to dunk some teachers in there seniors are excited to be less than a month away from our Arabian Nights prom we will be holding our prom at Bear Creek mountain on May 19th tickets are still being sold and we are still accepting suits and dresses from Project prom last week we held a project prompt review and four of our male tariff seniors were able to show off their Fine Suits rented from CE raw and we are excited for the ladies to be next in a few weeks are huskies helping Huskies fundraiser had an amazing turnout all grades were competing to see who could
060collect the most money in our Freshman Class unfortunately took the lead over the seniors but we were able to raise 640 to donate to the sanctuary at Haskell it is a local no kill animal shelter some end of the year events um the end of the year has been very eventful and exciting tomorrow some of our senior class will be traveling to Washington DC for our annual senior trip we are having our 62nd annual kiska banquet on May 24th at 5 45 pm at the palace Center you can sponsor any athlete for 25 in all sponsorships and donations are greatly appreciated we are proud of all of our dear athletes and can't wait to celebrate their accomplishments and that is all for tonight thank you to all three of you may I have a motion
061for the approval of the board of directors report so move as well as our second Dr Santana is there any discussion yeah and please call the roll Miss Matheson yes Ms Brown Noel yes Ms Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes Dr Santana yes Miss willp yes Ms Brown yes Miss Conover no Miss Harris yes eight one vote passes may I have a motion for the approval of the secretary and treasurer's report is there a second oh second Miss Phoebe uh is there any discussion please call the roll Ms Brown Noel yes Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer no Dr Santana yes Miss will yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover no Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes seven and two vote passes this evening on the superintendent's report we have uh we've we've already heard a discussion item
062I would like to vote on the rest of the report and then we will entertain executive education's presentation may I have a motion to approve the rest of the superintendent's report I make the motion all right Miss Harris second last second all right there's no is there any discussion please call the roll Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes Dr Santana yes Miss Wilt yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover yes Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes Ms Brown Noel yes nine zero vote passes Mr LASIK if you wish to make your presentation you may come forward good evening thank you madam president thank you board thank you cabinet thank you Dr Burks welcome again uh wish you the best thanks again for allowing this to be tabled and us to come back it was a bit
063late that night and there was a lot going on so I personally wanted to have more of a clear head when I present I think I I truly believe this is a very important topic I would not be doing my job if I'm not here fighting for these families because these lists are growing they are long you're going to see the data um so I'm here tonight to share that and hopefully this board this group looks at this seriously and grants us some additional students so I'm going to begin we have a PowerPoint make it a bit exciting keep everyone awake student enrollment cap discussion with the Allentown School District I guess there's a little um pause here I don't know Jose if I'm am I hitting it right yeah there's a delay typically pretty
064long delay oh there we go I'm sorry thank you Allison so just an overview for those who don't know anything about executive we have some new board members I presented here nine years ago there's a lot of new faces in the room um I'll talk about our team I'll talk about the school our team the services briefly the services that we offer is very important when it comes to our proposal uh the growth or the student life and the growth we've seen over the years and the growth we're experiencing right now the wait list what that looks like then our proposal and just a brief conclusion I do have a question answer or questions I'm not sure if that's going to happen I know you really can't speak much about it but it's there uh
065just give that that uh slight delay I I clicked so just pair with the the presentation oh here we go so we were founded in 2014 in this room 9-0 vote uh we started this school September 9th of 2014 we were approved May 22nd so we started pretty quickly after the fact a lot don't know we're a 501c3 non-profit organization a lot do not know also we served 19 school districts that was not Our intention Our intention was to support Allentown when we made our application there is a giant demand this wait list I speak of is just not in Allentown there is also an out of District wait list we just entered into a partnership with Lehigh Valley Health Network it's a 20-year partnership in that partnership is 10 million dollars in scholarships for
066our students in a field house and some other things that are happening over at the school that was negotiated by myself and others and granted because of our reputation and because of what we've done with uh coordinated Health at the time then Lehigh Valley Health Network we're very proud of that we have a career pathway also I'll talk about build into that our team has over 150 years of experience in education 150 at the senior level 150 at the mid-level for those who don't know our expertise prior to Executive School transformation and turn around in Philadelphia for 10 years we turned around some of the persistently dangerous schools like Olney High School Simon Gratz Fells high school and then a long list of middle and elementaries and we've offered that to the district over the
067last nine years and we've had discussion with the cabinet that's a little different and and the board because we are all about collaboration I see you're in Chester I did a little work in Chester also um I clicked it hold one second here we go just Services brief Services we offer we do offer an mtss program supplemental academic programming ESL special ed 504s related Services everything you're going to see in a traditional public we're going to offer speech nursing school psychology occupational therapy Physical Therapy it's all in-house all built into our program student life we are members of the PIAA in high school and middle school we also are involved in elementary clubs and teams we do participate often with ASD teams it's very important to us that we do we offer up our facilities
068to ASD often as well we have after school clubs Student Activities student government and Community volunteer opportunities we built this Charter around Community nine years ago if you were in the room you would have heard community community community we stood true to that and we'll continue to it's very important to us that we support our home there's our growth so this is why we're here the growth has has been been large over the years year one we started at 490 students we're now at that numbers incorrect we're now at 1383 students we are kindergarten to 12th grade for those who don't know we have three schools built into one since the Inception due to the quality of student services offered executive has experienced tremendous growth 490 was built into the charter there's growth built into
069the charger Charter you see where the charter ended and where we've continued to grow a little bit and that's why we're here tonight to talk about that however growth has been stagnant the last three years due to caps that are imposed by the Allentown School District the next bullet is very very important we over enroll for a conversation we had last year in the negotiations with the school district we over enrolled the 920 students that means we pay for 10 students that's a hundred thousand dollars roughly if you want to look at it and find financial terms we did that because there was discussions in negotiations prior years that we didn't have a large wait list available because for those who are in education you know if you're capped at 9 10 and students move
070and we drop below 9 10. we bill under 910 it doesn't look like we have a wait list because the backfield takes a couple days so now we over enroll by 10 to show the school district and everybody else that our waiting list exists so 920 ASD students are at executive every single day give or take depending on Mobility one second and here's our wait list so you'll see in 2019-20 we were around a thousand we just continued to grow a thousand uh or Eleven Hundred to thirteen hundred that's our projected number for this year 1400 it should be noted we opened up the portal March 1st we're over 800 students enrolled ASD pre-enrollment right now we project that we'll be at 1400 students this year so we've collaborated our collaboration our community piece is
071very very important to us you'll see that's actually the first bullet is a story that uh that was the headline from a WFMZ story executive attended or was worded a little different but we attended with dear of Allen in Building 21 at Governor Shapiro's inauguration we were included in that story with ASD which we took pride in I think that's important executive completes your complete yearly Financial audits to remain compliant and fiscally sound I I think the Board needs to know these couple bullets we comply with all legal requirements we comply with our Charter that was originally approved by the Allentown School District in 2014 and our renewal Charter we are looking at a renewal here soon again and then we pride ourselves on very important bullet we pride ourselves on good working relationship with
072the Allentown School District that's important to us that's not fluff that's true people in the room that know me know that's true through our community again is a pillar when we talked nine years ago about forming this chart or Community was a heavy pillar of our discussions around if we were going to be approved or Not by this board what we do and this is a small amount of things we do in this community and ASD is invited to every single thing we do we do now we host the Puerto Rican uh Day parade and Festival we have Puerto Rican preservation Society here tonight we do Sports clinics camps and events all open to Allentown school districts seasonal celebrations Trunk or Treat turkey toy giveaways clothing and food giveaways we do things with the city
073we did the bridge opening we do civil service exams we do police academy graduations at the school we do Health Department events we partner with the Iron Pigs our facilities are very important to us we pride ourselves on having good facilities not just building new facilities but when they are built taking care of them we take pride in our building so we built Founders Hall which is our gymnasium for those who do not know that is uh something we built five years ago and that's been open to the public often uh it provides more opportunities for our students in their educational experience we're currently building a field house right now that's what the partnership of Lehigh Valley Health Network took a lot of work to negotiate that but that's that's not coming out of our
074budget trust me on that that's going up and that'll be done by Thanksgiving when that is opened up that is going to enhance our community the Allentown Community we're going to offer many many different camps clinics programs showcase games our future plans that's a plan right there of a playground that's going to happen includes playgrounds uh two playgrounds actually you know for elementary schools and then our ultimate goal is to build a PIAA athletic Stadium because we purchased the land next to the school that'll also be opened up the flag League's Allentown School District middle school teams our teams those type of things graduations events we have one Stadium we have Jay Bernie Trump we can use another state and by the way so our proposal is this executive proposes at ASD amend the current
075Charter to allow executive to add additional 90 ASD students this would allow executive to meet the needs of the Allentown students who work collaboratively with ASD that's under 10 percent of our wait list that's our ask I thank you all and uh if there's any questions if you're allowed to ask them I'm here and I thank you all and I have a lot of respect for what you do yes I have a question yes do you have a morality cause before your employees yes okay so since you do have that please tell me why that there was a Twitter video going around with your school leader and another teacher but yet that the woman in the was not was let go but the but the school leader is still there that was a twit that
076was Twitter that was also showing students that was uh it's on Twitter that's incorrect and it's not our employee both are not our employees APD ncps and executive investigated that video and no one in the video is an executive staff now if they were they would be fired um okay that I don't believe because okay well then you can talk you can talk to the council you can talk to APD and you can talk to CPS they all investigated this independently and we also invent investigated it that person's face both faces were on there okay that that's your opinion the next thing I want to say is that you have an employee who is the community engagement who is Mr Mr Mike Watts solve that Twitter but yet at the same time that Twitter was
077out he put out the um Infamous Ortiz Arc um name calling and name calling video at the same time that was going on in your school but yet he put that out about someone else another organization I'm not sure what Mr Watts does on his on his personal page that is not an executive page but he's also um he's okay I'm not sure I don't know what you're referencing I can surely look into it okay to it but I'm referenced to it okay I can look into it happened and yet he put that out there but yet there was a you know trying to pick a toothpick out of somebody else but had a beam in his own eye you know and that's something I don't understand I don't understand that at all when you're
078gonna put when you're going to say one thing about someone else and then you're doing this is just the same thing because to me that video that Twitter was predatory and it was shown to students okay that's completely wrong no that's incorrect and it was investigated that's your opinion you you can have your opinion it was investigated by the police in CPS yes it is okay okay I think that was completely wrong and I needed people to understand that that Twitter was out there that that video was out there at the same time the orgy spark video was out there I don't know anything about the Ortiz Arc video your employee does now okay I don't know anything about it it's not not school related make sure that that the that the public knows this
079also um what we pay what 17 about 17 000 per child anywhere it depends on the special ed number especially it goes up to like 27 000. yeah I'd say it's more like 12. I need I need for our for Allentown to understand the equity lens from the equity our children you're sitting there you're you're comparing apples to oranges on this one you're comparing what we have and what they have we only get from this from other thing that we collect in the past Paris and from the state ten thousand dollars ten thousand dollars per student of course Google and our students we are a walking District from the equity lens from the equity lens now Charter Schools they get transportation some markets don't get our children don't get that yet yes thank you transportation
080and they get more money per student at the charter schools that's not correct yes it is there's a pass-through it's there's a percentage that's a pastor and we do not get reimbursed from the state yeah that changed but there's a pastor there's a percentage that's taken on Transportation by the way right that's half but before our kids were walking in the rain in the snow but that's when that's another reason why a lot of people were leaving our school district I know we got a lot to work on however we need to know the whole story don't give me half a story give the whole story to everybody then can make up their minds about what we are doing here at ASD and where you want to put your students and why this is like
081this they have this we don't got that you do so I understand that and I thank you very much for for your presentation and what you're doing in the in the school district however I don't want our students with our parents to think that we're not doing nothing to change it because we are what's the choice about that's what choice is all about they choose to go to Allentown School District we support that choice we support that it's not a good choice everybody know the whole story yeah and I'll gladly answer any questions with anyone on the board the cabinet Council the public the community I do it all the time I we try to remain as transparent as possible you've been on campus the board's been on campus come by anytime come unannounced thank
082you thank you but like I said this is what we they need to know I've been at the school yeah I was there oh yeah it was great to have you pardon it was great to have you come back um and I'm well because our students are there yeah absolutely you should be there our students are there and that's what that's you know there are students y'all just house educated not housing and we're educating them properly yes so thank you yes thank you so I just want to know I just want all of us to know every you know what what the inequities are because it is it is not Equitable Equitable what what's going on with this what public versus Charter yeah yes it is it's apples for apples thank you apples for apples
083it's Furthest Thing from apples and oranges come back again thank you anyone else I have a question did you explain to us um Mr leisig the pastor the past question the money the money's received by the District of percentage is then taken by by the district to support auxiliary services like a transportation I'm not sure the exact percentage but there's a percentage that exists that is taken by the district to pay for transportation and support services support services that work with Charter Schools the CFO or someone who's here would understand the pastor I don't know exactly uh Miss Conover what that number is but it exists there's a percentage that is that is taken by the district for the support services that they offered the charter school excuse me the stats stories rates so let
084me start over Charter School law has a statutory formula in it that uh determines what the district's rates are on an annual basis and pde has created a form called the pde 363 form that is an aid that school districts use to calculate their individual rates because every rate for every school district in the state is different because the formula that's in the charter school law for the reimbursement rate for Charter Schools is based on the school district's expenditures as opposed to the expenditures that the charter school is incurring on an annual basis for its own students so every year I'm looking at Mr Fazio just because he's here right now every year the school district takes its budgeted expenditures for the prior year fills out the 363 form there are various uh exclusions that
085are part of the formula in the charter school law which is encompassed within the 363 form and some of those exclusions or deductions as they might be called um that get calculated into the formula so a school district is going to exclude its Federal expenditures for example because the charter school gets its own federal funds if they're entitled they're an Lea they get their own federal funds and they get that money separate from the school district based upon the population of students that the charter school enrolls because their population might be different than the school district's population so there are as part of that methodology for calculating the rates there are different exclusions that are taken from the district's budgeted expenditures and ultimately those those that calculation arrives at two numbers one is a rate
086that is for students who are not special education students and I believe the district's current rate for this year is around ten thousand seven hundred dollars a little less yes give or take yes um for non-special Education students and for special education students regardless of their disability status or their needs the rate is approximately 27 000 and change um if you were happen to be here last week or listening I believe Mr Linderman and his his budget presentation talked about what the rates might look like for next year because they are based on this year's expenditures budgeted expenditures and those rates are going to be going up I don't remember what the Regular Ad rate was but I know the special ed rate is over twenty nine thousand dollars so that is how the rates
087are calculated each year the district does receive some reimbursement for transporting charter school students as part of the state fiscal code but it's not the complete cost for it but this but the district does receive some reimbursement as well but that is the only state payment that the district receives associated with services that are given to Charter School students in it other than what money you get from basic Ed subsidy or or other state funds that are not not specific to Charter School enrollment so what is our rate per student in Allentown School District the Blended rate no just for Allentown School District yes yeah so so right now it's approximately ten thousand seven hundred dollars Mr Lasik same might be a few dollars more than that I'd say if you belong to both like
08812 to 15 depending you know how many special ed students you have in the building that's a determining Factor the if you're talking about an average or a blended rate of of the regular Ed rate and the special ed rate that's going to change every year because it's dictated as Mr Lasik said by the percentage of special ed students who actually enroll in charter schools and that's not just his the charter school funds but the totality of them like 12 I would say 12 to 15 are your special ed students I don't know that number right now there are some charter schools that have much higher percentages school students get home I think she wants the Blended just of Allentown School District in general and then the executive in general well the rates are the
089same for all Charter Schools right so the same rate regular Ed or special it is paid to every Charter School uh in which an Allentown resident student enrolls so the rate itself is not going to change how much money the district pays to those individual Charter Schools is dictated by the enrollment in those schools and and if there's it's you can't really calculate there if you're looking for a blended rate for how much you pay to that charter school would depend on the special the percentage of special ed students that are enrolled there I think yes so I was looking at from the equity lens like I said the fact that we don't get transportation and they do that's Charter law uh that goes back to 97 right I don't even know the district is
090required to provide transportation to and from charter schools for its resident students how you go about doing that is within your discretion good enough thank you uh Mr lysac for explaining that but I want to make a point because I was listening and for years I've been hearing this it's always Charters versus public school and we should not be against each other I said this before that it should be our goal Charters as well as the public school district we should come together and ensure that we get what is needed for each and every one of our students now I will say this when I got on this board in 2017 I had three students in the public school and I had one son in charter I'm not against Charters I will never be against
091charters I have my concern when it comes to Charters and what um politics is trying to do in terms of separating us and educating our kids or not educating our kids but I've never been against Charters what I will say is from 2017 to now I charge this school district to educate our students and to be able to come back and show us what we are doing to educate our kids and what the expectation looks like in terms of bringing our students back home and I'm still sitting here asking what are we bringing them back home to with that being said I will not hold our students hostage from getting whether it be 50 20 90 slots to Executive Education I'm not going that road because we've done left we lost a superintendent there's a
092lot of turnover in this District there's a lot of stuff that's going on that myself as a board member who's sitting here on this board for the years that I've set here I can't explain myself last year this time I was doing a commercial for Allentown School District saying that we're not there yet but we're going in the direction that we need to go in today I'm questioning a lot of things we see a lot of people moving a lot of videos a lot of promises and at the same time we're talking how much money is going out the window but nobody's talking about educating our students imma said I can't promise you I'm not gonna say it again we talk about school to prison pipeline day one I said we started losing our kids
093in the Middle School everybody's all yeah yeah yeah but then when we get up and we do these fancy presentations we start talking about okay through fifth grade and we have one or two high school students that's getting Awards and being represented and being rewarded and recognized that's the school of prison pipeline I want to see more effort as it relates to our middle school and high school students I don't want to Omit our babies Elementary but we got them as parents maybe even becomes more difficult as parents when they reach Middle School Mr Lasik I will not vote against giving you those slots thank you and it has nothing to do with Allentown School District against the charters or Executive Education it has everything to do with educating our kids wherever they can be
094educated it's time for us to stop and the parents who are at home taxpayers who are at home who may be looking or feeling like you know that's our tax money going out you guys get up and let them come in the room and start holding us accountable because we're here to educate our students if we start bringing those numbers back and I see people pulling out slates and educating our kids any and every way we can and bringing those numbers up reading and math that's what we need to focus on reading a map because even if we do the skilled jobs if you can't do the paths to math you're not going to get far when we start reporting and showing a good report card just like we tell our students at home when
095we start showing our report cards and showing what we're doing as a board and as a district then we can come right back to the same room and if I'm on this board I'll say I'll I'll say okay that's enough we got it but right now we don't have it that's not how I'm feeling I'm just being honest and I'm one of nine so I wish you the best in your efforts thank you word Paula um I mean I just had a couple questions um and I'm just trying to grasp some of this because I wasn't here nine years ago um the same with what Ms Conover said I'm never against giving a student an education especially from where I came from I realized the education is probably the best way out it's not playing
096sports it's not being lucky and getting noticed it's just having an education so you mentioned um nine years ago you came to us and you asked for room for Allentown students but then you said the goal changed was there a promise made nine years ago that you would only serve Allentown students no there was no promise when we originally did it our our Focus was on Allentown because of the condition of the district uh in our in our program program model was going to be attached to the niche ultimately as a business model keeping our students here post graduation in Allentown to work in Allentown the demand just Rose especially with Bethlehem you know we have close to 400 Bethlehem students now so we have the room we have the space we don't want to
097deny students uh this choice so we per the charter allowed to take students outside of Allentown and that's what we did to serve the need and the demand from the parents of other communities other districts but Allentown students come first and foremost the 910 are in that building um on a daily basis we don't we don't drop below those 910 Allentown students that we serve so this is a promise for the next 90 to be only Allentown students and stay that way those would be Allentown students yes sir what you you didn't give a number but you said that you could hold more students what's the number what's the max our magic number in the building we've talked about 1800 total with the building and the space that remains we're not looking for a student
098grab we're looking to serve with high quality not watering down any type of way but to serve these students that are are interested are these families that are interested in choice and fill our building up that's about all we have left in the building you've seen the building you know the size of the building it's pretty much now all renovated we have a chunk left that we're hoping we can bring in some students and fill that entire building up with students and other tenants you also mentioned 10 million dollars in scholarships what were they for those are for career a career pathway with Lehigh Valley Health Network we identify a Junior and senior they push down all the way into Kindergarten now at Lehigh Valley Health networks on campus pretty much every day but when
099they identify 11th and 12th grader um and and they assess where they want to go within the network they offer close to 700 different career opportunities in the network once the student hits 12th grade and really zeros in on a career opportunity with the network the network will put them through college at no cost it's basically an academic scholarship they leave college with college paid and and they receive a five-year contract with the network for whatever position that may be that's built into our Arrangement over the next 20 years with the network how many students from the Allentown School District or from the Allentown City have graduated this is the first year we just signed the contract we have 15 students present in the in the program I don't know the exact number of Allentown
100in the program but I would say it's probably heavy I would say it's close to 80 percent of the students that are in the program out of the 15. David you may know this um are Allentown I think you're in the program correct excuse me the large majority are in that program yes it is offered to all our students but the majority are Allentown students so the majority is going to be our gun I just meant overall in your school I'm sorry I just went overall in your school how many student Allentown students are have graduated from the school oh this is our fifth year we've graduated about a hundred a year so we're close this will be our fifth year so over I'd say 500 students have graduated uh come this year I don't
101know the exact Allentown number but I would say 80 90 of them are Allentown okay but the other question wouldn't matter so I have a couple of questions um one is how is the pssa scores trended for the past five years with executive I don't have the exact data but I would say it's equivalent if better than ASD when it comes to the pssa scores I and I apologize I don't have them in front of me can you say if the students are trending upwards and um academically yeah above 50 or I would I would hope it's in that range yes one thing I left out today in the presentation on how I missed it is though we have these PA ready index scores building scores we scored a 68.2 that's that's that's not that
102impressive but when you look at all the scores in Allentown that's number two the only School in Allentown that beat us when it comes to the building score PA ready score is Parkway we beat every other charter school as well pssa is folded in that I don't know exactly the number I can surely get it for you okay good I would like to see those numbers I think it's good for the parents and everyone to see how you guys are excelling in that area my second question is it's a question that I get a lot and I would like for you to answer that so you guys are able to receive a lot of funding and resources for your students in the millions and you mentioned tonight that you guys were able to pay for
10310 students out of your pocket is it possible I don't even know if legally this is possible but I'm going to put the question out there is it possible that if you do gain more students from ASD that you would be able to split that cost or even cover it because you know we've all been advocating we've all been going asking the state for more money it's no um secret where we are in Allentown school district and we want to be able to provide the same education to the students that are here where we don't have the option to do a lot of people we have to make sure that the students that are here are covered as well and I do believe in your model I've been been to your school and I've I've
104said it before this is a school model that I think I would like to see in other schools I don't know the behind the scenes stuff but I know from what I observed um as far as the building the way it looks and things like that I would like to see that for our students as well and we have schools that are built in the 1800s that we really need to take care of so would that be possible that executive could split that cost with AST it would have to be looked at we'd have to Circle up as a team get my CFO involved to see exactly if we'd be able to pull that off or not 90 45 students like maybe we can do 90 maybe we can do 30 or we can we
105can we can talk about it we're we're taking care of 10 right now and I understand old buildings this is the only building I've ever had that has extra space and it's not falling over I was in Philadelphia for 10 years I understand the conditions of the building it's and it's uh we're blessed to have that building yeah at this point but we'd be open to talk and negotiate that's what we want to do we want to talk come to the table together and have discussions to support each other again we're in this together I think Miss Conover said that last board meeting yeah I think that's it thank you oh you're welcome that's wrong hello hello um every day multiple families in Allentown are experiencing homelessness what services does executive offer to families that
106are experiencing homelessness we have a few absolutely we understand the problem we have inside Support Services counselors social workers uh that push outside with crisis teams we work with crisis teams we work with you know when uh rooster was here um he was the homeless liaison for the district we worked closely with him and then we work closely with CPS and APD to provide supports but inside the building we have multiple school counselors and and social workers present that are able to handle those type of crises Provide support uh the best way we can they're always challenging living in a hotel potentially or living you know on the streets somewhere it depends on the situation and scenario but we have a pretty skilled team that can help the best way they can you know our
107Partnerships also with tools for Success we provide many people in the community clothing food diapers as well as executive students that don't have the clothing we do that inside the best we can and we do have a lot of connectivity to the churches to the Puerto Rican preservation Society these big groups these activists in our community are always there to help and whatever help we can provide we try to find it so specifically if you had a family in your school that just literally became homeless have nowhere to go sleeping in the park right now walk me through the steps of what will be done for that family potentially do a fundraiser first try to help them the best we can with some type of dollars and then we'd hook them up with tools for
108Success immediately with the churches as well we got again real strong connections with the churches and then push into the city however we can to try and provide some type of support to get them relief we've dealt with fire victims we've dealt with homeless families before every situation is different and we Circle as a team and try to find the best solution as fast as we can because it's it's a rapid situation thank you you're welcome thank you Mr Palmer I I just had two more things I just thought of what what's the amount of Allentown students that stay all the way through like what's the percentage I can get you that number I'd say it's over 90 I would think um if I could just guess off the top I can get you that
109exact number I know it's high I guess that and overall student and could I get like the causes for Why students leave Mobility number one you see the same moving out of the area moving we had to remove the Florida yesterday I think uh it's constant in this community you know that it is constant Mobility is one of our biggest challenges being disgruntled it's very very small we do an exit interview with every family that leaves us we want to know why I want to know why when I see this enrollment happen I personally want to know why they're disenrolling and if it's something we did we want to solve it we're going to address it try to keep the family if we can't we wish them the best of luck but it there is
110an exit interview process attached to that it's very important to us and last question um how much overall through grants and in kind donations have you received in like let's say the last two years I don't know donation numbers they're they're kind of small outside of the big the big uh Partnerships we have with lvhn uh they're small we do a lot of fundraisers like traditional public will do try and raise money for sports those things donations are are small outside of lvhn we're talking to a couple other corporations that want to attach themselves to us with this career Pathways the new hot button we get our kids careers you know the the corporations paying for the school then they hire them but the donation number I don't know the exact number but I can
111surely get it to you yeah just the grants and I guess the in-kind like including like stadiums and stuff like that okay to that question Mr Palmer I'm going to ask Mr Isaac if you I don't think we have a copy of the charter schools fiscal year 22 audit definitely good so if we can get that because some of that information may be available in there at least for last year it'll be there and I did I thought we did send it over my apologies okay absolutely you'll have that okay and well I guess to go along with that since you're getting the audit um also for I guess there's individuals who are obviously renting in the building how much from them too the way the Rental process works we're a very unique situation with
112our foundation we're a landlord also which most foundations are not ASD is not we are so we're blessed to be able to buy that building through our foundation those tenants pay us rent the way the charter or the way way the mission of the foundation is written any surplus to rentals and bills we put back into the charter school we collect about a million seven in rent after you pay the bills it's not a million seven that's a massive building but whatever Surplus we have available we put back in this school it's getting creative with your dollars just like Lehigh Valley Health Network it's getting creative with our dollars we we happen to really be blessed and stumble into a nice situation with our building but everything goes back into the school things but there's
113some large bills there as well uh when you when you address liabilities and the bills um it's not as much as uh someone may think so yes we have uh we we just actually have a new tenant starting this week Lehigh Valley Children's Center so everyone that's in there one of the reasons why we wanted to buy the buildings we wanted to control the tenants we wanted to make it a community building everybody that's in there is community based we have three day cares and pre-ks in there now and they service the school and Service Allentown do you say no to anyone who wants to rent in the building absolutely we say no based on based on uh fit fit is is the biggest though you just can't put anybody in a school because when
114you look at it the school is directly connected to most everything that's in there so a fabric company approaches us it just doesn't make any sense uh to have a fabric company attached to a school so our mission when we bought the building was to make it a community-based facility um we don't get a lot of requests that at this point anymore because there's really no space we did have an incubator in there we did have plenty of people part of that incubator to support the school now that is uh that is now we've moved on from the incubator because the school has just grown so much Mr Palmer are you interested in seeing the lease agreement between the charter school and the foundation as well as the foundation's 990s yeah okay we'll we'll put
115appropriate requests together tomorrow sure that's okay that's fine good question okay thank you so much for being here this evening thank you thank you have a good evening may I have a motion for the approval of the Personnel report so moved as well as our second Dr Santana is there any discussion seeing none please call the roll Mr Palmer uh this is for personnel Personnel yes but it was discussion I'm sorry I did ask honestly I asked did you watch something you want to add I was I was trying to just put it on hold for a moment yeah Miss Connor come on over did you have something you wanted I just wanted to make just for the record that just wanted to make the comment that I'm getting increasingly concerned with the turnover within
116the district so I just want to make that note I've said it before in other meetings but I'm increasingly becoming more and more concerned with our resignations and um exit interviews for those who are being let go so I just wanted to make that comment um we'll start the roll over again please Mr Palmer uh yes Dr Santana yes Miss well yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover no Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes Miss Brown Noel yes Miss Ortiz yes eight one vote passes may I have a motion for the approval of the financial report so moved and as well is there a second second Mr Palmer is there any discussion seeing none please call the rolls Dr Santana yes Miss will yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover no Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes
117Miss Brown Noel yes Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes eight one vote passes at this time we are only taking public comments on non-agenda items all cards should have been turned in by now I would like to again remind the public of our policy of our comment policy because through that policy any person may address the board in accordance with the procedures and limitations of the policy either on issues 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 who will be ruled out of order once recognized please come to the podium state your name and address for the record and please limit your remarks to three minutes do we have any comment cards for non-agenda items yes
118Miss Susie hello my name is Miss Susie and I've worked for the school district for over 25 years in the food service the district brings up facts like never number of enrollments cost of a meal participation in eating the meal here are some other facts I'd like to share enrollment is not what we can change the cost of the meal is not in our control these are politics upper management curriculum these are high paying decisions that are not made by us participants participation in consuming the meal again that's not up to us that's up to our upper management to put these menus and meal plans together the placement of time for the students how much time they have to eat when they come again that's not our decision that's the principles who decide how their
119building is going to be run the software that records these children it's out of date and again it's not up to us to update it it's above our pay grade so then I ask why are we being blamed for it why are we being punished to say work with less workers work with less time another fact on March 20th 18 positions were eliminated by our interim director again made by very well-paided people not me um since then I had to call 9-1-1 for a co-worker who was taken by ambulance to an emergency room for care she didn't return for five days from the added stress of this less time with the same amount of work four days later I had another co-worker she was out of work for two days she came back under pressure
120because we're short staffed and she could only do two hours where she left and she's still out of work and we're at 10 days she's been out of work this is only my kitchen another fact School Board respectfully you are in a role to hire employees and to enter into contracts with collective bargaining so I invite you please ask us questions get all the information get the information from other people besides these overpaid and upper key player people I invite you ask us and learn all of the facts before you just make these blankets of yes and no on our behalf so again I thank you for your time I yield the rest of my time and I appreciate and respect everything that you do do thank you again Lori Herzog good evening Lori Herzog
121West Allentown I'm here I'm the cook and Alan and I love my job I'm there every day to feed my students and never stop through the pandemic I was putting food out on buses it was going all out through Allentown I did it over at South Mountain I did it in Allen I've been through this um the thing is the students don't have enough time to eat I have three cafeterias at my school that I put food in they cut two jobs and then I have right now I have two people out because of illness so now I'm closing down lines my lines are long and these kids aren't standing in the lines to eat or if they do and they get through they take something off the tray and the rest goes in the
122trash so you're throwing money away by cutting your jobs um one other thing I have to say I'm here for another co-worker she's not here tonight but um with the cost of Health Care that you want to put on us workers she's telling me she's working just to pay her health care then she has no money to pay her bills no so hopefully we can get back to the table and start negotiating our contract thank you Aliana Cates hi my name is Alina Cates I live in the West End of Allentown and I'm a helper in the kitchen at South Mountain now what I wanted to say was as an Allentown resident and a voter I would like to ask the board what are you going to do for us we're losing working hours we're
123losing Health Care and we're losing a lot more than that and we just want to be appreciated and included in everything and that and everything the school does and another thing last year there was extra pay for security for teachers for you know helpers and stuff we didn't get it until we started emailing and complaining then they decided to give it to us this year again other teachers and everybody are getting extra pay we're not included we're never included we always get basically the crumbs or nothing we didn't get nothing during covet and it seems like we don't get nothing now nobody cares about us even though we do a lot for the students not only do we feed them and we tried to accommodate you know health issues diets and stuff like that and
124we still never get appreciated of what we do and everything we do we get our hours cut we get everything else done to us but nothing we don't get appreciated that's all I'm asking is for us to get appreciated in the kitchens because we do keep the school running also thank you Kathleen Stephen 's hi I'm Kathleen Stephen and I reside in Slatington Pennsylvania I recently joined the Allentown School District working in as a helper in the cafeteria a major career change after 30 plus years because I love children so working short-handed has really put us in a situation where we're hurrying to put the food on the tray the presentation it doesn't look nice and who can blame the students for really not even wanting to try the food and to walk away or
125throw it away my main point is really thinking about what's most important here which is the children our students thank you Claudia my name is ludia I live in Allentown I work for Albert in school just I want to say I want the kids taking food and put it in trash I wish you get perfect for them to feed them not feed garbage that's it thank you Laura Nunez food hello my name is Flora Nunes um I work for the islands the name said it all Child Nutrition services let's talk about food especially processed food if this person's food it's not good for adults why give it to our children in our school my whole breakfast and fake chickens we need to be providing healthy food choices for the kids I would like to ask
126a question and I know you guys can answer but will you feel your children's processed food just because it's cheaper I don't think so thank you najal Ayub my name is and I've worked for that District over 13 years I'm in direct contact with the elementary students and enjoy their stories I notice when they are sad or happy I can assure you that if they are sick it's a good chance I will contract do you want me to continue being available to the students please help me keep my sick days I need them thank you Denise De la Rosa hi I'm Denise De la Rosa I went to Allentown School District um I work for the food service a lot of the kids want more choices and I think like what you do for 21
127building I think we should try again back at the other schools certain days do something different that we can get our counts back up for them to eat um that's pretty much it Maurice Mohammed foreign thank you for the opportunity to speak before the school board this evening I like to wanted to um talk about not sure if this was supposed to be on agenda items or not but I took out my child from out of the Allentown School District and um 2014 and I had 2019 um removed them from uh the Allentown School District as a result of a traumatizing event that took place with my eight-year-old granddaughter that was traumatized and um taking taking and down by a principal whom you guys decide to promote and um I just have a couple other
128questions and a couple facts that I also like to add um I wanted to ask the question of the questionable video that was circulate it um that was known over a year and 20 22 in May that it was known that that video existed and um so now it's still known so it's two years now that that video that questionable video exists about the two uh workers for executive Academy the other questions I have is if it's appropriate for staff to give students money that's a fact that was uh done by executive school school staff member um also a question I have is it appropriate that staff would take students into a room full of football players with the intent of intimidation and to intimidate the student um to get control and obedience and for
129whatever the taxes that's used for um and also just I wanted to also just employ the parents to listen to your students um in 2014 the charter school requested twice for an alternative school and when the alternative school was turned down they requested for a charter school this charter school is being run as an alternative school with alternative results um listen to your your students um you can also look up you can find in Google success school Camelot schools as well as Glenn Mills which have a pattern that speaks to the prisons pipeline uh system that targets our young black and brown boys and children from that age group of five to 17. um lastly I just employed at the school Allentown School District released the right to no requests as well as executive to
130release the right to know that the attorneys are asking for and then at that point you can find out whether these these facts are accurate or not thank you [Music] that concludes okay is there any old business to come before the board yes I have a couple one at a time please yeah sure um first thing I want to bring up when I was when I looked at the attendance report I noticed that there is a large number of virtual students that are not attending and I want us to try to figure out what's happening there because I have gotten some complaints from students that are saying that they are actually logging in but they're being told that they're absent so we need to look into what's going on systematically on there with the virtual
131students that might be one of the reasons why the numbers look as high as they do and if not we need to figure out what's really happening behind that why the virtual students are not showing up because we had a number at over 500 um not showing up so that's one of the um old business I'd like us to look into um the second one is what you have a response to the first one hold for one second oh no okay thank you madam President we will research that Miss Brown Noel and I'll provide it in my superintendent's report thank you okay now okay second um so I brought up um I think two weeks ago about the superintendent policy um that we need to put in place and I think it's I'm sorry no
132four weeks ago or whatever weeks um four weeks ago for the record um so I think it's best um because we know it gets a little bit difficult around here to put stuff on the agenda I think it's best tonight that we vote on putting it on the agenda so we can create this thing because I don't like for us to make promises to the public that we do not keep so for tonight I would like for us to vote to create the policy for the recruitment screening evaluation and Leadership criteria of the school superintendent if someone could first and second that is there a second to that I'll second cherish oh I'm sorry first of all we cannot put this is a non-agended item the only way it can become an agenda item if
133the majority of the board agrees to amend our existing agenda to allow to put this on the agenda and that is as the result of a uh recent change in the Sunshine Law so we cannot just add to the agenda you can make a verbal request this evening to board leadership and the superintendent to include this as a matter of uh something that will come up on the next regularly scheduled meeting you can make that request and then secondly if I understand what you're saying uh you're looking to perhaps modify the job description of the superintendent so what was sent over to me was something from um esba but in the in the policy that they sent over they said that we create the recruitment screening evaluation and Leadership criteria that goes with that and
134there's currently there isn't so we need to create that to make this thing a full okay policy there are a couple of issues and some of it we could discuss even an executive session uh some of those issues are contractual under the terms of uh Dr Burke's contract that have already been established and if we're going to modify any part of that Dr Brooks has to be involved in a discussion regarding that it's not to modify Dr Burke's contract it's for anything that happens in the future that is in place so I don't know if there's yeah so this is this is for Fusion I'm not planning on losing Dr Bergstrom so okay we want Dr verse to stay but we're looking for a policy to be in place because that was one of the
135things that happened that the public was saying that what we had in place stated that they were supposed to be a part of the process and they weren't so we need to have those things in writing okay I understand so you're talking about uh the creation of a policy that would uh build in a component for Community participation in the event that we are having another hopefully not soon to occur vacancy in the position of superintendent correct okay now I get it I'm a little slow today there's no that that being said we still can't act on it this evening unless a majority of the board says why it wasn't on the agenda for this evening and request that that be on the agenda what I would suggest is that if we need to convene
136a policy meeting or if we need to develop that we have a contract with the school board's Association to develop policy they probably already have a template policy on this already that we could address and that could be brought as an agenda item at an upcoming meeting once we have the draft of the template policy okay all right there's no may we just say that absolutely it will come before you the next time and that we'll have some conversation about the kind of thing you're interested in seeing in the policy okay and we can bring it up at the next Committee of the whole meeting oh it could come up at the next Committee of the whole meeting and it it will get it ready for that okay okay so this is going to be
137on record because I've been asking for policy beans forever put it in writing and everything and it still hasn't happened so this is going to happen this time yes and that that kind of goes to my third thing that goes to my third thing um I would like for us to have a policy meeting because um I brought up at the last meeting about changing um our policies on suspension and um trying to use more restorative practices as far as it goes with our students in discipline so I think tonight if we can vote on or find a way to put that on the agenda at the next Committee of the whole meeting that we can have a policy meeting to discuss um on that issue I need a clarification because there's both policy and
138there's also we have student handbooks in place and my guess is those handbooks are already out for next year Dr Burks I don't know if you want to speak to that we we are working on the student handbook and we do include to and we intend to include some restorative practices we've had that um request I've made that request to our team they're working with leadership across Edition and we want to engage stakeholders so this is not something that we want to do arbitrarily but we want to engage stakeholders so that we are protecting the rights of students we also have been providing professional learning to our staff so that they understand our leadership that we have to protect student rights yeah so we are working under Pennsylvania law the board is required to vote
139on the student code of conduct so therefore uh that will come before you regardless of whether or not you have a policy committee meeting that's already usually driven by the development of the handbook itself which is what the rules and guidelines are per building for student conduct and behavior so that needs to come before the board before they get implemented yes and it's May so you'll get you don't need to have a vote to get that you're going to get that and when the student code of conduct comes before you you'll address it from the perspective that you would like to address it and the majority of the board will rule okay and so and that would become sorry before the board in June in June okay okay so probably soon June you said okay
140I didn't hear you on over has been waiting so as a former policy chair we don't have to ask and if I'm wrong you correct me we don't have to ask to have a policy committee meeting we should be having that policy committee meeting at the same time we're having all of our other committee meetings publicly that is not that's not necessarily clear that's not clear or not true that is uh I don't think your policy supports that and that's one of the reasons why we need so no no I'm not just saying one of the reasons that I think uh president Matheson wants to have a retreat is to use that as a foundation to talk about our governance structure because we need to address that as part of our governance policies to talk
141about how we want to operate and that's a good question so we need to create agency because what happens is our policy is what actually we speak to when we have the issues that we have in our buildings the other part of that is what I was going to say when I was a policy chair when I got on the board many years that I was policy chair when Dr Brown was here we were constantly told hey we're going to come forward we're going to get these policies approved and then following that there's going to be regulations and the regulations is what actually spells out the processes that's put in place at the building levels to ensure that that policy is carried out correctly that was in 2017 it's a 2023. 2021 we stopped having
142that so we but not just that I have yet to have regulations put before me I saw numbers on a little piece of paper what that meant was nothing to me and it was never those regulations never came up I'm just being transparent those those numbers never came up when there were issues in terms of this is the regulation that supports policy number 225. Mr Conover I just want to clarify something the board approves policy regulations are administratively drafted uh they can be shared with the board but the board does not typically vote in districts on administrative regulations I've never seen a regulation okay okay so I'm just making that clear because if we're creating policy but we sit here and we create a policy based on the processes that we feel need to be
143put in place in order to keep our kids educated and safe right then we need to know what that looks like or we at least need to feel comfortable when situations arise arise so I'm saying that back to you Miss Noel we shouldn't have to beg to have a meeting and it's something that we need okay sometimes I feel some things are strategic now we haven't had a policy we haven't had a safety and I can keep going down the line if those are be committee meetings that we're supposed to have as a district then we need to have them and we shouldn't be having this conversation in terms of saying this is what the state of Pennsylvania says or whatever the case may be because my kid is going to be in school in
144the morning and I can't sit here and act like I haven't been here all these years it's one thing if you don't know but when you know you're supposed to say something you finished yeah yeah I'm done those are my three I want to bring up um um another old business um when past system was here last month and he spoke and he got very animated and okay and I said something too um security came up to him security came up to him now we've had I'm gonna go I'm a name call Bob Smith he's animated he's saying whatever he wants to say security has never come up to him so why because a black man was being was being you know about you know what was going on whose daughter we had to have
145to no and this is it we didn't even have it security was done did it on theirselves we didn't ask I didn't because I told him to leave him alone but yet he followed him all the way out and then the police was called no none of us up here asked for that but it was called and it wasn't a problem now we had all these people here like two weeks ago at least one call please they were here this time but they won't call last time but one black man goes up there because he's mad because what happened to his daughter because there were policy that was not followed that was not followed by a school leader and now his poor daughter is going through what he's what she got to go through when
146we didn't want the discipline and we were okay with it now this maybe didn't car charge behind us what we gonna do about that you know okay and then another thing Mr Muhammad came before us before 2019 when his child was a eight-year-old child at an elementary school and the police were called on her on her to restrain her eight-year-old child an eight-year-old child then he took her out of our school district put her an executive and she's being traumatized over there because the school leader offered her money okay these things and then they came to us May 20th 2022 asking us more Mr Muhammad asking him asking us what can we do about what's going on at executive with his grandchildren so we took it so he what it was done was he went
147to the police he went to Allentown Police Department called myself well no it didn't call me called the NAACP where Miss Barbara Redman was a representative for him because of that because they want to make a charge she's putting them over there asked me to come with him which I did over to the police department now I was not she had she was in the interview rooms with the police the police uh the chapter I was not because that was none of my business I was there to support those students because their Allentown districts too yeah then we we walked over here they had a meeting with the superintendent Dr Redmond uh the charter school person and uh Jen Ramos too as well our deputy they all had a meeting I was not in that
148room this was brought forth to our lawyers as well because this is what happened she was continued these children would continue being traumatized by executive so we're you know and now even more so because the the because the parent and the grandparent has asked for the records and it still haven't gotten them yet so this is what is going on you can say what you want to say whatever I understand that however no we're not the best we are not it's it to me that was what happened to that young girl was wrong at our school district in public school and it's even it's just as wrong as it is an executive and now this child is now in Cyber Charter traumatized and going through therapy we got to do better people we have got
149to do better now another child is called a charge why I'm still trying to figure that one out why when we didn't you know there was we understood that that same child that caught that charge at South Mountain she had a knife pulled on her on the bus she had a night pulled on her so she was being traumatized now she really being traumatized because now she didn't call to charge and what do we do what did we do ASD to protect this child now this baby goes to school still and those girls who are bothering her since eighth grade and now jumping on her even more because they know she can do nothing just because that child learned you know a martial art and finally learned how to take care of herself and she
150took care of herself and everybody else was in between so we need to we need to as a school district put our safety plans in place yeah do the things that we need to do to make sure our children get education and the safety that they need but in the meantime we got we got to help this child we have to help this child because now she's being now it's being she's getting a charge and we as a school district need to find out what's going on so I thank you very much that's it for my own business Mr Palmer um I guess uh we kind of just glossed over what Miss Noel Brown asked for you said six people asked for it it can be on the next agenda correct it will be that's
151what I said to her okay it will be all right just making sure yeah we don't need to vote or anything then no we're fine okay yeah okay just making sure because I didn't even hear that part all right is there any new business to come before us Mr Brown so I don't usually it seems like we're never in sync but I feel like we in sync tonight for some reason um so my request is um to add to the policy agenda a policy that supports the board meetings relocation during meetings that are expected to be large numbers so we can make sure that we've given everyone a voice when we know that they're going to meet over capacity um that's my first request my second request is um I would also like to add
152to the next meeting agenda a resolution on how we can hold the safety task force committee without going over the sunshine act because that's the conversation that we've been having since last year um so I just want to make sure that we can have that meeting a safety meeting yes yes a safety issues can uh be an appropriate item of executive session under state law so my question is because for the Safety Committee right we used to have the meetings when I first started the board I've been on the board a year now since then we were told that we were violating the sunshine act we could not have those meetings anymore so since then we have not had a meeting so my request is that we figure out what that is so we can
153start having those meetings again when was that determination made because that didn't come across it was before the retreat multiple times you could have you could have a you could have the entire board sit on a safety presentation in executive session you're talking about yes we'll talk about Safety Committee we used to have safety committee meeting with issues that include people from the community matter of fact we have some in this room and um I mean there's certain Elements by the way the Sunshine Law was modified because I'm going to use an example that has occurred this week in another District okay well after him it was the guy who had a thousand jobs Miss Conover Mr Falco ran those meetings and then Dr Holly major ran those meetings and we're in the um I
154don't know who those people are but we were having them on Zoom that was with Dr Holly major we had a board meeting and in the war retreat was founded foreign but that's when we started having the meetings as a whole on the floor okay there there are two different issues that need to be discussed first of all if you have a Safety Committee the Sunshine Law was amended to allow those to be in confidential executive session give you an example uh and why it should be in confidential executive session because not all of the people who listen to our meetings have great intentions and uh so for example if we identify from a fiscal perspective that on one of our high schools we want to have door or ajar monitors because one of the
155most frequent causes of safety incursions is if a child or a teacher or a student a student or a janitor holds the door open or leaves a door jar to open it creates a security breach in the building we don't want to let the public know exactly which buildings which doors are protected which isn't uh so there are security reasons why you don't want to be as transparent in the safety area as we would like to be perhaps in another area of our operation let's say student discipline you know talking about the rules so I think we need to talk about that issue and Define the extent to which our safety committee meetings would be open for the future discussion we could have a community meeting to talk talk about Community suggestions for safety okay
156but there also is a place for non-community confidential meetings and once again this is an issue that goes to the heart of the governance of this district and we need to talk about this as a board as to how we want to operate and I think there was handily what I'm hearing right now is a misconstruction of the understanding of committees and how we were structured and how is it applies to the safety committee meeting because we do have that option to do a safety committee meeting confidentially for security purposes so what you're hearing is that we need to begin we need to find another Mr Falco and we need to resume our meeting like no we we need to talk about we need to talk about the method in which we resolve the meetings
157and then we talk about that's what I'm saying yeah that's the process we need to agree and not presume the process we need to uh talk as a board the process because you might talk about it and may say maybe we don't want to have committees anymore maybe we want to structure it this way you have the right to discuss that well it's possible yes that's really part of what I would like for for the structure I was hoping we could do a board workshop and do that kind of thing safety in particular if we're following uh Mr sultanic's suggestion hold on no no no one second using two different things if we don't have anything in place and I'm I'm listening believe it or not why do we come every month and ask a
158question we don't have anything it's hold over from the past is the answer to that okay so the way things were done before uh some of the Law changes seriously that's what that is that's why that's there it's an urgency that we have a safety meeting we have excuse me we have students coming to school with armed weapons that are loaded sitting in classrooms every week or every other week I'm getting a call from the school that we're on lockdown I was in the building in a lockdown our students are not even aware of danger in the midst of these lockdowns we cannot consistently have these conversations and putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and we know there's issues we have to take care of this so that's the point
159of bringing it up because we're consistently talking about we have to do this but it's not getting done and it maybe it's not important to some people but it's very important to me one as a parent because I have a child in a district but also for all our students it's it's overwhelming so we have to figure it out that's all I'm saying we have to figure it out and we have to figure it out now we can delay it because we've been delaying it now we have new board members on the board and we still delivering it we have a new superintendent and we're still delaying it we cannot do that okay sir thank you that's all I had to say Josh yeah so let's just make these things clear because I feel like
160I keep leaving here within a fog so Mr sultanic you're staying at the next board meeting we're going to or maybe Audrey this is we will have the policy committee meeting as a part of the cow meeting the copy of the whole meeting okay for the next time and what about safety and I'm trying to figure that out because I'm hearing two different uh things um I guess that the ball's back in your court Mississippi recommendation that we do an executive session meeting first on the subject and then uh and then go back to the the kind of Safety Committee that we had before that included community members well first of all is that possible first of all uh who is technically in charge of safety organizationally right now or in our new organizational chart
161that we just approved well currently it's Dr Mitchell So currently and the new organizational structure wouldn't be implemented until July 1st pardon me until technically it's Dr Mitchell right now okay so it would be uh it would be if Dr Mitchell can put something together for then that could be either and I think Dr Mitchell needs to confer with the superintendent whether that be public or uh private presentation depending upon the nature of what's going to be discussed I can't tell you that right now but that certainly can be addressed uh separately to have a Safety Committee report to the board on those issues on the issue of lockdown bringing guns on school property that's already addressed in school code of conduct and the like and I'm not so sure that a policy meeting is
162going to change the policy we're not going to allow weapons today for that airship and I do know that I do know the finance the finance group is also working on policy updates on finance too for the board yes I need clarification on something I can't do I'm sorry I need clarification we're talking about discussing policy at our next meeting um policy is very Broad yeah obviously policy committee needed which will handle the issue that uh this Knowles addressing back yes so that's the only policy that we're discussing right now yeah those are the ones okay I brought up the creation of a policy because remember last meeting we had all of these people here and they stood outside oh that's right you did that and then we request to be moved this time with
163the potential outcome of being the last the same thing there's no policy that states we have to do that it would have been ethical for us to do that but we did not so I want a policy that states when we have a large group it is our policy to relocate so we give everybody a fair chance to be able to come and speak their piece right so those are the two policies that we're yeah it's just okay okay and that that is that is already we already have policy I think that's 006 in place when the pspa format you would need to modify that but I know that there's other discussions that have taken place as to whether or not we want to upgrade other aspects of that policy as part of a more
164comprehensive discussion so and safety as and safety as a separate issue will be addressed so what is this but we're going to have to go through the appropriate channels this is the policy they gave us for public use advertisements okay so a policy was provided to us in our packets you're saying that if she wants to add that piece to make sure that we relocate if we have a large size you're saying that we would have to do that we will have to amend this policy to do that that that's correct that's correct all right clarification right because the purpose of us receiving this document was because we wanted to know if we needed to relocate to another location so this was given to us if there is a policy that states that we need
165to relocate or there's something in addition to this we should have received it this clearly states that we do not have to relocate which gave me the indication that we need to create a policy in case if we need to relocate so if there's something else zero zero six policy zero zero six that should be attached to this we should have received that okay and I will say that it raises we were just conferring a number of complex issues typically in most districts the superintendent makes the determination about the venue because it's not only because of parents and students wanting to come and speak at the meeting there may be weather building related there could be a physical concern in this building that we can't do the superintendent would need to necessarily have the right
166to change the venue of it but because we don't take pre-registration ends for the number of people who's going to come up and for a meeting how do we determine uh when when we know because I before I became a board member I've attend many meetings before I became a board member I've attend meetings as a resident and as a parent and in cases where we expected well you guys expected large groups the meeting would be shifted so why is that not happening all I'm saying is there's no there's not a lot of transparency here because even it was brought to my attention that the superintendent is not the person that made that decision it was supposed to be our board president which I communicated with her and still nothing happened so what I'm saying
167is I didn't I didn't not to me directly oh you did I'm sorry okay thank you because we did speak so what I'm saying is it's frustrating because we're all adults and there's no reason why we should be going back and forth you know we are here to do a work and we can get the work done because we're not being transparent in all honesty we're not doing our jobs and that's what I want so when I sit here I sit here not only for all the students but I also sit here for my child and my children so when we are making decisions or not making decisions I take that personal because it's like you saying forget my child personally so we have to do better I'm I'm tired that's what I'm saying please
168so I don't think the last month it was like I understand it was like 200 people outside there was like 200 people outside this me myself when I came down I did see people at the door but I had no idea was that many people outside while we were in here and what I do know is when I wake up every morning I look look at 69 News in 69 news said that the bus people were coming and we knew that first student we knew that the charter school executive was on the agenda so if you take that situation in that situation and you'd count the seats in the room and the seats in the hallway is my understanding and my feeling that we should have made room for the community and so with that
169being said I don't know who's responsibility it is but I know when you come in here you look at all of us collectively as being responsible but I need you to understand that we had no idea that that was the arrangements and several board members including myself spoke from that board meeting to this board meeting asking for this meeting to be moved to another location so we could accommodate uh the community whether we agree or disagree with whatever's going to take place in that room because we have an obligation to make room for our taxpayers and our parents so I just want that to be clear so to say that I didn't hear it you didn't say or ask for somebody to not accommodate us that's too much power when I say one one last
170thing um just I'm not really sure how we logistically add policies to our next meeting um knowing how executive sessions go and how our meetings go we're going to tack on policy I I don't know how that happens I don't know how we do that without being here until four o'clock in the morning I don't know about anybody else but I'm not going to be here until four o'clock in the morning so what I'm saying is what I suggest and I don't know the legality part of it that that be done in a separate meeting not tacked on to our next meeting the board has the prerogative to call a special policy committee meeting or establish a special policy committee nice under the circumstances you have you know you have the right to do that
171and I think you know I understand the different levels of urgency that exists with respect to policy and policy is not just these policies these are the policies that just came to mind we have to likely go through many district policies to update them to be in accordance with where you want to be and I think there's a longer term discussion is how does this board want to handle policy moving forward because you are a policy making entity and and and having the discussion and I understand you're frustrated tired want to get some of these issues done but there are like I can tell you there are likely even more important policy issues that we haven't even talked about today I agree so what I want to say is and anybody can agree disagree but
172I really don't care um people I prefer to have them public and this is why one transparency but two honesty is everything and I feel like this whole discussion we just had was not an honest discussion so I can't trust the people that I'm here collaborating with to make sure that we are implementing good policies in the district I feel like if we do this an executive session no no the policies have to be public policy meetings it becomes one of the Committees in rotation on the first meeting of the month okay right that's good to know thank you does that make um clarification I wasn't suggesting that it not be public I was suggesting that it not be done on in the same evening but on just because of the good advertised special night
173for Republicans I just I just want to say um from my standpoint if I have to be here till 2 A.M I'll be here till 2 A.M I signed on to fix whatever is wrong with this district and if it means I have to stay here late I'll stay here late I mean I've been here with those two over there until 1am for tax discussions um I've been out with a fractured foot walking around doing what I need to do so I can be in this seat to do what I need to do so if we need to start getting things on the agenda I say we do that now and stop pushing things back that's been this distance but I have to get up in the morning to go to a job that's why
174that's why I made that comment so do I and I'll go right to that job after this okay well I I mean that's you okay two okay so we absolutely we will have a policy committee meeting whether it will depend on the amount of business for the next uh uh Committee of the whole night whether that meeting takes place on that night or whether we have to have a special nights for policy that that sentence make sense to people but it will happen on the safety issue may I request that an officers meeting on Monday we create a plan and then get back to you with that plan I don't like that request because in the offices meeting um the entire board is not there the officer meeting that took place last week in reference
175to you know the if we're going to transfer the um space if we was going to relocate somewhere else I'm still I still haven't received feedback from that so I don't feel that I will receive accurate information so maybe that needs to be done in executive session then um because I should format if you prefer we can do the the executive session we can't do it public then I say we can do it public um and executive session but you heard his worries about that yes yes yes so then executive session okay all right that works thanks is there any other questions sorry I don't want to prolong but I want to make sure Administration is clear about the request what the word is requesting so we are prepared to present a proposed policy to
176the board as it relates to our meetings when they're going to happen how long are people talking on that so we are working on that currently so that is one also I do think that we have to look at our a timeline because there are many policies and many that we have not looked at bylaws that the board has not looked at in quite some time as well so Administration is respectfully requesting that we have an opportunity to chart out a timeline that we present to the board as well as the public to say what are we working on because as you know many of the board members have been aboard for quite a long time it's a long process to update policies so and I want if I think if we share publicly what
177we're working on and people won't feel like we're hiding things or we're not addressing things I think it will be helpful full because it does take quite some time I can be a part of it so I said yes and I know that we have been talking about living in anybody talk about time we're looking at policies the best practices no we we were being responsive to the conversations that I've had with all of each of you most of you about the meetings what happened so we were going to talk with board leadership and propose whenever the appropriate time would be what we think might be helpful for your consideration foreign that was just an example of the policy itself I'm not saying now we let people talk for 30 minutes per person or six
178seconds per person I'm just saying that we're looking at comprehensively as at the policy because it's our responsibility to be responsive to what we're here may I have a motion to adjourn I I Miss Harris second right all in favor