001thank you do that I need a man okay he's working on it no not yet I've never been here he was telling me wait a minute thank you beautiful Cuba all right [Music] when I came to me I think I may have left my phone up on the table double check wait wait wait wait wait wait no found it are we okay Ms Ortiz are you on Zoom yes I am okay then uh please start us with education good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the education Committee of the whole meeting of the board of directors of the school district for the city of Allentown for today January 12 2023 prior to tonight's meeting and executive session was held to discuss confidential and legal matters the board welcomes and invites public comment you
002may address the board on agenda items and or non-agenda items the first opportunity for comments is at the beginning of the meeting and is limited to agenda items only if you choose to address the board please fill out a comment card and hand it to the deputy superintendent Jen Ramos common cards are located on the podium near the door once recognized please come to the podium state your name and address for the record and kindly limit your remarks to three minutes at this time Dr Burks our active superintendent do you have any remarks good evening thank you Miss Conover good evening School Board of Directors to the public administration tonight on tonight's education Committee of the whole meeting we are excited to present several items for consideration that speak to the work of our teams
003and partners in supporting students families in our community as we focus on student learning in terms of approvals we have on this agenda we have some approvals uh to approve agreements that relate to our social studies and science science and social studies database system that enhances our K-12 students learning experiences through their school libraries and I'm also excited that the District administration has solidified our dates for graduation um with the it's going to be graduation will be held at PPL Center and graduation will take place in June and I want to say June Oh I thought it were in my notes but June 13th 14th and 15th did I get that right Dr off 12 13th and 14. thank you uh we're equally excited that the 22 2023-24 high school program of studies which details
004the course program offerings for our 9 to 12 students we will have a draft tonight to present to you uh Dr Sawyer will be sharing an overview of the current changes um and recommendations along with some additional offerings that we will come back to the board for approval in a few weeks and finally for consideration we would like to expand our partnership with the United Way of our end of Greater Valley leave High Valley to expand our community schools partnership at ramos school thank you Miss Conover thank you Dr Brooks at this time we're only taking public comments on agenda items do we have any cars I have no cards on agenda items thank you Mrs Ramos okay at this time we'll go to our first agenda item I will ask that um Dr Michael
005Roth come forth and present us with the ASD State performance 2021 is that what we're going to do uh we're going to um we asked to remove that from the agenda for this so we are going to yes and then we will um share that with the board and present that in one of our future meetings thank you Dr Ralph I would ask that um I would like to make mention that this was something would you be able to brief um since it is on the agenda sure can you just let them know what that is and what our plan is moving forward yes thank you so much for that opportunity so um the team uh since uh September has been working on putting together a presentation for the board that highlights uh the progress
006um that our students have made in terms of their performance on pssas in reading math and science um at the third grade through eighth grade level and then on our Keystone exams in algebra one um biology and um literature and so what we will have for the board is a historical look back at our performance from approximately 2016 through 2022 so you'll be able to see how grade level bands of students in those different areas have worked I have scored and then also looking at it from cohort groups so looking at how students at a you know when they were in third grade how they scored when they were in fourth grade how they scored all the way down and then we'll also talk about of course how the pandemic had an impact on not
007only testing and what testing actually happened during the um the two years that we experienced it kind of Full Force but then also talk about the actions that the school district has planned and has taken and continues to plan to address um the performance of um the performance at each of those grade levels and how that relates to our comprehensive plan and our individual school goals thank you very much Dr Ruff my pleasure I'm also going to stay here because I'm taking oh okay so you can proceed you're going to do the PebbleGo renewal yes I am okay thank you very much uh this evening on tonight's agenda we are requesting the board's approval to renew the PebbleGo cater to social studies and science Library resource database used by the Allentown school districts K-2 students
008at a cost of 24 286.50 um what PebbleGo is it's an award-winning K-12 social studies and science resource database that allows our students with the help and support of their teachers and our Librarians at each of the elementary schools to be able to access developmentally appropriate articles that enhance their learning within the K-12 within excuse me K2 grade level bands thank you very much may I have a motion to move the PebbleGo renewal I make that motion Mrs Phoebe Harris may I have a second second by Mrs Nancy Wilkes um is there any discussion hearing and seeing none I guess um yeah um just when you come back next time can you have the list of the schools too sure there it is available at all I can answer that question now it is available
009in all of our K2 all of our K2 serving schools that would be all 14 of our elementary schools any other discussion for other people thank you Mr Palmer all in favor let it be known by saying aye aye are there any opposes here in CNN this Capstone PebbleGo renewal moves forward to our regular schedule board meeting that will take place on during the 26th of January 2023. at this time we'll move on to number three which is um the site for our 2023 commencement exercise and Ramos thank you Miss Conover um tonight we're asking your approval to move forward the uh license agreement with PPL Center for our 2023 commencement exercises the cost that's been estimated is 25 720 and 25 cents and I want to make sure I say this correctly drf's graduation
010will be held Monday June 12th at 6 30. Allen will be Tuesday June 13th at 6 30 and Building 21 will host their graduation on Wednesday June 14th at 6 30. and this cost is accounted for on our budget are there questions another are there any questions I have a question um this is 25 for all three schools it is one of the three schools yes thank you okay so at this time I may I have a motion to move the site for 2023 commencement exercise um these dates I'm forward to for um to our regular board meeting on January 26th Mrs Brown thank you so much you may have a second second by Miss Nancy will all in favor please let it be known by saying aye aye are there any opposes hearing and
011seeing none this definitely moves forward to our next um Regular board meeting of January 26th this time I'll ask that Dr Brandy's Story come forth please and present our 2023-2024 program of studies thank you uh tonight we're requesting the board's approval for the 2023-2024 ASD program of studies and to move it forward for final board approval at the end of the month um the overarching goal of the program of studies is really to ensure that students are graduate graduating college and career ready over the last three or four years we've really been intentional and strategic about ensuring that we are addressing the recommendations in the curriculum audit findings uh all in standard two three and four addressing the direction and expectation for learning the connectivity and systems equity and assessment and feedback um I'm going
012to give you a brief overview of the program and studies so in each of the areas of math science literacy and social studies we've taken the opportunity to align all of the expectations of what students need to Career Pathways that they're looking for so for example in science which is on page 40 you would see if a student is interested in biotechnology or biology career these are some recommendations that you should take as a high school student to prepare you for a career in biology Allentown has one of the one of the really great great opportunities we offer zoology so we've highlighted animal science as a career and these are some options that you should take in animal science so you'll see that as an addition to each one of those in the program of
013studies mathematics were doing a lot of work in curriculum so you'll see a lot more changes happening in mathematics as we move forward into the next iteration of the program of studies next year science we've updated the career Pathways and you know we've we've talked about the changes to the Pennsylvania state and the alignment to ngss standards so we've done a lot of work with just ensuring that we can offer those career Pathways and the courses we have we have a very diverse array of courses in science which is a really great opportunity for our students in literacy they've been doing a lot of work 912 updating curriculum and ensuring the alignment with our new social studies curriculum that we're offering a very cohesive and diverse opportunity for students in literacy so there were some
014changes and updates to the course information of what students will be learning while Meeting Pennsylvania core standards in social studies the K-12 sequence that was approved back in October we have aligned that as well so you'll see those courses starting on page 45 starting with Contemporary American studies replacing U.S history one contemporary world studies replacing World cultures contemporary issues in Civics and government replacing u.s2 and financial and economic studies replacing economics the alignment of those courses are really ensuring that students are getting a very diverse and Equitable education in social studies along with ensuring that we're meeting all the standards in government Civics and in economic studies so we outlined a lot of deficiencies that we had previously and by offering them that way we're actually hitting most if not all of the Pennsylvania core
015standards so it was a really big bonus there um in the technology realm we have revamped the um the revised the information Technology Academy to the information computer technology that is on page 72 and we are adding a course called game design for students we've also aligned those Pathways to Career options for students so you'll see in in on page 72 you'll see a lot of options for computer architecture computer hardware graphic design as career options and then as they work through the the technology academy in all of the courses as they've been redesigning those courses we're looking at adding certifications in those courses for example like Adobe certifications Microsoft certifications we already have cyber security so you'll see cyber cyber security has a certification so that is also in that realm because cyber security
016jobs are in the in the hundreds of thousands right now across the country country so that will be there as well Arts music and theater we're working on as well we've started with working with related arts in the curriculum review so we have you know brought them along in the process so you'll see a lot more adjustments and changes as we move through that as well and then the other I brought to you in December and really really proud of the pathways to aspiring careers in teaching the ASD Teacher Pipeline and really trying to get our students involved and interested in teaching giving them opportunities in the Allentown School District to work with our students and to also you know get a certification in the process and then come back to us and teach in
017our community so we have those additions I would like to to note out as a as an additional bonus the framework for collaboration that we've outlined in the process so every year I always talk about the added collaboration that we've done in the community and out with with teachers and all of that this year we had our regular program and studies committee technology committee our math committee our science committee and our English and social studies committees working extremely hard on making sure that we can provide all these opportunities to students and we had meetings ongoing from September and some of them are still going on as we're looking at continually making changes throughout the course of the next couple of months parent meetings this year I've seen in person virtually and through surveys almost over
0183 000 parents which is well over last year's number I think was 200 and some parents so we've really worked hard to make sure that we are connecting with parents and that we're getting their feedback we had a student survey go out and a parent survey and I I put the results in there so you can see some of the highlights of that all of the stuff they're requesting aligned to a lot of the courses that we're offering this year some of the requests that they had this year in addition to as we work through the science curriculum I know some of you that have been on the board for a while they're looking for anatomy and physiology to come back so that that's going to be in there as we're as we look to
019our second iteration next year and they're looking for more expanded dual enrollment offerings and things like that um and certification offerings so they're really we're really aligning with what our students and parents are asking for um the the last thing in social studies um this year we have we're partnering with L Tracy um to be able to add uh dual enrollment courses in Black American history and Hispanic American history and then starting a partnership with some national organizations to create our own courses that we can put out in the iteration next year as well for students um I also wanted to make sure that I was I was prepared because you all know that I am stem and social studies is not my strong point and I'm okay with that um but I did bring
020Shannon Salter here with me um and she is a teacher from Building 21 she has been a huge uh bonus add to our curriculum committee um she's a National Geographic educator advisory panel she works for the national Constitution Center for Teacher advisory um so she's been a huge added bonus on to all of the curriculum work that we're doing ensuring that everything in social studies is inclusive and diverse and meets the needs of the students in the Allentown School District so I brought her here as a support and an added bonus if we have any questions and that's what I have for you for this evening I have questions yes let's go come on up it comes a social studies see the bonus when it comes to the social studies part of it um thematic
021I don't particularly like that um it's new to me sounds like a theory it does and I need facts I know this is supposed to be more inclusive it's supposed to be contemporary thank you I'm not sold okay so and and the thing you're not sold on is the reorganization away from the more traditional chronological model to this thematic organization of social studies is that specifically what you want to be sold in okay so there's long been a mythology in social studies especially historic history education that we have ever taught a comprehensive chronological account of the history of our country and our planet um when you put something on a chronological checklist with a list of names and dates and events and it's easy to cross it off like a to-do list it seems very
022comprehensive the fact is that Decades of research tells us that's never been true it first of all develops a depth of knowledge in our students that's limited to recall what things can you memorize and check up on a list and maybe 10 Years After High School graduation you're going to win at Trivial Pursuit or some sort of bar trivia night but the depth of knowledge we need to go deeper than that is not well supported by a chronological checklist of things to memorize in addition that chronological checklist has always been very limited in whose history is taught what parts of the world are covered what parts of our community are represented and bluntly it has been overwhelmingly a very dead white male perspective of the history of not just our community but the whole country
023and the planet and as teachers as Educators have worked hard to diversify what we teach that chronological checklist has proved to be an impediment to the goal because everything you wanted to move on to the checklist meant bumping something off the list and then you're off to the races about whose history are you canceling whose history are you entering what are you doing and the fact is again there's this mythology that list was ever comprehensive there were a lot of parts of the world parts of every community events in our history that never even made the list what research shows us Miss Harris and it's definitely not a newfangled thing historians history Educators social studies Educators have been advocating for this for a very long time is that teaching students thematically focusing on the enduring
024questions that they will face as they emerge from school into adult Civic life requires organizing their learning up to that point in a way that is centered around those big questions and that allows us to curate content that helps students grapple with those questions the chronological approach has students bopping back and forth from topic to topic based on what decade we're in at any given time so I'll give you an example one of the first examples that I find a lot of people find accessible if I want to teach students how individuals and groups cooperate to advocate for social change in a way that is non-violent right and I want students to understand the events that culminated in the work of Dr King and the African-American civil rights movement here in America which is later
025than translated into actions by Hispanic activists and gay activists and women's rights activists and even environmental activists and then later moves back around the globe until it finds itself in Nelson Mandela's hands in South Africa those events would all find themselves in different years of social studies education interspersed with world wars and many other events and to ask a student to put those things independently together across years of education across different teachers across different classes to identify the patterns of what are the tools that Empower individual and groups of citizens to affect change in their country that's a pretty heavy lift and is often not successfully done but if instead the theme is social change and for a solid quarter of a year of social studies students are going to be grappling with only that
026question and the teachers working with our curriculum developers our education leaders have curated a list of examples from across time and across geography that are all relative just to answering those questions students are going far deeper than memorization and recall and coming away with a deep and meaningful understanding of how do I have a power to raise my voice and affect change in my community grounded in authentic history research applied to a legitimate question of citizenship which meets the philosophy that we put out right at the top of our proposed scope and sequence which is we're looking not to prepare students to enter the world and prove that they memorized a bunch of historical trivia but that we're sending them in the world prepared to Grapple with the big questions that continue to plague us
027as humanity and to formulate their own Solutions grounded in the examples of History brought forward into their current context their current preferences their wishes their desires and dreams and then they know what levers of power to reach for to translate those things into action and to actually taking ownership of their Community becoming the folks who will govern after we're all ready to sit back and retire and let them take charge it's grounded in extensive research in the field it is important and that chronological scope and sequence has for many years been one of the primary barriers to diversifying and giving our students access to a more plural a more shared a more diverse and Equitable exposure to the stories of our past that will help them move into our future if you're interested if any
028of the board are interested in actually digging into the names of the researchers and the reports that have been published and the research that backs this up I am very happy to send you all of it I didn't bring it up believe it or not there's a backpack sitting right over there with a giant stack of photocopies and documents because I knew it would come up I've got all the receipts I promise you it is important it is where social studies has been going and driving for a very long time and the folks who most often push against it are the folks who are best served by that old white established Canon that can be sorted chronologically and who benefit by students emerging not as critical thinkers who question the world around them but as
029folks who memorized what is in the way we've wanted them or the folks who make the decisions have wanted them to memorize it and then leave into the world without questioning it without rearranging it to suit the things they want to bring in the world so it is urgently important for our students and all students that we take the opportunity we have in front of us now as we are rethinking how do we best serve our students and migrate to this model which the best of social studies research thought leaders in the field have been telling us we need to get to for a very long time now a 57 year old southern black woman who I just listen to you it sounds like some hippy dippy woke stuff it does um I want to
030read all that I want to see it because I'm not going to agree if this is based on theory if this is some kind of model that you know we're pushing something on our kids that we're trying to change the way change the way of thinking but to me this seems more subjective than objective and that's how it seems to me and so I'm not going to brainwash our kids into something because that's what it feels like feels like a little bit because it's woke and I'm not necessarily hold on I'm not necessarily into that I'm into fact I'm into I don't want Theory I want the truth and so with this I understand you're trying to bring us forward and those kind of things but I also want to be able to have our
031kids like you said critical thinking so if we're going to do critical thinking I'm not sure how critical thinking this choice of studies is going to be because I don't want to you know when they go to college they have to get they have to prescribed to a higher learning and all those theories and everything else but this I need a foundation I need a true and tried and true foundation so if I'm going to read what you what you've given us and if I don't like it it's not going um or I'm gonna talk to my board about I can't do that but I'm going to talk to my board about that because we need to know that we're going in the right direction and I'm questioning that thank you very much um Mrs
032Harris you want to respond to that well I'm happy to just in this way one what folks call woke it's the opposite of being asleep the fact whose facts the chronological scope and sequence that has often been condensed to a list of places named States was curated by folks who were well represented on that list our students are not well represented on that list the history we aim to offer them explores things that are equally factual and equally true and offering students A diversity of perspectives to experience from which to think critically about and hone their own understanding of the world around them rather than selecting only one that can be put on a to-do list is the opposite of shoving an idea down their head it's letting them know they're empowered to create their
033own ideas we offer them reliable resources solid facts based in primary source documents based in true history but more history than they've ever gotten before deeper history than they've ever gotten before plus the critical thinking skills to as the future unfolds seek out whatever history they need that we didn't hand them so that they're not for the rest of their lives limited only to that history we chose to hand to them but rather have become the kinds of thinkers who can reach for whatever history is needed by events we can't even anticipate yet for example there wasn't a single chronological scope in sequence in the country that had the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 on the checklist I think we can agree that over the past three years that moment in history has proven useful
034if you graduated from a program that said please memorize the things I handed to you they're solid they're factual and you're not to challenge them and you can get to the critical thinking later then we have students who don't know how to say wow this big thing's happening in the world around me and it's scary and we don't know what to do I wonder if anything like this has ever happened before and how can I find out about it so I can make good decisions today they don't know how to do it and I think we can all agree that we were surrounded in the past few years by students who evidence that they didn't know how to go reach into history and find information to help us make good decisions but if we focus
035on deeper thinking skills that allow students to understand not only what we hand them but how to seek additional facts understanding and knowledge so that they can address things we didn't anticipate then those students will become the kind of adults who can say oh I just found out that this happened in 1918 I'm gonna this historian's reliable this article is reliable I'm going to read them I'm going to talk about them and we're going to use it as the basis of future decision making because we've focused on teaching them the skills of thinking critically about diverse sources of information and how to weigh them against each other and decide when to use them how to use them and that's how you have power in the community if you can only use the things that some
036list maker put on a list and you don't know how to reach for and access other things then you can only answer the questions that you were told to be prepared to answer and that's not how the Future Works the history unfolds every day with new and unexpected questions and we need to prepare our students to tackle those kinds of things and it is the disciplinary thinking skills of social studies that gives all of us the ability to respond when faced with a new and unanticipated situation because the history of humanity is US learning and every new lesson learned is something in our toolbox that will help us face the next challenge when it comes memorizing a list has never trained people to do that diversifying so that every lesson starts with questions an investigation
037an inquiry into developing individual answers not one lock set step of answers that we've handed to you but rather we've helped trained you to develop the disciplines of mind that make sure that your answers are valid and evidence-based and strong that's the learning we owe our students okay um I know we have other things to talk about so I'm going to limit I'm not going to ask any more questions until the next time but I have a whole bunch so um so what I would say thank you um Mrs Harris and I also want to thank you Mr faulkers for that explanation in the presentation but I do want to add there was a question I wanted to ask the question that I want to ask is what do we have now I think you
038touched on it you don't have to go that deep but I think if you can I think you've told us a few times but what do we have now so uh two short answers very honestly in an era of the past several decades when stem preparation has taken front and center in every High School in the country this is not an Allentown thing social studies of the four core content areas has been kind of shoved in this corner and said don't make too much noise and go ahead and do what you want and so while we have had a scope and sequence and a curriculum in implementation to be very honest what we've had has been a great big bag of depending on what teacher and what school you're in on that given day what's
039being delivered and how coherent is and how well it Spirals and Scopes to other class other grade levels wasn't something we can really vouch for and I think the audit that kind of triggered all of this work um bluntly spoke to that and said well it's not that you need so much that you need to modify your social studies curriculum you need to develop one right which is what we're here but what we did have and what many schools still have because it is what has been done since the dawn of time is a scope and sequence that or that is organized both by chronology so you'll take a class and you know it starts on this date and ends at the state and then bounded by geography so we're in world studies this year
040then we're in American studies the next year and those boxes set boundaries as to what could be included in that particular year and ours was fairly traditional in that sense now I say k through 12. honestly seven through twelve right in elementary school social studies has all but been shown the door unless in literacy time you're you know reading something that is sort of about history so we can say it's social studies-ish right this opportunity allows us to really bring the fourth core subject that and honestly public education was founded for citizenship preparation before it was about career in college prep we've deviated from that mission by adding wonderful things we offer our students but instead of just adding those new wonderful things and keeping the Civic preparation we replace Civic preparation with those things
041for lots of reasons some good some not so good not so good there are a lot of students in a lot of schools who the folks who make education decisions weren't that interested in preparing for civic life we have the opportunity for our students to address that and to really make sure that we are preparing them from the day they enter our doors as five-year-olds until they exit the world to be able to take their place in a plural a diverse a just and Equitable society and where they see it doesn't meet those four things to transform it so it does well thank you so much for giving us that um update but I want to say that this is our committee of the whole meeting I was just going to say Mr Palmer had
042it okay you next thank you um this is our committee of the whole meeting and so what happens is as the education chair I mean I'm some of these things that you talked about Miss Harris we did talk about them um briefly as it related to the agenda so this is it might be long and boring or concerning to many um or maybe interesting to many but these are conversations that need to be had because these are the conversations besides the finances that build our students and allow them to be the people that we need to be sometimes so with that being said I appreciate you this Committee of the whole meeting how this works is if this goes to the next regular board meeting that means you guys can provide us the board with
043more information so that we can make a final informed decision and in the event that we don't agree guess what when it comes before the board next time we don't have to to pass it we can begin to have those conversations that need to be had so that in the end we can all make a collective decision and make the right decision for our students so I can't say enough I thank you Miss Harris for your your input I'm not going to look Overlook you Mr palmer but I want to thank you again Brandi thank you for bringing her um to be able to answer those questions and experience I know well well you knew who the expert was so I appreciate that and so at this time I will um ask that Mr Palmer
044if you have any comments or questions um I was kind of going back to what you were saying so you were saying I'm sorry for summoning summarizing it you would teach like 68 like Martin Luther King and then you would teach Mandela as well and then kind of go into Gandhi and I'd start with God to be clear when I say we're teaching thematically it's not like we're ignoring that time is chronological right and that human history unfolds over time within a theme right it's important to sort of start at the beginning and work your way through the end because things like cause and effect things like continuity and change over time big historical uh important historical thinking Concepts still have to happen so Gandhi happens first right then Dr King then Mandela and in
045the meantime there are a lot of other groups especially if we just want to focus here in the United States who learn from those strategies and adapt them for other purposes all of them should be discussed together coherently in sequence but the fact of the matter is if I were teaching only chronologically first of all Gandhi and Mandela don't show up in the same year as Dr King right some in school some school districts they happen before in some school districts they happen after here they happen before so you would do gandhia Mandela if you did them um before you got to Dr King and then there is all of the diverse civil rights movements that have happened since Dr King in America that still adapted those same strategies and principles and what we want
046students to be able to access by the time they get to the end is what did they all have in common that succeeded what were the weaknesses in those strategies by the way when I'm teaching all those we're also teaching other competing theories of change right black panthers black lives matter like many other systems that adopt some of the strategies from those moons but also reject some of them and argue for other ways of working and students get to evaluate okay what's the change I want to see in the world how is it similar to the contexts where those strategies succeeded then maybe those would work how is it different and is it different in a way that I know that those strategies aren't going to play out well for me in what I want
047to do and are there other teachers I can learn from that help me understand what to do here so that is how it would be sort of grouped together do you teach like I'm just trying to figure out where it starts and stops do you teach War as well and then so write multiple themes so that the theme I was I was English in Social change and talk a different themes so let's talk about um excuse me conflict right why does conflict happen and how do we prevent it what's the most effective way to prevent it just take something as simple as Revolution right again one course in the way we teach now in the way it's conventionally organized would not include the American Revolution the French Revolution the Russian Revolution the Haitian revolution the
048Greek Independence Movement the Indian war of independence all those things that fall under revolutionary actions are in at least three different High School classes not together but if you as a student want to perform as a social scientist and actually put your data together compare and contrast looking for patterns so that you can understand is my country at risk of revolution is it avoidable is it the last resort of the social contract or is it desirable you need to put them together so that you can study them side by side and understand the patterns that have unfolded throughout human history so that you can then make predictions and decisions about what happens in the future so the example I gave about Dr King's just one theme there are several essential themes and the work we
049as a social studies curriculum committee have done has been to work through the models that have already been implemented not just Theory but actually are in practice across the country in other contexts some similar to other some dissimilar and then applied those examples to what our students need here what is best for us in our ability to deliver it and to serve our community and then extract from them a list of themes that we believe meet both best practice nationally in our profession and best suit the needs of our students to apply to the community they're going to emerge into it was kind of Miss Brown had a question oh I wasn't are you yeah um and I believe um as Sawyer mentioned there were two classes you were um creating or can you dive
050a little bit more into that yeah um so this year we're going to be partnering with with El Tracy for dual enrollment uh Black American history and Hispanic American history um and then through this year in the next iteration of the program of studies we're going to be working on both of those courses um within the context of our program of studies to be able to offer them um as core electives that could possibly cross uh boundaries so as a Humanities course right to include literature and all of that within those courses so it will it will not only count as a social studies but if a student has all their social studies and wants to take it as a Humanities course it would count as that as well um so that's going to take
051a little bit longer for us to go through so in the in the interim uh we're partnering with L tric for those two courses while we're working on it on a larger scale if you don't have everything because I would ask some questions about like right no so those two courses haven't even been started yet we started with the core four uh what we're offering right at the high school level back mapping it to K-12 which is the sequence that you approved in October or November um so that way you could see kind of like the chronological you know of what's happening every year of what they're learning throughout the course of K-12 um and then uh and then we're going to be doing electives in that same Department next year thank you you're welcome
052thank you Mr Palmer thank you Dr Sawyer at this time Mrs Brown did you I was just making sure he was done okay um it's always a pleasure to hear your passion and dedication to our students so I thank you tremendously for that um I'm curious and knowing how is Success measured with this program so the in the importance transitional step to make here is a transition from again quizzes of rote memorization and knowledge that's a very shallow depth of knowledge for our students into the more authentic applications of what they do and it is a hundred percent sure that assessing deep critical thinking is much more complicated than putting a multiple choice test through a Scantron machine right and coming up with the fact that students could successfully recite what year the war of
0531812 happened right that's an easy thing to assess easy thing to say who got it right and you got it wrong and we are going to demand of our students increase rigor in that we're going to demand that they show us much deeper thinking than that and so the assessments are going to be much more authentically Project based um thing the types of things that you either Express through a lengthy writing task through but more likely through an application a performance task where students are finishing with projects that demonstrate their own thinking their own choices applications of those patterns that I've been discussing to current events and things in current context what would have you learned how to seek knowledge by starting with a question and then at the end showing us how you would
054apply that knowledge to the world around you right this is going to require that we support our teachers with ongoing development and how to do that accurately authentically equitably making sure that we have the highest standards of rigor for our students so that we're really getting to those deeper thinking skills so these are going to be lengthier performance tasks that require students to apply their knowledge in a way that can't be run through a bubble sheet you know and a Scantron machine to grade and we are going to have to ensure that we're supporting all of our instructional staff in administering implementing those types of assessment in a real way but real life Civics in the real world doesn't exist on a multiple choice test the real tasks are deep and authentic and so we
055need to model that in the way we assess their learning um in our schools as well and the only thing that I'll add to that is Pennsylvania does require a Civics assessment uh by grade 11. so as we're working through the curricular process that assessment will be embedded at the point where students are ready to take a Civics assessment and the great thing about Pennsylvania is we're allowed to develop that assessment so as we're working on curriculum we're allowed to develop it's a it's an Lea decision to develop that assessment and then we have to show we have to send scores into Pennsylvania once a year at the end of the year on those assessments as well so that will be um part of that as well as as a measure of uh of success
056thank you you're welcome thank you Mrs Brown thank you Dr Sawyer we have one more we have two from our students we have did you want to go yes I have we have Mrs Harris and then we'll have Carlos Carlos but before you guys say I just want to make a comment um I wasn't going to make mention to this of this because we're going to do the performance thing at a later date what I do as it relates to assessments this year I can't say that we weren't doing it before but there is going to be we talked about a major Focus on being able to hold ourselves the teachers because I hear us say a lot about the kids you know rigor you know they're going to be they got to know what
057they know right but we have to be reminded that when our students fail we fail them so we as a board we haven't this is not something we voted on but this is something that has been brought up by several board members we need to make sure that this processes in place so that we don't get to the end of the year and say oh our kids didn't make this Mark we want to be proactive you know and even with them you know we have to address those things where you know maybe a kid has to do a project and lack of a better word I'm saying kids so don't don't judge me right but at the same time we want to make sure that we are empowering them to be able to write if
058I have a kid that can't write that doesn't mean they don't have a lot to say they don't know so we're beginning to not just look at those things because we've been looking at them for a long time but we're beginning to address them so that our kid when our children leave here and they become us right we're we're proud We Can Tell those stories because right now you know it's like pulling teeth sometime to get people to come back and tell the story because it ain't it's not so pretty and so I'm not talking down on ASD I'm just saying that the assessment piece is very important not only for the student but it's also just as important or maybe more important for those that we employ to educate our students it would take
059just those two questions yes and nothing else tonight yes okay okay so the more I listen to you the more it vexed my soul because to me it seems like you're doing a backdoor critical race Theory thing and it's a and I don't go along with that in high school and in our schools because it's a theory we can get that in college but not I don't want Theory and that's how it feels and I'm not I I'm I'm leery of that I'm just saying that first person thank you Miss Harris thank you I'm Mr Carlos um I want to give my opinion as a student um while teaching chronologically is definitely important thematically is I think is also very important to us to see the effects of how certain things can spur into certain
060other things so like revolutions healthy American Revolution caused the French Revolution and show the themes in these certain areas like social change or Wars or even Financial crises [Music] so I think we should have like some classes maybe earlier grades teaching chronologically and then in higher grades teaching thematically thank you thank you thank you thank you very much Mr Carlos I don't know your last name right now I'm having a senior moment Belio Delio Mr Dillard thank you very much for that and I just want to say that we always want to hear from you absolutely and I thank you for um for sharing that with us in this Conover the only thing I want to add to your comment about um about assessments is act 158 right across the state really did open eyes
061to Educators and districts that our kids are more than just a test score so being able to create and develop curriculum that offers students choices in how they're being assessed right is is really a huge part of not only giving them the critical thinking and the problem-solving skills and all of that but it's also allowing us to meet many graduation requirements which are in place to prepare students for After High School so that that extra added bonus um is is what was a huge benefit and I think opened a lot of eyes across the state thank you very much Dr Sawyer um and and because of time yes I'm better president we're gonna in this portion but I will say I'm gonna ask if you could share with this board what you have so that
062we can begin doing continue doing our part so that we being able to make an informed decision thank you very much teaching social studies my thing I'm happy to do it we always like it when you're happy to do it that's right so at this time may I have a motion to move this agenda item which is the 2023-2024 program of studies to our next regular board meeting it's normal this is brown you may have a second by Miss Nancy will is there any um all in favor let it be known by saying aye all right are there any opposes no one opposed um it moves forward to our next regular board meeting but again like I said there should be some documentation coming to you so that we can continue on our path at
063this time I will have Dr Michael Roth come forth with our last item it's our M memorandum of understanding with the United Way Community Schools partnership Lewis A Ramos Elementary yes thank you Miss Conover uh this evening we request the board's approval of the memorandum of understanding with the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and the Allentown School District to provide a community school partnership at Louis A Ramos Elementary School pending solicitor review and approval the partnership will extend from the date of the approval of the mou through June 30th 2024 at a cost of 7 500 to the district um what this will provide is a community school coordinator through the Greater Lehigh Valley United Way who will be on site full-time basis at Ramos Elementary School Ramos Elementary School was selected to
064be the next school for the expansion of community schools because it does rank number four in terms of poverty level in the federal programs ranking that we do and submit to the state so it was a decision as to why Ramos was was selected as the next site the principal has been engaged interesting conversations and is excited about the possibility of this partnership with with the United Way and as the board has asked and continues to um you know bring forward questions concerning our Partnerships with the United Way and with communities and schools we continue to meet with representatives from those groups we have a meeting that we're trying to establish right now with Dr Burks coming on board to meet with their level with their their senior letters of leadership as well so that
065we can really solidify the vision and Clarity around what those Partnerships look like and what it means for our students and our families and our community thank you Dr Wall may I have a motion to move this you know okay okay I have a question too okay can I have a question the buzzers really aren't lined up correctly which is why I'm happy we're gonna fix that too in this year I guess Ms Brown were you first yes we don't want to do the question yet I'm trying to do all right to do this the right way thank you for helping me may I have a motion to move this item to the regular board meeting on Thursday January 26 2023. some movies received by Mrs Wilkes may have a second second by Miss Brown
066okay is there any discussion so Miss Brown you gonna go first yes okay thank you so sometimes questions are asked not because you need to know the answer but sometimes you want the public to know the answer so my question is could you give a brief summary of what the coordinator position entails please absolutely thank you so much so um the coordinator of Community Schools again will be a full-time person who will be on site at Ramos Elementary um different from the integrated support model which has the individual actually doing case management the community school coordinator works with the principal works with the community works with families to ensure that students are a getting the things that they need in terms of um at times food insecurity in terms of clothing in terms of uniforms
067and so forth they also work to provide programming for um both after school types of programming for for students and for family members um they will often work with staff members around issues and programs that they can put in place to address certain um certain growth measures that they're looking for so for example in our agreement they're going to be working around absenteeism with our students right because they have a goal of increa decreasing the uh chronically number of chronically absent students by five percent right so they're looking at a benchmark now I'm looking at decreasing those numbers of students by the end of 2024 they want to decrease the number of students with behavioral incidents specifically out of school incidents right so out of school suspension so when there are things that are happening
068in schools that the again the administration is working on the teachers are working on the community and school coordinator becomes that person who can help to work with potentially outside agencies work with the staff members work with the family work with the community to bring those resources in to help support what whatever it is that is happening or needs to be addressed within the school within the school school context okay um so my next question is because that's a lot right yes um is being a parent board member and well involved in the community I know the amount of work that that entails and that's a lot so my next question is what kind of cross departmental support with this position receive [Music] um are we assuring that different departments within the district as well
069as our Partnerships within the community is going to be connected with this person so we don't lose this person because it's a key component to the success of our students sure that's very good question so what happens is it becomes a part of the network that the United Way has and Community Schools in eastern PA although this is just with United Way um the network they get built into that Network so that provides the level of support in terms of working with the other community school coordinators that we have at our various schools throughout throughout the district number two we work very closely with Miss Pollock within the student community and youth engagement office and her staff right so it's the coordination with the social workers it's the coordination with the Outreach workers it's coordination
070with the attendance teams right so that they um the work that that individual is doing is not on an island it actually becomes embedded in the work of the district and the work of the school that were that we're moving forward with so they become a park they really do become a part of I'm going to say the ASD family although they are provided by by the United Way okay um again one questions are asked sometimes is because you want the public to have an understanding of what that means um I just ask that you also even you said Mrs pole like team but I just because you didn't mention it I just want to make sure that um our homeless liaison is also a part of that absolute team absolutely thank you thank you
071thank you very much Miss Brown um and thank you Dr Roth Mrs Harris yes um when it comes to United Way I'm I'm suspect of anything they do I like this position however um How would how is data going to be collected um also with them you know this is the one thing they said was that the United Way investment plan focuses on three areas United Way is getting money for us anyway it's not our investing planners it's our money they are getting money and this is what I have a problem with they are getting money for Allentown because off the backs of black and brown students and they're gonna act like they're giving us something all they doing is giving uh what that's our money just like they did with the century fund when
072we had to when they got through and we had to channel the money through them what Miss Jen what percentage did they take a big cut they took and it was our money our money that was supposed to be going to us and our children for the century fund went to them and that ain't fair so no I'm not impressed anything they doing however right now this is what we're gonna use but in the future we gotta find ways to go around them we need our money coming directly to us why are they getting money for us and then don't use it all they use it in Bethlehem and Eastern but they're getting all the money for Allentown off our backs because one of y'all to know this is where I'm going this is how
073I'm going to start researching these things because I think we can do them ourselves thank you Miss Harris um Mrs Palm Mr Palmer um yeah I think uh a lot of it was already said I do agree with Miss Harris I've agreed since I before I got here um and who came up with the performance measures was it us or was it um it those are pretty standard um measures that most of the agreements that we've had with the United Way have have looked at now what will happen is as part of the process moving forward is that again miss Pollock's team and the whole student learning team working with um Mr blyler at Ramos Elementary we want to make sure that we really are keeping the eye on the prize for these particular goals
074and monitoring the students that are participating as part of um the communities in school coordinator at that particular school what they also do is these these goals also align with the school Improvement rules or continuous Improvement goals that each of the schools have so it's not that it's something outside or different from what we're doing they actually help complement and dovetail with the work that is being conducted at the schools yeah and that was kind of why I was asking it because I remember Miss Pollock coming up here and telling us about how we are going to do that on our own um how many students were chronically absent in 21 to 22 at that school um I do not have that information right with me but I can make sure that you get it
075too okay I just wanted to see like what the difference would be with five percent is that just one student like and how do we measure that because we have our own way of doing these things how do we measure that it is can be accredited to communities and schools or the United Way for that drop of five percent understood no I'm asking how would we make that would be something I would need to talk to Miss Poland as to how they differentiate between how they're collecting the data looking at the data and how they disaggregate the actions that her team are taking in relation to relationship to the um actions that the United Way communities and school coordinators taking okay um and you mentioned that they were providing items for students um eventually providing
076uniforms how does that work so often the communities and school coordinator will look at whatever a need is right that has been brought forward in the school and then we'll go about conducting drives or whatever is needed in order to bring those items in to get those distributed to the students in the school is that something that we could do it's something we all are doing that right so so it's it's another again it is something that we know our staff does but we also know that other individuals do that other community organizations do that as well so much of this is about how do we coordinate all of these things to meet the needs of all our students I asked that question kind of going back to what Ms Harris said is if we're
077doing that why do we need to pay them to do that what we're doing again I think it's it's it's what is you know from my perspective is more hands right the more hands we have to help do the lift um helps to bring all of everything we bring all of the resources that we can possibly bring to support our um to support our students and our families hello anybody like that for anything thank you Dr Roth uh okay I have something else I want to say um so I guess was hard for me to understand is well not understand but what I want to make clear is I understand that there's some clear issues with the organization itself but I work with a lot of people that is higher through United Way for community
078and schools and I have to say that these people are providing tremendous services to our students the reason some of our students come to school is due to these workers the reason some of our students are able to get transportation is because the relationships the effective communication that they have with the district is why our students have a lot of the services that they have so I'm not saying that there's issues that have not been that have been resolved they are un underlining issues however I want us to also take in account that we have many community and school workers who are going above and beyond to make sure our students are getting fed getting clothed getting to school resolving issues when it comes to conflict again they go above and beyond providing services to
079the parents making sure if if something as simple as making a copy of you know birth certificate or making sure that they get access to an organization that is going to get them an ID card like we have to be conscious of the research we have to be responsible for the research that needs to be done before we be so quick to discredit an organization so again I'm not saying that there's issues that don't need to be addressed we need to address those issues however it's hard for me to not say anything when I know that the the services that our students receive comes from a lot of our community and school workers thank you but is there any other any further discussion no further discussion um all in favor please let it be known
080by saying aye aye to move this forward to our next regular board meeting no are there any opposes no this moves forward to our next regular board meeting okay so that brings us to are there any non-agenda items there's one comment card for non-agenda items Miss Diane Hollowell I'll start now just in case you go over Diane Hollowell Highland Drive uh I am speaking tonight just keep it fresh in your mind about the amount of money that Allentown public school students lose in funding to Charter Schools and another visual from last time remember when I brought one ream of paper remember that one ream of paper represents one hundred thousand dollars of lost funds and I would have to show you ten rooms to represent the one million dollars of lost funds by adding those
08150 kids to that Arts Elementary School now visualize one box holds 10 rings of paper so this would represent one million dollars if I pile 12 of these boxes on top of each other that would be a visual of the 12 million dollars of lost resources our Allentown students would miss out if the new Charter School petition gets approved can you imagine that another 12 million to add to the 64 million taken from the budget who loses out I believe it is our students and I do also want to remind you that according to pde websites I quote charter schools are exempt from many educational mandates the proposed steam Charter has a mission statement that states they will provide educational experiences through sustained Partnerships with higher education after school organizations non-profit Community programs local businesses
082and government agencies and since I am at the high school I can inform you of all the amazing opportunities and Partnerships we offer our kids at that level so I had to do a little research to find out what our elementary students are exposed to so again I made another little visual sorry it is an Impaler because I did print it at home not a school resources these are just a few of the Partnerships that the Allentown school district has with local businesses government agencies after-school organizations and non-profit Community programs and after I created this tribe called I discovered that there are outside agencies that also collaborate I forgot Community Bike Works value house and let's not forget Europe has a learning Dome it's open to every school in the district and it is taught
083like someone with a doctor in education so I will end with let's keep that 12 million in-house and encourage those Charter School families to get involved with the district and all the Partnerships we presently have and I know you are seeing two new board members if you need me to come back next week when the new board members are here I will do this again and I have to say I was involved in the first round of Community Schools at South Mountain that was long ago the public can't hear you yeah it's amazing thing right can't hear me because no turn it around so the audience can see people's program is amazing we took our kids to Philly we had artists and residents used to come in it was amazing we had so many kids
084we had to limit the amount of attendance we had so if you need me back in two weeks I am gladly Pomsky thank you your time is up all right thank you thank you okay at this time is there any old business to come before the board is there any new business to come before the board yes I just wanted to um to go back with to go back to United Way um I know they they provide many things that new business or old business oh it should have been old business I'm sorry okay so we're gonna go back to Old business sorry all right yes they provide many things however they're just giving us they're doing their job I'm not going to applaud someone for doing their job this is what they get paid
085to do this is how they get their money by doing the things they're supposed to do for Allentown I'm just mad they spreading around to other people to Bethlehem and Easton it's not fair give me my money where we where it belongs where it belongs and that's on our children you know they're asking other organization non-profits to give their financials before they give them money I need to see their financials how much are they getting what kind of Grants are they writing for Allentown and then where is going let's ask United Way for that I want to know where our money is going from where what they get and then what what is in the name of us and then what they give us I want to know that thank you thank you Miss Harris
086[Music] I want to know how we can get the lesson today the education committee okay so that didn't fall you know upon deaf ears like I said this is our um education yes and so oh thank you we'll be addressed so now are there any is there any new business any grass catchers here in CNN I officially during this meeting now we're going to move into somebody move for a journey I'll second it sometimes all in favor aye aye okay um meeting in June thank you and that means that we can move to the finance committee I'd like to call the order the finance committee of the whole meeting of the board of directors of the school district for the city of Allentown for today January 12 2023 the board welcomes and invites public comment
087he may address the board on agenda and or non-agenda items the first opportunity for comments at the beginning of the meeting is limited to agenda items only if you choose to address the board please fill out a comment card and hand it to Deputy superintendent Roth he raised his hand there uh comment cards are located on the podium near the door and uh once recognized please come to the podium state your name and address for the record and kindly limit your remarks to three minutes no comment cards okay so we'll jump right in um for some superintendent remarks good evening again everyone thank you Mr Palmer uh this evening our financial agenda will include six items three of those items are related to technology purchases and will be presented by Mr Rivera they'll also have
088a request for an agreement to lease 10 parking spaces from the Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum on Walnut Street finally we are pleased to present a budget discussion this evening and this discussion is a high level summary of projected revenue and will include a timeline of future budget actions it does not include any experience expenses at this time and nor is it an item for which we are requesting for the board to take action and that conversation will be facilitated by Mr Lindemann and myself thank you thank you um thank you Dr Dr Burks and uh as we mentioned there were no comment cards um so we're gonna jump right in for the Cisco smart lease agreement presented by uh Richard Fazio sorry Charles Linderman sorry good evening tonight I like to request the board's approval
089to renew our Cisco smartnet lease agreement for the next three years this agreement provides the Allentown School District with 24 hours seven day support for our critical Network equipment and uh the total cost will be 663.62 cents a year and this was accounted in our technology budget questions okay um at this time uh may I have a motion to approve the Cisco's smart net lease agreement I make that motion do I have a sec uh uh motion made by Miss Harris do I have a second um Miss will uh do I have a discussion I do have just a quick question I'm noticing here's the question one where it says was the action request reviewed by the solicitor I remember when I first got on the board everything went through the solicitor did we change
090something hmm was it not I just asked the question if I understand what you're asking the answer is no we haven't changed the process there are some things that don't go to the solicitor for review because they're routine or what have you anything that has legal implications does okay thank you foreign and seeing none um all in favor say hi any opposed okay uh this moves forward okay um next up would be the e-plus network switches tonight we're requested the board's approval to purchase Network switches from e-plus Technologies for the downtown school district for a total uh amount of 229 thousand two hundred and one dollars and seven cents eighty-five percent of the calls are covered by the e-rate program which is 820.91 cents and at the Allentown School District share of this or the
091cost would be 34 387.66 so the total cost for uh for the purchase would be that that amount thirty four thousand three hundred eighty seven dollars and sixty six cents good question okay um may I have a motion to move this to the regular board meeting on Thursday January 26 2023 thank you Miss will is there a second I'll second thank you Miss Harris uh any discussion question so how often are we buying these switches so we buy the switches when they need replacement usually we wait until the switch is no longer supported by the manufacturer in this case Cisco and um 25 of these switches on the on the list are end of support so they're no longer supported by Cisco what is the normal what is it three years five years the the
092last weapon are purchasing them for the past three years but they have about a five to seven year cycle so next year we'll be looking to pay for 35 000 again maybe for 25 more no so this purchase will be the last purchase of uh this cycle of uh Network equipment replacement okay thank you okay um this is the first time I I maybe I missed it but this is the first time I've seen an e-rate reimbursement have we been getting those on a regular basis yes yes so uh every time we purchase any Cisco or any network equipment it's covered by the e-ray program so it covers about 85 percent of the total cost of the have we ever missed an eat rate reimbursement um to my knowledge now okay so we always hit
093the deadline okay I do want to I do want to look at that um as a board member I want to see I don't know if that comes on the business office or where it comes from but I really want to see um if we've been hitting that Benchmark because this is to me the first time I'm seeing it thank you uh any other questions um you said this was the last in the cycle so when would be the next time that we may need some more switches so these this new series of uh equipment uh usually Cisco announces five years before they're gonna end their support and for the past three years we've been uh replacing these Network switches we have about 300 in the whole district and um they have not announced the
094replacement of this particular switch that we're getting so you know we're expecting to get about five to seven years life out of these and since I don't hear or see any other questions um all in favor say aye aye um any opposed no the eyes have it it's just moving favorably towards uh the next meeting next up is the VMware purchase so tonight we're requesting the board's approval to renew the VMware support and subscription uh that is needed to make to maintain our server infrastructure at a cost of 18 883.33 [Music] the VMware package the vsphere specifically is software that is used for Server virtualization uh the total cost like I said is 18 883.33 and it has been accounted in our current budget um may I have a motion to move the VMware purchase
095to the regular board meeting on Thursday January 26 2023. McConnell was Conover uh do I have a second Miss will any discussion um all in favor uh hearing and seeing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay these eyes have it moving towards the uh next meeting uh next up is the bus driver list thank you you have in your your packet there a list of of the bus drivers that are working for you right now through first student you're required by the the Pennsylvania Department of uh education to approve the list of bus drivers normally this would have been done in September October uh however this is the first time you're seeing this and then you would usually get an update in March or April with any newer driver so you are
096required since you have a contracted service to approve the bus drivers they've all been vetted uh by our uh transportation department and all qualify with the proper CDL licensing and all the uh necessary clearances thank you may have a motion to move the bus driver list uh forward to the regular board meeting for that all right Nancy first you have a second that's fine uh Miss Matheson any discussion yes um okay so let me put I don't remember exactly one but I remember us approving a bunches and we did I don't understand why no please talking to your mic so several months ago not too long ago right I don't remember the exact date and time however I remember we approved many bus drivers and I don't understand why we're approving bus drivers again um
097we have so many issues that we need to address and with first student I just I don't understand why this is coming before so this really has nothing to do with first student you're required to approve these drivers because they are contracted you know if you owned your own buses and had your own bus drivers you would naturally approve them through the Personnel process the state many years ago through a recommendation and a direction by the the auditor general or attorney general one of them required you to approve all bus drivers that are working for you so even the people with contracted bus drivers I don't know whether you had them approved before or whether you didn't we did but I was wondering if maybe some of the names had changed these are the most
098updated as of January 5th it's best I can say we did before the holidays so this may be an updated list which is before my time I can help a little bit we uh we did it to open the school year right and when we there was an if you recall there was a transportation audit finding where the district was not approving its drivers and the board approved our um our action plan which included us approving the drivers twice a year so the the recommendation was in the start of the school year and then moving into the second semester that we would bring forward those drivers um whoever was on the list at that time so this is what um we're required to do then thank you and we will be and we will be
099cited it's not for a student if we don't do this okay so again my question was I didn't understand why we were doing it when I know that we just did it so it's a fair question to ask why and thank you for the explanation and just to be clear we will be doing this again probably april-ish I would say so it's not like a shock to anyone I have a comment uh go ahead go ahead so I I don't make it a secret that I'm not a fan of First Student but um I have to give credit where credit is due and I just want to make mention of a bus driver on this list um my daughter's bus driver uh his name is Mark uh the only mark on this list is Mark
100Bartholomew Bartholomew so I'm assuming that that's him um and his Aid Justine I I have to give them both credit because he's always on time um there's never a problem when he's the regular driver um he's efficient he's good with the kids the aid is good with the kids so uh again I just want to give credit where credit is due thank you for that uh Mr Ortiz Miss Conover do you still have a question no thank you okay and um are there any other questions okay um all in favor say aye aye any opposed this one's favorably towards the next meeting um and now we have the Lehigh Valley Heritage parking agreement um this this parking agreement which you have in there has been uh Mr Ramos has been uh working on this for
101for a while and and that the administration uh to um well it's I I guess you have a parking problem here I mean do we I have a parking spot but uh sorry but it is a very hard to park the back lot is absolutely packed if anybody can came to visit a person in the district office and we had relatively good attendance here you would not get a parking spot um so uh that you've uh Jen and her staff have been working on places where we might be able to push people to park and this is one of them this has been initially reviewed by Mr sultanic's Furman pending the final approval of it we are recommending that we go forward with these 10 extra spots that uh about 500 a month and um
102uh I'm sorry I may have a motion to move the the Valley Heritage parking agreement to the regular board meeting thank you Miss will any second I'll second it thank you Miss Matheson any discussion yes I have to recuse myself because I'm on the Lehigh Valley Harris Museum board I appreciate that thank you um any other discussion yeah Okay so I know there's a problem with one of the schools are we dealing with that issue um I'm just very much I mean since we're talking about you know we're doing stuff for here but we're not fixing a problem where our students are where teachers can't park right you know I I understand making people comfortable but we want our kids to be you know I understand the dilemma and we're looking all over and trying
103to work with the city to find viable options for multiple buildings this was an option that came to us um by the Heritage Museum they have 10 spaces we have a significant amount of staff here that camp park we also have families and parents that come to meet with folks and it's a challenge so we have an option right here at this point but we we have more work to do to try to make things easier 10 spaces five hundred dollars a month okay I'm done any other uh discussion hearing and seeing none um to have a motion to move this forward oh all in favor say aye aye any opposed I am okay eyes have it um so this moves variably towards the next meeting and now the budget presentation [Music] good evening everyone
104good evening again everyone good evening so tonight we are here uh Mr Lindeman is going to do a lot of the talking because I am drawing on his strengths uh we're gonna have a preliminary discussion with the board about our budget our budget uh we just we're going to talk about our um projected Revenue and share with the board and the public our budget timeline tonight we are not asking for any action but this is for discussion only and so we're going to begin the discussion the overview of our presentation of course we're going to talk about our mission vision and core values in which we are basing our budget um in the allocations are based upon the mission and vision of our organization we'll tell you who our students are our staff our budget
105goals for the year our budget timeline and our Communications plan to engage the board as well as our all stakeholders including public the General Public our Revenue we'll tell you a little bit about our cost drivers as well as our historical act 1 index information and the next steps throughout the budget process as an organization this is our foundation our mission each and every student will graduate college and career ready by having their individual needs met through active engagement in a rigorous safe and nurturing learning environment the vision of our district is that each and every student with the active support of the entire Community will graduate ready to thrive in a diverse and complex world all our decision making for this year as it relates to our budget will be based on our mission
106of vision as well as our core values uh thank you if you see here there are core values of the organization I'll let you read them who has the clicker because I I want to click for myself thank you these are our students if you look here we have approximately sixteen thousand lovely jewels and that we serve every day uh 73 of our student population is Hispanic uh 12.89 approximately 13 for black is there an Asian 0.9 zero percent ninety percent uh American Indian Point thirteen percent 0. 13 white 7.4 percent two or more races five point three five percent thirty five percent and Pacific Islander you see the demographics here these are our students yeah the staff if you look here sixty percent of our staff is falls into the teaching teachers union so
107that's number teacher is representative of people who may be counselors or psychologists or social workers members of our teachers union and some other roles but primarily they're part of the teachers union Administration includes all our act 93 employees so that would include so our school level administrators as well as central office administrators some of our coordinators and managers will fall into the category of administration 34 of our our staff for our Workforce as support staff so paraprofessionals and other roles and so we have approximately today 2199 staff for members of our team our budget goals for the year is to present a balanced budget that supports the district's comprehensive plan uh by allocating resources towards increasing student achievement in mathematics as well as reading to decreasing our chronic's absence rates increasing graduation rates uh to
108increase language language acquisition for our English language learner program so we're going to talk about some innovative ideas to support that population of our students we're going to allocate our Resources with the goal of providing Equity across the district we're going to focus our resources to directly support classroom learning and teaching and also look at the whole child our students social emotional Wellness as well as their cognitive abilities Mr Lindeman is going to go through our budget timeline so you are aware because we want to be truly transparent to the board as well to the public as where we are in the budget process Mr Linderman hey thank you Dr Burks um Mr Fazio who is not here tonight him and I are sharing this position actually we're here alternating days uh we came up
109with a budget timeline to to try and fit Allentown I think I told the board last month that normally the budget calendar would have started in a in most school districts in August with the approval of a calendar and and September setting of uh building and Department level budgets we we kind of got started running a little bit uh later so we're going to have to do a little catch up we did release all of the budgets and and work with the administrators throughout the district with their budgets and an overview and gave out their budget template the board approved the Act One index there are some timelines in the uh in the budget the budget calendar is not specifically set by the state however there are a number of deadlines that are kind of
110hard imprinted by the state one of them was that act one opt-out resolution which you you took care of last month tonight we intended on bringing you a very high level of the of the board budget as it stands as we see it right now and uh I think Mr Fazio said it was a 10 000 foot level I will say it's more like the International Space Station level uh we will we will kind of bring that down every month as we get closer to uh to the budget time so uh we have budgets due tomorrow by by the buildings and the Departments we'll be working on them uh we intend on bringing you a lot more information next month uh and then in March kind of have your first look at what your budget
111will look like uh won't be your final budget um the next slide will will show you will continue to talk about it the Secretary of Ed I'm sorry the Secretary of uh the budget certifies the property tax relief for you in in April he did have a pretty substantial increase in the property tax relief granted to all schools in Pennsylvania last year you went from a about nine and a half million dollars to to uh uh uh 13 million dollars about 800 a taxpayer uh credit on each tax bill so in other words if you're the first 35 000 or so of your tax assessment was paid for by the property tax relief fund the property tax relief fund if you're not aware is is monies gathered by the gaming industry um just an editorial
112note that money was almost identical from the day they started this fund 20 some years ago until last year even though the explosion of uh casinos and things like that through Pennsylvania it went but there was a little tiny segment that was for schools that's how they got it in it stayed the same it never increased last year you got an increase so hopefully that'll stay the same my guess is that will not go down because uh a reduction in that fund would mean you would get to just kind of throw the blame back on the uh legislators as to why the taxpayers got an increase in the property taxes so we're going to continue to to talk to the in addition to you we will be talking with the executive leadership with Dr Burks
113at the The Learning Academy in April uh Dr Burks uh we'll take a little road show on the budget in April and May we're looking at preliminary budget approval in May and final approval in June now I don't know if this joke will go over well with Allentown it went over well every year in Great Valley but it's a different place the preliminary budget is not the final budget you're not marrying the budget it's your prom date okay you don't have to marry it I mean you may marry it I mean some people married their prom date but you it's just a preliminary budget the final budget in June is the one you have to you know you know love and cherish for at least one year so uh there you go sorry but Jeff
114knows you don't get this kind of humor and sidebar with the most business manager stuff so yeah yeah Mr Fazio was here he is listening he's not funny at all [Music] um anyway um as far as revenue is going we're going to talk a little bit more in depth on revenues that their tax revenue which is your property tax revenue um we have kind of kept that the same for right now we have not factored in any assumed millage increase because quite frankly we don't know we are just talking revenues now we don't have the expenditures you have approved the act one opt-out thing so the most your tax taxes could go up in is 6.3 percent you do have a very small increase in in property tax uh coming to you from uh growth
115in your your tax base and you know people renovate put on decks whatever you know build new houses uh that that kind uh the state subsidy I am going to talk about that in a little more detail in a couple more slides um we are assuming it to be flat for this year for next year but that comes with a plus you you budgeted 20 million the state gave you 38 million or 21 million the state gave you 38 million so you have a 17 million dollar Surplus in your your State uh uh revenue for 22.23 now that converts to next year a little increase right away well we're going to just assume that's going to be flat uh when Mr fazi and I talked to some of our contacts in Harrisburg we probably can't
116expect that kind of increase this coming year a couple things are happening while the revenues are are a little bit up they are not dramatically up like they were last year with the state uh I do understand your your ex-senator is now the Secretary of Revenue so uh uh although he's just dealing with numbers like it's just math uh but uh so we will talk about that there's some some some question as to whether our level up money will stay about the same because if our enrollment like there are average daily membership is what the state Works off of it's they call it an ADM if ours goes down and everybody else's goes up then our our share of the pie may go down now as far as goes down everybody else's goes down or
117as may stay about the same that has yet to shake out we have to get the final numbers from the Department of Ed uh later this spring when they kind of push in all of the numbers they've received from us uh Federal funding we are just budgeting what we are getting this year because we will not know our 2324 allocations until later this spring um Esser it's something we're not going to talk too much about tonight but we're going to plant this seed in your head because we're going to have to talk about this in in the next couple months Esser has has really been kind of the life vote for Allentown over the past three years you got a lot of money and it saved you a lot of aggravation it saved you a
118lot of budget angst uh you were able to continue programs start new things um uh basically you did not have a lot of what I'll call suffering happen to your budget because of loss of Revenue uh and the way things were going unfortunately after the 23 24 year there will be an exhaustion of the Esser funding we have to have it all spent out by September of 24. so um and we will talk about that so there will need to be a plan for what you've implemented what you've put into the budget using those kind of funds over the past few years and how you're going to handle them from that day forward uh the next slide is is a is a pie you have a giant chunk of the pie from state revenue 65
119percent uh and most of that is is the basic education funding uh smaller a little bit another chunk of it is from uh what I'll call allocation grants where they they give you grants for social or for Social Security pension and things like that um transportation uh federal revenue you do get over 21 million in federal grants not counting yes sir uh and local Revenue we'll talk a little bit about that but 65 that's a big chunk that you depend on from the state um in my neck of the woods we didn't depend on that we were 85 90 percent local and very little from the state so uh um something we have to think about and and something that's hard so the next slide we'll show you we we showed you we baked in
120a little bit of an increase in the real estate taxes based on the increases in uh the assessments there's also an assumption in there for some increases in delinquent taxes that we've made the ACT 511 taxes and that's your earned income tax your transfer taxes that's what you get for somebody selling their house or buying a house your local service is tax your per capita tax we've increased that a little tiny bit your other other local your interest investment earnings your local idea tuition for um uh local tuition which is things like summer school and stuff like that not there's another tuition which I'll talk about on the state side uh investment revenue is going to go up significantly this next year we've we were able that most of that increases because we've increased our
121investment Revenue uh budget for uh 23.24 because interest rates are going going up I mean it's bad news if you're buying stuff it's good news if you have a little bit of money to invest and granted Allentown doesn't have a ton of money to invest but we always have we always work off of a cash flow so that you always have some money you have money earlier because you're collecting real estate taxes and and the money comes in from the state uh so we just have to to time that so we can get the best uh investment uh policy we can on the state sources this is where I want to talk a little bit to 2223 we've actually projected that that number for this year uh it says 186 million uh that's that's two
122numbers there that's your basic education uh uh funding and it's also you're ready to learn block grant that the state gives you you get about a 14 million ready to learn block grant um you budgeted 169 million 800 000 there so you have a a surplus there now people have asked us well oh boy can we spend that well no you can't spend that because you didn't budget for it you will have extra Revenue it will offset anything that may hurt and at the very very worst it will help you replenish a a very poor fund balance that you have most of the Credit Agencies recommend you have at least an 8.3 percent fund balance for you that's 32 34 million dollars you have not close to that you know you're in the 10 to
12314 million dollar range I don't have that exact number waiting to get that but uh when you're running a 400 million dollar budget you really ought to have 30 million dollars in your fund balance or a little bit more the Social Security that's FICA that's based on our actual salaries and what we get reimbursed from the state special education funding that's another line item that the state actually gave you more money than you budgeted last year you um you budgeted for last year this year you budgeted uh just under 13 million 12 million 983 000 and the state gave you 14 million eight hundred thousand well that's that's wonderful got extra money we will start next year's budget at that higher amount I will note back jumping back and I'm kind of like the social
124studies teacher I kind of jump all around history here but I'm going to jump back to uh the basic debt funding rich and I put that a little bit conservative in case there was a a reduction based on your level up funding as we get closer to the end we we will kind of hone that number a little better our hope is that at least it goes it's going to be at least 186 million 400 000 maybe a little more uh hopefully a lot more but it will I can almost guarantee it won't be 38 million more like you got this year it's just not going to happen number one you got like you got the biggest increase of any school district in the state percentage-wise um so don't think that other school districts in
125your kind of economic distress aren't kind of already screaming at people up there like hey Allentown got this big increase it's our turn so you'll get something but we'll what we'll what will be will be 38 million no we'll be five or eight million maybe um Transportation subsidy we're seeing that increase as as we kind of roll out of covet and we're working on some things that that may actually help that's that Transportation subsidy uh pension reimbursement that's that's what we call call peasers uh and and all the other State uh um monies which is tuition so that's mainly foster children you have a lot you have a good number of foster kids and we get money from the state for that uh you have some migratory money you have what what we call plan
126con money you get you actually get reimbursed for some of your projects so that that's a good chunk of money uh our nursing department files a report we get some money for nursing Services property tax relief I told you was 9.6 million and 2122 was I'm sorry I was wrong it was I said 13 is 12.1 million for for this year but it's still a big increase it got you up to 800 a uh a taxpayer which is pretty good next is federal and again these are these are pretty pretty typical we have nothing in there for Esser so we will look at at adding semester money we we want to one of the things we want to talk about next month and I'll go over this in a slide is we want to give
127you an extra money you're like you know what what we spent what we're spending what we have to spend so um and and where it's planned to go so uh we will talk about about that as you can see the the federal money is all just about identical up there um the the cares act which is kind of where the ceremony came from that gear program is is done that was a one done that's a this year and we we will probably not get anything for that next year other Federal include things like access so students especially or students with uh 504s or need some assistance you can we qualify for for medical assistance through through the federal government for that uh that's some of that we you also have a few loans out that
128we get some reimbursement for through the FED uh that call them the qsip loans from I want to say 2008 or 10 in that timeline so the next slide is going to show you a pie chart of our cost drivers so as you can see salary and benefits are pretty much 60 of your your budget um and and I will tell you in most schools that number is closer to 70 or 75 percent and schools like here Coatesville Chester Upland because of your Charter School payments it gets dwindled Charter School payments are 18 I I don't have to talk very much about that because the lady before talked about how how that's a big chunk of your budget that service is is here uh six percent now there's other expenses and I want to say
129um we didn't want to fill this pie up too much but some of those other expenses are are fixed expenses too and there's other expenses are Transportation uh maintenance uh tuition to other schools other than Charter Schools I mean maintenance and transportation take up another five percent of the budget tuition to other schools like the the uh the IU or the the technical school they take up another four percent so if you back out that nine percent you're you're down to about seven percent of what what we will refer to as discretionary spending or or the only places you can really adjust the budget without affecting a a staff member or a class size so the next slide we these are the four big cost drivers not a surprise at Charter Schools salaries benefits and
130debt one thing about debt your your your closing in on this new middle school that's going to cost you a few million dollars in the budget next year uh and depending on how we work out with with pfm and and whoever gets the bonds we're going to have to figure out how we're going to phase that Bond payment in um you know over the next 20 years because if you do it on a straight 20 year you're probably looking at six or so million dollars added to your budget just for that uh if you do a little kind of creative kind of wrap it around and push it out a little bit it could be different you will be given many options on that so um the next slide um it's a slide that we
131like to use back where rich and I came from uh it kind of shows you the history of what the actual and index is here was has been here for Allentown over the past since 2012-13 quite frankly we couldn't put any more numbers on there you wouldn't be able to see it um what your millage has been in those subsequent those those corresponding years and then on the right it's it's the price index as it relates to somebody getting Social Security so this year and and anybody on Social Security um no she got a really big increase I mean my mother was like jumping up and down you know at 88 she was happy 8.8 increase she was I you might have thought she hit the Mega Million but uh so that we've tried to
132line that we used to line that up because people wanted to see well I only got so and so much on my Social Security but you raised your school taxes X so uh swim there so we have a to be determined in the uh Allentown School District millage for next year because we don't know it yet um you know this is as I said this is a high level budget and as you can see the Act 1 index the most you will get is 6.3 so the next slide which is my second to the last slide uh is kind of a multi-year look at the past couple years of of the the revenues these are just revenues so you can see the revenue budget is up a little bit for for next year even even
133you know with our uh a high level look uh as it's compared to this year's budget and and as it compared to last year's actual and the priority the prior year is actual so um then the last thing the last slide I want to talk about the next steps um again we were through those next month we're we're going to do a higher a high level on expenditures next month we will re-review the revenues we need to have an Esser discussion as as I outlined on you know what we've spent what we're spending what we're going to spend and what the heck are you going to do in 24 25 um and we also um Mr Fazio and I are are really determined we're hoping for next month to bring you a a kind of
134multi-year look look out at what's going to happen if you know when the Esser money goes goes away what would happen um and and what you may be faced with so there are some things you can deal with now in next year's budget that will help you out uh the in in uh in our um Minds as a business manager you know one dollar next year equals two dollars the year after so uh anything you can address for 23.24 that helps you in 24.25 is actually a double in double hit you know if you can save one dollar and twenty three twenty four it means you save two for 24.25 uh same with if you if you know you only need a three percent tax increase maybe you want to do four because that will
135be double for 24.25 and we will show you some some things like that uh and then again our our goal is to have a very preliminary uh draft of the budget to you in March so that that won't even be your prom date that's like a middle school dance all right so you know you're in the same room with your date but you know you might not even want to look at him or her so uh I'll take any questions that uh foreign perhaps well there's Dr Burks do you have anything else you want to understand oh Dr Burton just wanted to add some I'm sorry a small question that he may have answered but maybe I you know I wasn't paying attention well miss Wilt was yeah I just told them myself right um
136that all other expenses the 16 percent what did can you give me a little idea of what's in there did you say it already well I I what I went through was maintenance and transportation or about uh that's exactly what they are I I like to use just the facts my my stuff is just math it is just mathematics so it's like one plus one well I can follow you but that's a big list um okay so three percent is transportation two percent is maintenance four percent is tuition to other schools not counting the charter schools so you have like the Intermediate Unit you have the technical school you have students going to approved private schools they're The Very Special Needs students so um it gets you down to about seven percent for what I
137will call pencils pens copy machines teacher professional development stuff that's not in here um Professional Services yeah I mean we didn't even include yeah probably like another 20 of the budget is sultanics [Laughter] okay and then the other question um you know I do a lot of scribbling so it might take me a little time to read my scribbles because I did this the other day but the salaries you say at 34 of of my cost drivers right so um and as a district we are we know that we have some issues that we're dealing with with salaries within our district right how are we going to come are we going to be in a position without going into great detail in this meeting right to be able to address those as we work through
138this budget we hope we have to we do have to address those right because if not then we're you know again that's what you said a dollar if you do every dollar you save or every dollar you know and I'm not promoting an increase but if you increase your taxes one dollar this year rather than zero that means two dollars a year after and I'm not saying you do that it's just a it's just a math formula if you save a dollar this year it's like saving two dollars next year because not only have you saved the dollar but then next year comes along you save that dollar you save another dollar it's two so uh so I will say this um that was pretty much the question but I will say this as it
139relates to taxes I'm a resident so I could talk about taxes right absolutely that's we we hate to see that I do too but again if we had the best school we may be able to sit at that dining room table maybe we won't have a dining room table we got to sit in the kitchen right and we can swallow some kind of increase if there was an increase but we can't keep dumping money into something that's not working so this is going to make a note of that absolutely and and we you know Dr Burks and Mr fazi and I were talking yesterday this this could be a very easy budget for you if you wanted to if you want to ignore 2425 it'd be the easiest budget you ever had just easy because
140you still have a lot of extra money you have all that extra money from the state coming in but you got to deal with the fact that that Esser money drops off the table you are funding programs positions through Esser that you're now going to have to say okay what are we doing in 24 25. uh so what if we improved I heard you if we improve our school district we don't have to ask anybody to come here or pay their bills because people are going to go when they're going to get something for their money right so that's what we need to work on So You Know and you get what you pay for yep well if you thank you if you bring a couple hundred kids back from the charter schools you could
141fund just about anything um yeah I just um I just had a question relative to slide 17 which showed the the tax um incremental increases over the last 10 years I'm just wondering what did you have the opportunity to to see if there's any correlation from the increase in our tax millage to the decrease in our fund balance like were we balancing our budget by by spending down our rainy day fund that that's your your kind of taking some of my that's going to be one of my best slides next month is the fund balance Trend you've had uh we do have that we have a program called forecast five which enables us to look back over many years on that and you you have had a significant you had a significant drop in your
142fund balance um you know and and mainly you know it's it's caused by some a lot of things you know the and I won't even call it covet because you kind of come back from that the past couple years but there's a lot of things you know building into that uh you know starting way back uh no different than some other schools that we've we've worked with that have seen the same types of things happen but that's a good good question and and uh you know rich and I love to talk about that question we will we will have something for you on fun balance next month but we promise thank you well the fund balance really went down when we bought Building 21 for 12 million dollars cash foreign didn't have it in a
143capital account absolutely that would we had it but we spent it just to buy that school okay just letting you know when you go looking that's where you look beautiful numbers I could just you know thank you Miss Madison no no I'm just uh are there any other questions for you that's all I was going to ask okay capital I want to thank Mr Fazio and Mr Lindemann for all their hard work and working with me having them do this presentation a few times so I want to thank you publicly also I just want to reiterate and underscore for the public that we will be very transparent this uh about the budget process we will have student our schools engage their stakeholders so we're asking the principals to identify their parent representative their parent president
144or PTO whatever organization parent organization they have and engage that person inside have them sign off that they were shared that their school level budget was shared with them uh we are also engaging the entire central office having principals come to the central office and reviewing to ensure that we are allocating our resources equitably Based on data so one school may have had four or five or something just because someone said that was a thing to do we're not going to fund the district that way we are going to look at data as it relates to student performance as well as their social emotional this and that's how we're going to fund the schools so I just want to share that with the public and we will have public opportunities for the public to ask
145questions and not in the board setting but forums so they can ask questions and we can explain how we use the resources General funds special funds and where we are in the process so I want to thank you very much thank you thank you and I do want to thank you for that and we do welcome the new transparent process that will be taking place with the budget as well as different ways that we can look towards saving some funds as well and um I just want to say it's a new year so we're going to try our best especially because I agree uh Ms Conover what are we funding um and what are we doing with our funds to make the city better and their school district better so we're going to try our
146best this time we're going to do things differently thank you and I would like to mention that that was not an action item that was just a presentation so there is nothing to vote on [Music] I believe there is just the oh that was the monthly report that included the monthly report so um we can move on to are there any public comments for any non-agenda items that is a no oh okay we do have one Miss Barbara Redmond my name is Barbara Redman I'm with the NAACP Allentown woman in the nacp and we're still concerned about the 88 000 dollars that was um uh uh invoice that was sent out we we still would like to know who um signed for the invoice and when they signed for it we also would like to
147know um about the um the audit the 30th year for uh forensic audit we're not going to let this go we need to know what's going on in order to move forward you brought the budget to us and as we see a lot of errors in the budget already so we need to have that on the 30-year forensic artist thank you okay and um thank you for that uh is there any old business to come before the board not hearing any new business any grass catcher items may I have a motion to adjourn Al thank you Miss Conover second from Miss Wilt uh any discussion not hearing or seeing any all in favor say aye we go all right ladies and gentlemen this concludes the uh Committee of the whole meeting for this evening and
148we are now ready to move into the interviewing of candidates for vacancies on the school board is there a problem over there but uh while we get a chance to set up let's declare about a five minute break if you are a candidate Ms Ramos with whom would they go right you see the hands that are raised please go with one of those two gentlemen and they will escort you to a waiting room thank you good luck getting in there called a special meeting a special public meeting of the board of directors for the school district of the city of Allentown to order this is Thursday January 12th uh may we have roll call please Miss Brown Miss Conover Miss Harris here miss Matheson here miss Ortiz here Mr Palmer Miss will here Mr Miller
149Mr Thiel seven board members present okay would everyone rise please for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence I pledge allegiance of America thank you oh okay I will reserve my remarks as we begin the interview uh Dr Burks do you have any remarks I'll reserve my marks for the next full board meetings given the nature of the yeah quest to address the board on agenda items okay would someone please make a motion to accept the resignation of Mr Nicholas Miller and Mr Charles Steele effective at January 12 2023. um the Hoover somebody raised a hand was it Mr Palmer oh second all right we have a motion by Mr Palmer and second by Ms Harris please call the roll is Conover yes Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes Miss Ortiz yes Mr
150Palmer Miss Wilt yes Miss Brown yes yes seven passes with seven we are now ready to begin the interview process to fill two vacancies on this board and uh after individuals that we select tonight are sworn in at our January 26th meeting uh excuse me I have lost my place after so uh after those people are sworn in they will serve until December 2023. if they wish to serve after that they must seek election in the spring Primary in the fall election a cycle that begins in the very near future okay we will ask all the candidates tonight the same questions and give each person 20 minutes in total for their responses I believe we're ready for candidate number one I have a question oh I'm sorry you have two board members that are resigning
151tonight and we're interviewing for two board members I'm asking for clarity is um solicitor if you can let us know if we are in when they're cold because I know I didn't received an email with someone I was asked if you were in complying or in order to be able to accept the recommendation for our last um board member which is Charlie Phil and also considered um pulling on somebody today so I'm just asking that for clarity because I I am interested to ask that question Ms Conover could you repeat your question and speak into the microphone please can I can summarize the question and the answer it is my understanding that Miss Conover is asking the question as to whether or not this evening after accepting the resignations of both uh Mr Miller and
152Mr Thiel we could fill the vacancies so created by those two individuals this evening and the answer to that question is yes we can we are required under the school code to now fill the position within 30 calendar days it is possible as the result of the discussions this evening that we may not be able to come to consensus or we may come to consensus with respect to one candidate but not to the second candidate so we will have to address that issue when we come to it but uh it will be my recommendation that we act within 30 days because after the 30-day time period the board uh can lose control over the uh selection process and it may end up going to the court of common pleas of Lehigh County and this is
153all pursuant to the public school code of 1949. so was that 30 days from the time that we accept the resignation of 30 days from the date in which the resignation is received by the board it's within 30 days uh after acceptance of the resignation you will not find the answer to that in the school code you will find the answer to that in case law thank you very much Mr sultanic you're welcome thank you madam president thank you then if we may have oh hey can we not give them a place to sit I'm sorry would you prefer to be able to have a chair no yeah sure okay this is our first candidate for the evening this is on dream you're gonna have to correct my pronunciation in dream Brown uh good evening
154good evening my name is Audrey Matheson I'm the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here tonight uh especially that we've been running a little bit of overtime here and thank you for your interest and willingness to fill the vacancy on the Allentown School District Board of Directors through December 23 2023. and each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement so that you can tell us what you would uh like to share with us about your background regarding your interest in filling the vacancy sure after that each board member will ask you up to two questions I will ask you one question or two this section is scheduled for approximately 20 minutes your entire interview hey we have a time keeper over here and Miss Wilkes and
155please try to keep your answers to approximately two minutes a piece that seems to time pretty well so that you can get through the full course of the questions now please anything you would like to save I would just like to thank the entire board for this opportunity to be here tonight to have the opportunity to be able to serve next do me a favor and move the microphone just a little closer to you the one on your right okay that's okay one on the left is it the left I'm sorry oh sorry yes here we go all right there we go I'm sorry start over again okay yes I just wanted the opportunity to thank the entire board for being able to be here to have this opportunity to serve um next to you
156guys so I have won many hats over the course of my career but the defining role of my life is being a mother is being a community leader and also being a student student advocate as a parent and also a director of a program that works with Allentown School District students I am aware of the needs of the students in Allentown and I've worked diligently to be a part of the solution now I am fully aware that numbers do not lie and the numbers show as if we are failing our students but where others see failure I see an opportunity and I do not see failure when I look at the students when I am with them during after school programming or summer camp I see an opportunity for our students to flourish I see
157them being Innovative I see them being creative and I see that there's an opportunity for myself and the board to work together with the community to be able to serve our students I believe that one of my strengths is collaboration and I've done that very well I've collaborated with a few organizations Community Action promised neighborhoods a few organizations to make sure that we have after-school programming for our students and also summer camp for our students and collaboration has worked and I believe that that is the key to the success of the Allentown School District I believe that if we collaborate more with Community leaders and organizations we will be able to get the programs in place that we need for our students to be able to thrive and I just know that there is a
158lot of opportunity here that we are not tapping into and right now we're in a position where we can be futuristic and not necessarily be on the defense but be playing offense okay thank you uh thank you for sharing that statement with us I'd like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family if you are to be selected as a board member no no right uh and just as a double check here examples would uh include a family member employed in the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district that County category no okay Miss Connor I'm Miss Brown Noel hi um questions for you as you most likely
159aware the school district's board of directors is a governance um role yes can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibilities of the school board and in particular what you perceive your responsibility to be now there are quite a few responsibilities of the board of course one of the responsibilities is hiring the school superintendent superintendent and overseeing her we are overseeing budgets we are also overseeing and implementing policies and procedures in accordance to State and um in federal law um but I think the most important role as a School director is working with the communities being transparent and also taking advantage of the opportunities that we have and the resources that are there I know I was looking at the slide today and I was looking at the fact that you
160know we have these Esser funds that we can use and we're about to run out of it and there are other lines that I'm looking at I'm seeing the donation line I'm like there's no way that Allentown school district is only getting around five million dollars I see so much opportunity there where we can get grants and funding to implement the programs that we need in place for our students to thrive and I think that's what I can bring to the table the opportunity where I am the executive director of a foundation and that is my strong suit of seeing where we can create programs and find grants and donors that'll be able to support our students and I think that that's an opportunity that we need to look into thank you very much thank
161you good evening good evening my question to you is what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with charter schools that have enrolled residence resident students of the district great question Miss worlds now as far as the goals with Charter School from the outside looking in I see them doing this strategically they're looking at what we lack in the school district and they're using as an opportunity to plant seeds in the in the city so say for instance an example we don't have an extensive art program so our based schools are being planted all around the
162city so instead of us looking at it as if we can't do something about it we absolutely can they're using strategy we should be using strategy and looking at the reason why they're planting these schools around and make sure that whatever they are implementing in their schools we're providing that to our students that is the only reason why parents are pulling their students out it's because the these charter schools are providing programs that our Public School do not have so we should be using our funding to make sure that we are supplying the schools that we have with the arts program that they need with stem and Innovation and all the things that will have them thrive in this economy but also be ready for the future thank you not sorry good evening good evening
163how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of the incident wow great question um there are always channels that are in place and systems that are in place that you you should follow um I believe that if you see something right away you should report it especially when it comes to our students so if the channel is to contact the school superintendent or go straight to the schools the school board I believe that it needs to be done because no matter what the case is it needs to be addressed and I believe in systems I Believe In following protocol and I believe Protocols are in place for a reason
164and I would follow those systems foreign how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial stability sustainability excuse me of the financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts hmm great question I think I kind of tapped into it a little bit earlier um when I say that there are untapped resources that the school district has not taken advantage of we listened to a proposal from United Way and Miss Harris pointed out that United Way is getting all this funding for the school district but it's going through a different Channel when we can be very direct in being able to get this funding to be able to do the things that we need to do like taking
165care of administrative costs or doing upgrades to the building or getting teachers because there's a lack of teachers in the Allentown School District right now so I think we definitely need to also do some checks and balances and make sure that whatever we have in place the systems are actually working the policies are actually working and if it's not working end it no one Falls the board if we put something in place and it does not work the problem is we fought the board when the board doesn't move on and when we see that it's not working and I'm speaking as a parent and a community leader that's what we fought the board for so when you see something and we we do an assessment and we see that it's not working let's stop it
166right there because we're we can stop it and save some funding there that we can actually use for something else so that's kind of the strategy that I would use thank you you're welcome all right now okay um what do you believe to be the strengths of Allentown school district and what do you believe to be the positive impact of these Trends in our school Community oh the strengths of Allentown School District the teachers are not here because of the pay the teachers are here because they are dedicated just working with after school program and doing summer camp and you're speaking to the teachers and you're working with them you can tell that they're genuinely passionate about what they're doing and they don't want to fail our students I know the standardized standardized tests show
167like our students are feeling the the teachers feel the same weight that the board feels that a parent feels they feel it and I feel like if we can support our teachers with more resources if we can support them even with Community Aid whatever we can do to support our teachers we should be doing that because they really are the backbone of what is happening right now they're holding it together in the middle of a pandemic they went above and beyond the kids came back from a pandemic and they were able to try to get them back on track they're working diligently to get them back on track so we really need to make a stronger investment in our teachers and make sure that we're supporting them at every turn that we can um Iz
168Ortiz good evening what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges I think some of the challenges that we face is the fact that we are playing defense and not offense we are reacting to fires we're reacting to issues but we are not making sure that even though we might quench the fire that we are putting things in place to make sure that it doesn't happen again and we're also prepared for if it does happen again and I feel like that's where we're we're failing so if there if we know that the future and going forward especially in Allentown there's this thing that people would say oh our students are going to be Factory
169workers but even if they work in a factory right now we can prepare them with stem to be the in the innovators to create the systems that work in the factories so how are we investing in allentown's future and not just making sure that okay we know we have students that are struggling with reading and math but also there are other students that are not necessarily struggling are we holding them back and not having them excel in areas where they can when we have these students with potential so I think we should be able to take care of what needs to be taken care of which is getting our our students back to reading level getting our students ready for Math and passing these tests but also making sure that we're preparing them for the
170future of what's to come thank you you're welcome uh good evening uh Mr Brown and Patrick um how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development students achievement I think for me from where I'm standing I think we need to implement More arts program students are not using both sides of their brain and statistics shows that if the students are using the left and the right they do better academically so if we're not making that investment in the Arts going back again to the the charter school that are making the investment in it we're losing them we're losing them so whether it's after school programs or we need to make sure that we have stronger art programs in the school let's just teach our children that there's
171not just one way all our students are not going to be lawyers and doctors but students that I work with are very creative and they find ways to even make money with their art their their entrepreneurial skills are like through the roof so if we're making investments in those areas I feel like we will definitely be moving the needle and supporting our students there um the opportunity that we have it's great we have a big opportunity there when especially when it comes to supporting our teachers supporting our students and making sure that we have the things in place for them to thrive but I think what we need to do is assess what we already have that's the issue doing more assessment and what's already in place removing what does not work and then we
172can find new systems that we can put in place thank you okay in closing last question yesterday to Circle back to you and to your willingness to submit your name for consideration this evening what quality skills and experience would you bring to the board thank you so I have 20 years of business management experience so that covers financial management personnel management customer service and my expertise to start um turn around in startups and I see this as an opportunity to turn the school district around I'm excited to be able to join the board to turn this thing around I feel like everyone that's here you know is qualified and passionate about the students and I feel like I can add something to the board also being an executive director over an arts program currently um
173we're focusing on Mental Health we focus on the Arts we focus on entrepreneurship and we focus on academics as well so I'm well aware of what our students need we have conversations every single day about how they are how they feel in school do they feel safe are they protected are they happy with the the programs that are in place do they feel like they're grasping the knowledge when they're there every single day so having that first hand Knowledge from the students working with parents working with the community leaders and now being able to work with Allentown School Board I feel like it's it's a perfect gel it's a perfect way for me to be able to continue to serve because I've now dedicated my life to service I've completely turned around and changed the
174course of my career from business management to completely serving the students of Allentown thank you so much thank you and thank you for being with us this evening thank you and uh you're off the hook and we'll bring somebody else in thank you guys so much for this opportunity and I look forward to being able to join you guys on the board thank you thank you going to be nice because she's number one okay here I'm sorry should I don't know we hope you sound good good evening and it's nice to meet you Mr Holtzman thank you good evening my name is Audrey Matheson and I'm the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here with us this evening and thank you for your interest and willingness to
175fill the vacancy on the Allentown School District Board of Directors through December 2023. um I might also mention to you that you are putting yourself uh as a candidate for a very time consuming job and we're grateful that you're willing to apply each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement regarding their interest in filling the vacancy so following following your opening statement each board member will ask you up to two questions this section is scheduled approximately for about 20 minutes Ms will is doing some timing over here of individual questions and uh responses please try to keep your answers to about two minutes per question so that you get the full course of questions and and now I would be happy to hear your opening statement you have two minutes to tell us what
176you would like to tell us thank you madam president the rest of school board thank you for the opportunity my name is Lewis hallsman a lifelong anatonian resident an Allentown School District graduate son of a two decade Allentown teacher uh mother on the ASD Foundation Allentown school district has been something that has been near and dear to our family's heart and something that I've grown to spend a lot of time in not just as a student but in a lot of different extracurriculars around so along with the school district the city is something I'm actively involved in and the school district is a big part of the city it's a big part of the city's future it's a big part of how the city will mold and continue to mold as new residents existing residents
177continue to find Allentown home this is something important and really why I'm here is is for the kids here now today but also for those future kids that may find Allentown as home and the Future Families whether they're thinking about the taxes when they move into their homes and what that looks like as a school district or as they go in and evaluate the teaching and the curriculum or the safety in itself for the kids that they're looking to come and bring to this area foreign working with the youth in our city starts the downtown up ah Allentown you soccer club uh the boys and girls club uh Lehigh Valley downtown young professionals um probably the the largest three that I'm working with hundreds of kids over the course of a year any given year
178over the past 10 years Allentown Arts commission Allentown human relations commission uh some other items that I'm involved heavily here in the city I mean well networked as well so I appreciate the opportunity here and looking forward to following questions thank you for sharing your opening statement with us I would like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family if you were to be appointed examples would include whether you were you or a family member is employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district and so on uh no my father that I mentioned is retired next question foreign you most likely are weird
179the School District Board of Directors is a governance um role can you please share with us what you've perceived to be the responsibilities of the school board and in particular what you perceive your responsibility to be responsibility of the school board is accountability it is fiscal responsibility it is putting the livelihood and the respect of our children first um it is to be a guiding voice for core administrators like Dr Burks and some of the others that are here in the room it's to help make decisions on policy on curriculum on um certainly budgets it is for me something that is certainly collaborative in nature something that needs to be open honest transparent certainly a lot of difficult and tough conversations to be had long nights and well aware that these meetings can go to
18010 11 12 at night and that is for very good reasons because you need to be able to come to a decision and actually govern and make a decision and move forward on that right wrong won't know till we actually move forward but you need to move forward um I'll leave that there thank you Mr Holtzman I'm next I have a compounded question for you here terrific what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown school districts could compete with Charter Schools to have enrolled resident students of the district um yeah Charter Schools uh
181I will say that I am not the expert in how they're exactly funded but I do know that is uh basically a public-private partnership that they're getting uh State money uh certainly being able to be funded by uh the school district had I think 18 of the budget was to Charter Schools this year I think it was 15 last year or something around there so certainly a large chunk of of our taxpayer dollars are going to an entity that uh in some ways is considered uh public and how they operate they do not have a board in which they are governed by um the curriculum also is not necessarily decided uh upon like as the board is here it is not something that is held to the same type of standard uh most charter schools
182whether it's brick and mortar or cyber do not show results uh test scores performance scores that are significantly better than public and so the argument or Charter or not is difficult um in the sense of why is it fair it's not something that I believe is is set up appropriately right now do I believe there's a time and place for our charter school and for a certain student I'm sure but do I think that the current system and how that's set up through the state is best representative for particularly communities like Allentown I don't believe so thank you hi Miss dolls man hello how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be
183disciplined because of the incident could you repeat that sure and I'm gonna go a little slower how will you handle a situation as the board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of that incident hmm I don't think there's probably just one answer that so catch all for that but um but I would take uh Miss Harris as an example here where she recused herself from one of the decisions earlier today because of her involvement maybe you don't fully recruse and just leave it there depending on the situation maybe you approach Madam president and in in you know separate conversation outside and say hey this is what I know about this this is my involvement how would
184you like us to perceive here um something like that could probably be a safe path forward and getting buy-in from at least the president if not the broader group to be able to figure out how you move forward on a situation like that Mr Holston back to me how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of the financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts again probably a question that's much broader than a blanket statement but as far as budgeting goes I mean we're talking about a three decade systemic issue something around there um so it's not something to be solved in the next fiscal budget or the next year it's certainly goes up to
185the state that in some of our legislators that will help us you know fight that fight um I'm sorry could you repeat the second half of that question and at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts yeah so Equitable label labor contracts is incredibly important because in order for us to have the best school district and the best teaching and the best teachers we need to be able to have a fair compensation that is equal to if not even more than some of the other districts around us particularly with some of the challenges that our staff do see that the other districts around us don't see um and so making sure that as we go through the budgeting cycle I mean there's a couple different
186ways to move numbers around and I'm sorry I forget the gentleman's name here that that presented that I believe you said roughly 75 to 80 percent is staff and benefits and many districts and ours is significantly less and most a lot of that due to cyber or not Cyber Charter and so I think that is a area that we could probably all agree that we try to work on figuring out how to reduce those areas in the budget so that we can make sure we can have the Equitable budgeting and and Staffing conversations to ensure that we can pay our teachers our admins our paralegals whoever may be up for that uh contract negotiation all right good evening what do you believe to be the strength of the Allentown school district and what do you
187believe to be the positive impact of these strengths on our school Community uh diversity without a doubt uh even to this day I'm almost 15 years removed from from high school what high school did you go to oh Allen oh sorry you know like that the fact that that's the connotation that we all have here and that we kind of go up again so it's something that if you went through Valentine's boosters you know that's not the case you know you had a great education and you know that you had a different type of education that was because of the diversity that was because of the culture uh that those people that went oh I'm sorry I can't even think about or open up their minds to they it wasn't something that was part it
188wasn't in the curriculum it wasn't something that their teacher was was bringing to them as a homework assignment it was something that like made me and my friends and who I went through school who I am today because of those experiences that we had within within diversity within the culture within the different people that the downtown School District brings together and so I think that's a huge strength and something that we're effectively as a city trying to figure out how to really promote and build uh upon um and we haven't quite gotten there yet so I think that is the largest strength thank you good evening what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges
189uh some big challenges I was just keeping on keeping to the balanced budget year after year um keeping schools safe and the perception of safe having I'm not even Leading Edge or but just current technology and standard learning tools that other districts have have you know being one-to-one on technology for an example um how can the board work I'm sorry how can the board work with the district was that the question yes the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges uh if that just has to be collaborative kind of going back to being able to make a decision and stick to it being able to really understand listen first uh work together understand that you're not going to be able to fix every single problem but if you are chipping away
190at the little things here and there and making positive progress and you look back over the course of a school year over the course of two school years all of a sudden now you have a lot of good building blocks to run from foreign how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development improve the school districts can improve students academic achievement and the stats professional development sure so student academic achievement I went to one-to-one on technology I think that's that's a big thing I mean technology is increasingly it is it's here we all use it every day and so we're fighting up against that against other districts that have been won the one down to kindergarten kindergarten and up for years so I think being able to
191address that obviously that's very costly but that's something that in the perfect world would be super helpful having that information in different tools right at the fingertips I'm sorry Patrick could you repeat that end of that uh yeah I could just repeat the whole thing um how do you think the school district can approve students academic achievement and the uh staff's professional development staff professional development is is huge uh if our teachers and staff aren't doing new Innovative things aren't able to you know come up to the board and get certain things approved that will help whether it's move forward in um new ways of curriculum or if it's just being able to understand conferences I think it was seven percent you might have said that we it's used on on staff professional development uh
192maybe how do we figure out that we are able to get our teachers or our admins our paralegals to uh different conferences or or seminars or continuing education more frequently that allows them to bring those type of innovation Solutions into the classrooms yeah thank you all right in closing to Circle back around to you and to your willingness to submit your name for consideration this evening what quality skills and experience would you bring to the board quality skills and experience so qualities open mind collaborative engaging listener ever since I've been young I've been one with many different friend groups many different involved in many different activities until this day and so through that I have a really great and unique understanding in getting buy-in and understanding from the different people different staff different board members
193teachers kids what's important and how do we need to really take all of those feelings into consideration before really making a vote and really making you know putting putting your foot down um because again you do have to put the foot down you have to make a decision do you have to move that process forward but making sure that everyone is at least heard and then being able to make a decision off of that is something that I believe I'm very good at experience and skills that show that the number of boards that I'm on the uh team that I manage at my work which I really didn't talk about at all I'm a I'm a mid-level manager in marketing and sales agency in mass and so uh just again teamwork collaboration and um yeah
194all right thank you very much thank you and we appreciate your being with us this evening I appreciate your time yeah I wrote a little bit of distracting pleasure but it's not gonna work foreign [Music] okay thank you my name is Audrey Matheson and I'm the president of the school board on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here this evening and for being willing to put in a significant amount of time for the Allentown school district and for your willingness to fill that vacancy and each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement regarding their interest in filling the vacancy after that each board member will ask you what will ask you a question or two this section is scheduled for approximately 20 minutes please try to keep your answers
195to approximately two minutes each so that you can get through the full course of the questions I think we'll let you make your opening statement anything you would like to tell us for the two minutes or so oh my name is Karen Ocasio and I have my bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a certification in Human Resources I am currently in my last year in Penn State University for my Master's Degree in Human Resources with a certification and employment and labor law I work in Human Resources field and my professional title is benefits managers but my most important title is Mom I grew up in the Allentown School District then my daughter's currently attending as well I am running for school board because I believe my education and experience can benefit the school district aside
196from my professional credentials I believe that my belief in teamwork and serving with a gracious heart can benefit this team I believe that when we are placing positions such as this one we get so wrapped up in our beliefs that we forget ultimately we are all here for the same purpose I'm here to serve and work together effectively in order to move this school district forward for our children and the teachers of this community I heard actress Taraji P Henson say humans make the world go around and it's so true but oftentimes we forget to be kind to one another we are a reflection of this community and if I'm honest we're looking a little crazy right now I have always been very passionate about the the children of the Allentown School District but after
197the pandemic and the recent event across events across our country I know it was time to take action and step out on faith it would be easy for me to just move my child to another school district or private school but all I think about is kids like me who attended communities in school who everyone counted out I am here today because God didn't count me out and it's my belief that if I can affect change in a positive way and help give children like me and now my daughter an opportunity to be successful than here I am to serve with a gracious heart thank you thank you for sharing that with us I would like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you
198or a member of your immediate family if you were to be appointed examples would include whether you or a family member or employed uh to do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district that kind of thing not that I'm aware of okay thank you hmm they mean to do that oh good evening hi Mr Claus here as you most likely are aware of the School District Board of Directors is a governance role can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibility of the school board and in particular go ahead what you perceive your responsibilities to do well my responsibility if I would get appointed would be to work with everyone to oversee the superintendent and to make sure that
199the best decisions are made for um the school district our children and the teachers okay thank you good evening um I have a compounded question so if you need me to repeat it let me know okay what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with the charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district well I don't know much about the topic but I knew but I do know that they take funds from what's allocated for the Allentown School District um it is my belief that if we put the effort and the work and put
200the funds towards the schools that we have and our students and our teachers that will be able to have a curriculum and a in a good school district and we wouldn't be able we shouldn't have these um Charter Schools I just think it takes from the funds and it takes away from the bigger picture of what we can do thank you [Music] good evening um how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred excuse me occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of the incident can you repeat that repeat it okay I'm sorry and we'll go slower okay how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident
201which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of that incident I will have to stick to my morals and my beliefs and um right is right wrong is wrong so if the person did something that is wrong um and it caused an impact on someone then I or something then I would have to speak up about it thank you thank you back to me how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of the financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts well can you repeat it one more time how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of the financially challenged District
202while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts well keeping like I always say just putting down what's most important let's make the budget for whatever is most important and focus on the important facts first we tackle those first and then we go down across the board um with the lesser of them thank you okay what do you believe to be the strength of the Allentown school district and what do you believe to be the positive impact of these Trends on on our school community what is the strength of the Allentown school districts and what do you believe to be what to uh what you believe to be the positive impact of these strengths to our community well I'm going to speak based off of
203its experience with my daughter's school I have in Jefferson Elementary she's had great teachers and they're very involved with the with me as a parent and with her as a student we keep constant communication and they know that they can speak to me or my mother who picks her up at school and having that is going back to the foundation of um it takes a village to raise these children and um I think from from my experience that's what um that's one of the strings that I've seen that these teachers are directly focus on the student and the parent and being able to have the rapport with the parent to be able to get that kid to where they need to be thank you good evening what do you believe to be some of the
204challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges well well the financial aspect of everything I think that for the most part I think we forget about who it impacts I think everybody has an idea of what should be done but I think we forget ultimately who it impacts and that's our students and our teachers first and we don't take into account what it is do we don't speak to the teachers or whatever the case may be and everybody has an agenda to where the funds should be allocated and we should be focusing on the people who it impacts directly so we can go ahead and allocate those ones not sure if I answer that correctly thank you well it's good evening uh
205how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development the staff professional development if I'm honest I think that the staff needs um from experience I think that they need some diversity training and how to deal with our children of color um I have seen where a child of color has done certain behavior and a white child has done a certain behavior and they weren't both reprimanded the same way so I think that having the diversity and inclusion training would be completely beneficial to the whole District on how to deal with our children in closing we'll Circle back around to you and your willingness to submit your name for consideration what quality skills and experience will you bring to the board well I am I currently work in
206the Human Resources field so I deal with contracts I I do the uh I deal with hiring I deal with Benefits I deal with budgets so I think a lot of my experience and knowledge from um working in human resources and my education will be beneficial for the school board thank you thank you so much for being here this evening thank you okay [Music] give us your freaking job oh good evening good evening good evening thank you my name is Audrey Matheson I'm the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here this evening and thank you for your interest and your willingness to fill the vacancies on the Allentown School Board District School Board of Directors through December 2023. each of our candidates can begin with a two-minute
207opening statement regarding their interest in filling the vacancy after that each board member will ask you up to up to two questions this section is scheduled for approximately 20 minutes if you'll keep your answers per question to about two minutes we'll stay within the time limit and I would be happy to hear your opening statement thank you for having me my name is Dr Evelyn Santana and I'm excited to be here this evening as a candidate for the board of directors I did write something up because I do tend to get a little long-winded so I'm going to stick to this as a parent of a child currently in the downtown school district and having attended schools in the Allentown School District myself like you I'm here because education is a priority for me I
208am a first generation American and college graduate and I know firsthand what it takes to get through the educational system successfully I began my career in education at the K-12 level as a teacher at the time I was a single parent and quite frankly I just couldn't make ends meet I was not even paycheck to paycheck I wasn't even making it from one to the next so I did a little shift and I got into higher education I've held many roles many positions in Administration in higher education currently I'm an executive director in a private college and I sit on the president's cabinet I also um I'm a member uh I'm a member of a number of the Committees for the Board of Trustees um I have regular meetings um with the president's cabinet as
209well as the Board of Trustees different topics such as Finance enrollment revising and setting policy long-term planning strategic planning adding programs approving programs and so on working with Senior Management and the board has really given me a lot of development professionally I've learned a lot the biggest thing is I've really learned how to communicate better with higher management as well as parents and other Educators um I believe that communication is that's time oh I thought is that my time oh and I thought I kept it short um well I'll just say I I will uh just close um by saying that my reason for being here today is that I I have you know education is very very important to me as I mentioned I am first generation uh college graduate and I've always wanted
210to have my hands in the Allentown School District to see how I can help and be a key role player in the education system and this is a good time for me because I have I currently work from home so I have some free time to be able to do something more thank you for sharing your opening statement with us I'd like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family if you were to be appointed examples would include whether you or a family member are employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district that kind of thing none thank you much come on I'm
211gonna good morning good morning not this antenna oops um as you most likely are aware the School District Board of Directors is a governor is a Governor's role can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibilities of the board and in particular what you perceive your responsibility um as I understand it uh the board of directors is responsible for overseeing um everything that um entails the Allentown School District uh be it policies for schools budget um any uh on the academic side classes to be added uh classes to be removed um discipline like I said everything um that has to do with any and all of the schools um that would affect the students thank you you're welcome good evening Dr Santana good evening what do you know if anything about
212how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and do you have any views on the delivery of Education or side by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district um I don't know enough to speak intelligently um as far as how they operate I do know um that they are funded by dollars of the district so I do know that every time that um an Allentown School District student goes to a charter school uh the dollars that are allocated for that student go along with the student to the charter school as far as how the operations of it I'm not familiar in detail or enough to be able to speak on
213it intelligently but I that part I do know as far as the the money there's concern yeah thank you all right good evening hello how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of that incident um without knowing any specifics it would have to be handled uh like any other situation with employees it would have to be reported um I don't know I I obviously my the majority of my experience is in higher ed as it pertains to um dealing with a board um and I would need to know a little bit more about what the situation is because it would really depend on different aspects of is it something
214that we're going to handle is it something that is going to be handled by that supervisor that school so I would need to know a little bit more detail but if your question is is it something that I would report then my answer is absolutely yes foreign that's me how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial stability of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts that's a very good question um because of course uh that you know budget dollars are a very it's a the main um one of the main um things that uh that need to be discussed in board meetings for obvious reasons um you know our students our children um because
215I still have a child that's in the Allentown School District um need every last dollar every last penny and um I feel that the conversations need to always revolve around what is best for the student population as a whole um I think that the downtown School District really needs to look at different Avenues as far as you know where income can come into uh the district other than I was looking at the the presentation earlier and um I almost got a twitch because we're I'm also in the budget process currently and it's like uh um but I I think that one of the things that the district can look at is where it can generate income from oh hi what do you believe to be the strength of the Allentown School District and what you
216believe to be the positive impact of these Trends on our community school Community I think that the biggest strength that this the Allentown school district has is diversity um I I work in my current role I do work um with a lot of high schools and um some are not as diverse and I feel that that hurts the student population in several degrees several areas but I do feel that our diversity is one of our biggest strengths and um I apologize I think I'm part of the question uh the student um into the positive impact of these strengths okay um yeah so the the positive impact of being a diverse district is that that diversity is coming right back into the community we obviously also have a very diverse community and um you know the
217the better we do with our schools as a district that's obviously going to reflect um later in in our communities foreign good evening what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face to face these challenges um well I was told two minutes so um I think that I'm going to start with the the challenge that I believe is one of the greatest challenges that the district is facing and I'm giving you this information not only as a parent um also as a professional um I believe that one of the biggest challenges is that we need to make sure that our parents our community knows how important it is for our children to be educated and you're
218probably sitting there thinking well of course we know it's important parents know that it's important they do but I believe that we need more um and let me just preface by saying I I don't know the extent of there are any programs out there for parents or anything like that but I really do believe that parents also need to be educated through workshops so that they can better help their children I don't believe that at this point from my perspective I don't think that we are doing the best job that we could be doing preparing our students after they graduate high school and get out into the workforce go out to college or whatever it is that they're going to do they need to be better prepared to be in society and become functioning adults
219thank you you're welcome good evening uh Dr Santana good evening um how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development um as far the first part of your question um it's it's a long process I really do believe that um you know once you get into the higher uh grade levels like high school at that point it's it's late in the game I do believe that our students need to be we need to start early with our students so that when they get to the higher levels they're um they're on their way to have a full education as far as the staff development again I don't know the extent of what is currently in place at the district but definitely some uh staff development in diversity Equity
220belonging um again I don't know the extent of what you have right now but um that is something that area is Major that should be covered because um uh I mentioned earlier that the one of the strengths I believe is the diversity that we have um so therefore the staff and all the professionals should be educated in that area thank you thank you we're going to circle back to you and to your willingness to submit your name for consideration tonight what's quality skills and experience would you bring to the board well I do have um I did mention um in my current role uh that I work with I'm part of the president's cabinet for a private two-year college and I do have extensive experience working with board members um and uh high-level uh senior
221level management I currently oversee 15 off-sites for the college that I work for all of my students um first I call them my students all of my students are non-traditional students um and I I really have the opportunity to speak to all of them and tell them my story because I also was a non-traditional student and um all of my students have gone through majority Philadelphia School District systems some from other areas but they face some of the same challenges that I did I ended up taking probably almost two years of remedial courses because I wasn't ready for college level courses um and I have worked um for almost eight years now with students preparing them um for college and um and some of them say you know what I thought I wanted to go
222to college but maybe I don't and you know we give the students what they need and that's something that I do personally I obviously work for a college and my job is to get them through college and graduate but as we know college is not for everyone and um you know that's one of the strengths that I would bring is I I can speak to different Pathways that um that we should be looking at for our students just to make sure that we're covering everybody thank you thank you you're welcome thank you thank you very much thank you thank you so I'm just letting everybody like I'm typing on here if it's loud and bothering you guys just tell me because like I'm sorry because I forget to mute this like when I'm typing away
223from your microphone thank you because I'm not here any responses here I don't know if you've heard that's my husband tonight he's building judgment but I feel it you're doing that I'm not gonna look at you but I'm going to do anything like 97.00 things all right are we ready good evening Miss Santiago good evening my name is Audrey Matheson I'm the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here with us tonight and thank you for your interest and willingness to fill the vacancy on the Allentown School District board of directors we give each candidate a chance to begin with a two-minute opening statement regarding their interest in filling the vacancy but following that each board member will ask you up to two questions this section is scheduled
224for approximately all 20 minutes all together so if you keep each of your answers to about two minutes we'll fit within the time schedule so we'll let you have your two minutes of opening sure um good evening board president Matheson and vice president Wilt and members of the board thank you all for your service to the city and the district I know this is not an easy nor highly coveted position however I want to acknowledge your service and what many times probably seems like a thankless job my name is Shelly Santiago I was born and raised in Allentown I attended Lehigh Parkway South Mountain and I graduated Allen in 2003. I went to receive my bachelor's in elementary education a master's in Multicultural education as well as various teaching certifications I have over 15 years
225of experience in both working in private public and in higher educational institutions looking back on the teachers and coaches I had in the district I believe I can now fully appreciate their sacrifices they made to make a special impact on my life their students and their players as a wife and mom of three I understand the late nights the rides meetings games professional developments everything else that comes with being a great teacher and a coach I understand the time and sacrifices that need to be made in order to make the best investments in the children not only have I been on the receiving end of the district as a student athlete I've been a parent as well as an educator and a coach I believe I have a unique perspective having had the opportunities to
226be in these roles ever since having Mrs Steele three consecutive years at Lehigh Parkway I knew I wanted to be a teacher having had Mr Young for both a teacher and a coach of South Mountain I knew I wanted to coach the impact that these teachers and coaches as well as countless others have had on my life in the district has made me the teacher and Coach I am today the difference that one teacher or coach can have on the trajectory of one student's life cannot be underestimated thank you I'm sorry I saw you cut me off was that it was that too many okay all right I didn't see that all right okay all right but thank you for sharing your opening statement with us I'd like to begin the questions by asking if
227you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family if you were to be appointed as a board member examples would include whether you or a family member are employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district that kind of category yes um there's one I am currently um uh consultant with uh our contractor with Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School so that would be the one conflict okay thank you well I know good evening Mrs Santiago good evening question as you most likely as you are most likely aware of the food the food District Board of the directors of the government's building so as you most likely are where the School District Board
228of Directors is a governance role can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibilities of the school board and in particular what you perceive your responsibility to be um School Board I know the last couple years especially being a parent it's being in the news a lot um paying more attention especially having my children in the in the district having my had my children in the district um making tough decisions district-wide budget obviously we had that presentation um uh making decisions um Personnel decisions um yeah I mean and I'm coming in um humbly working as a team looking to learn more I think I bring my educational experience working in a school not having had experience necessarily working in a school board so I know the tough decisions that need to
229be made and I'm willing to learn and grow and work as a team thank you can you please tell me what you what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with the charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district that is a lot of questions okay um yes to my understanding um I was looking I like to look and compare um the annual yearly per pupil spending I know that um districts have an allotment per pupil um so for example ASD has appropriate per pupil spending um The Money Follows the student to the Charter
230School um transportation I know is also another expense um not sure of all the details of that but I do realize that there is this um natural competition that exists that I don't know how we can work together and build relationships with our charter schools because we all want the best for our students so naturally I understand that there is this inherent because of the relationship with the the spending the budget um there is that conflict but um if we all can come to the table um realize you know what do parents want what are what are the best um options for our students um I think we could come together and work out those differences um and eliminate the competition as much as possible thank you good evening good evening how would you handle
231excuse me how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of the incident um if I had internal knowledge of a situation I mean it would depend if you know if it's something egregious and um disciplinary you know actions have to occur um I guess it would depend on the situation um depending on the information I I my principles are transparency honesty Integrity so that's what I you know what is right is right so um if something is the right decision that needs to be brought to the table if it's someone personal that I know I mean what's right is right so I'm bringing my Integrity I'm bringing my transparency
232so that's what I would have to offer thank you how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts can you repeat that absolutely how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance our financial sustainability of the of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts um yeah I'm not sure if I'm going to answer that question the way that I would like to if I really thought about it for more than two minutes but um I think we can I think we have enough people who can come together to
233think of ways to invest um in areas where we could have um you know our best Roi right we want um to invest in you know get the best bids from contractors um yeah I'm not sure how to answer that question thank you I'm sorry it's okay okay what do you believe to be the strengths of Allentown School District and what do you believe to be the positive impact of these strengths on our school community the strengths of our community I think um I mean we have a great amazing culture the culture that we have the families that we have um we all want the best for our students so I think the strengths that we have culturally [Music] um the diversity that we have um is a beautiful and what I appreciate most about
234our community so I think um we can all learn from each other if we all are able to um have open minds what was the last part of the question okay and the impact of the strengths on our community yeah I think that we have the we have the potential to come together bring our differences um humble ourselves but we all we have all um a beautiful culture that we I think that's our biggest strength we have a beautiful culture beautiful diversity that we could celebrate and learn from each other um so also it could be a weakness as well but if we are able to look at you know look aside our differences um we can really that could be one of our biggest strengths for sure thank you good evening what do you
235believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges um challenges I mean we have we have students who are in really die or dire situations I was in the classroom and I um I don't I'm not going to pretend that I understand the situations that they um are going through but our students are in very difficult difficult um family family situation so when they come to us they come um it's not just I I understand as you know a former teacher I'm not just going in I'm teaching my student English I understand that they have other layers that they're coming with so um we have how do we as teachers and Educators and the board how do
236we come together how do we be a village to make up and Advocate and come to the table bring our resources together how can we come together to bridge the gaps that these students um are are facing because it has to take a village so I think that the board local community leaders parents teachers we want the best for our students so how can we come together be a village a true Village and um do what's best for us our kids thank you good evening Miss Santiago good evening how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development um student achievement first I would say it starts early and um I think that having a more robust Pre-K I know that there's opportunities out there but it starts
237early if they fall behind um you know I don't know by third grade I would say I mean if if we have to have um these students coming into kindergarten as much as we can um giving them resources before they even enter the enter the school I think you know providing uh Pre-K and a really strong curriculum for the elementary school to to make sure their read their lead you know they're leaving us they're leaving these elementary schools at a good level um to you know to succeed or it's always going to be catch up second part of the question was and oh and the stats professional development staff professional development um just um I I think the most helpful professional development in my opinion is um when we are educated on um again given
238tools of how to build relationship with our students communicate effectively with the parents um and understand what may be going on at home how can I because perhaps I have not and I don't understand but I need to understand and I need to have an open mind how can I reach these students um building cultural cultural awareness um with our teachers for sure thank you in closing we're going to circle back around to you and your willingness to submit your name for consideration what quality skills and experience would you bring to the board um I think I bring a unique perspective um I must I'm a student athlete so I've been through the district uh graduated from the district I have been a parent of an of Allentown School District children I have three children
239um I have been a teacher I have worked closely with administrative Administration so I bring a level of knowledge about how districts run how schools the day in the day out um just Logistics and you know the systemic um issues and the systemic um sorry uh the systemic you know running a school the daily operations of a school so I think these roles that I've had brings you know has given me a unique perspective and um I would be glad to serve the district that has served me growing up thank you so much for being here this evening thank you so much thank you thank you good night good evening thank you that was Audrey I'm sorry two minute break I can't hear them be quick don't talk anymore I guess assignments um foreign [Music]
240we did have to allow two board members a little break so it'll be a minute thank you very much congratulations thank you March [Music] all right I think we're ready to begin again good evening Miss Saunders good evening good evening my name is Audrey Matheson I'm the board president on behalf of my colleague as I wish to thank you for being here especially as late as this is going this evening and thank you for your interest and your willingness to fill the vacancy on the Allentown School District board of directors each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement regarding your interest in filling the vacancy after that each board member will ask you up to two questions this section is scheduled approximately for about 20 minutes all together so if you try to keep
241your answers to about two minutes each we should time nicely Mrs Wilt is taking care of timing for us and anytime you're ready to start your opening statement you have your two minutes alrighty so first and foremost I want to say thank you it's a privilege that was my last line but it's going to be my first one um thank you guys it's a privilege um to be here so thank you for your time my name is Kiara Santos I'm 27 years old going on 28 in February um I am the oldest of five um I speak Spanish so I'm pretty fluent in Spanish you can say I'm bilingual I just stutter sometimes here and there um uh so out of high school I've always worked in um daycares youth departments I worked with children
242um I am currently a store protection specialist at Ross in Whitehall um I started a stock room cashier then they promoted me to uh store protection so I identify any internal or external theft indicators all day um and then I just want to finalize by saying that um foreign with leadership you have to be knowledgeable in a lot of different areas but when you care about the people around you and the impact that you're making um you can go above and beyond and that's when change happens so I want to say in regards of teamwork if everyone does a little nobody has to do a lot and um you know we incorporate our gifts and our skills and such and we make something happen so thank you I would like to begin the questions by
243asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family if you were to be appointed examples would include whether you or a family member are employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district those kinds of things no ma'am okay actually hold on one second did you say if I know someone or were you talking about family and just family in regards a family can you repeat that last question whether you would have you have a family member who was employed or you have you were a family member is employed or you do business with a school district and if just knowing somebody is another category gotcha okay ready yes ma'am
244good evening um as you most likely are we at the school district board of directors is a governance role yes can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibilities of the school board and in particular what you perceive your responsibilities to be Okay so um would you like me to repeat it again yeah actually you can that would be great all right Refresher so as you most likely wear the School District Board of Directors is a governance role so can you please share with us what you perceived the responsibilities of the school board are and what you perceive your responsibility is to be so what the school okay maybe perhaps making changes where it's necessary um like I said teamwork right we all have to put our ideas together and come
245up with a conclusion um there's a lot of learning in the process uh maybe an open mind uh [Music] and yeah I would say that [Music] um I think I would say that thank you good evening Miss Santos can you please set tell us what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and how they operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and do you have any views on how on the delivery of Education by either cyber and or brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district okay so that is a um that's a theme I can uh learn a little bit more about um however um for high school I auditioned for Performing Arts
246Charter High School Lehigh Valley Charter High School the Performing Arts in Bethlehem I was a theater major so I did that for two years and a half before I transferred over to William Allen um I don't have anything um negative to say about the charter school um I went to their graduation I went to their prom um but there's still a lot I need to learn in regards of what the difference between public school what goes on in that aspect and what goes on what's the differences so comparing contrasting and such so thank you thank you good evening good evening how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of
247that incident so like if I had personal knowledge of something um well I'm a very honest person so I mean that's part of the reason why I'm here um honest but um I try my 100 to be kind all the time um not perfect but yes um I would be honest I think I would be honest I mean I'm a store protection specialist I have to watch for internal and external theft that you have to trust me to some extent so yeah thank you thank you that's me how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts can you repeat that one more time please sure thank
248you not worded very well how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of our financially challenged districts while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts okay I can't guarantee that I'm gonna answer this question perfectly um but I'm gonna start by saying uh on my opening statement I said something about you know bringing all of our skills together um all of our gifts together things that we're good at our talents whatever whatever we need to bring to the table that is necessary to um be aware of um certain situations as well as maybe multitasking hello what do you believe to be the strength of the Allentown School District this is the Strand and what do you believe to
249be the positive impact of these Trends on our community school community a strength hmm I mean we do have some good teachers out there I'll tell you that much I think my elementary school teachers were my favorite though I definitely loved my elementary school teachers um so on behalf of students however um I would say one of their strengths would be the capability of knowing where you feel you need to fit in if that makes any sense so let me just you know choosing choosing the right group of friends and be honest choosing the right group of friends you know um that's how that's how I got by so yeah thank you thank you good evening what do you believe what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district
250and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges I'm sorry can you please repeat that one more time sure what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges okay so I would say probably um finances are obviously a big one but um communication I would say would be the challenge because I mean so many times we come across so many misunderstandings do you know how much can be avoided if these misunderstandings were just cleared out um that's why people can't sleep at night because over a misunderstanding I mean we lose sleep over misunderstandings so I think communication like um you know finding the right ways to communicate and
251actually wanting to improve on communication skills well the communication also comes understanding so you need to be open that's what I would say thank you thank you good evening Miss Santos um how do you think how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development okay so those are two different things right can you repeat that one more time I'll just do the first part first got you uh how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement okay all right I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a little literal literal here because I was one student who would ask a lot of questions and um quite frankly we don't have all the time in the world to answer my every single question so maybe um this
252is the this is as literal as it can get uh maybe um breaking up the classroom into smaller groups having a leader in the group to who knows what's going on to break things down I mean there could be better planning on how the academic could get better because we fall behind we fall behind when we lose track especially if it's like a subject that we're not strong on we just fall behind and we just lose track and we just give up I graduated so thank God and on the second part improving the staff's professional development repeat that one more time improving the staff's professional development hmm that's a big one um how much time do I have 45 seconds 45 seconds okay improving the staff's professional development I'm sorry to keep you guys waiting
253but um [Music] like I said my favorite teachers were in middle school that doesn't mean that I didn't like my high school teachers um it's just that there's a lot going on in high school there's a lot going on in high school there's a lot of personal stuff going on at home just as much as Elementary but Elementary School teachers are more nurturing you know because they're allowed to be they're allowed to be a little more nurturing but when we get to high school we kind of have to grow up and we have to have a thick skin so um with teachers maybe they can get together have teacher meetings staff meetings discuss certain circumstances that we can improve on I don't know that's just a thought getting the teachers together to communicate or something
254like that yeah all right thank you thank you all right in closing we're going to circle back to you and to your willingness to submit your name for consideration this evening what quality skills and experience would you bring to the board quality skills and experience um I'm honest I would say I'm loyal I'm kind genuine um skills I like English I can write I could take notes um I have questions here and there if I feel uneasy or confused [Music] um but I always like taking notes um I like contribution I like to contribute um and [Music] um like I said I did a lot of theater and I and I and I sing so I don't think singing has anything to do with the Allentown School District but um I don't know maybe I'll
255write a song and who knows maybe it'll blow up and then I could bring all the millions to the school district who knows no but um yeah that's what I can do for the most part thank you thank you nice to have you this evening nice to have you guys thank you appreciate it all right thank you good any term I do not disturb my God because my photos I need some food it would be better no forever [Music] thank you especially in the exact same thing all right hello are you ready to go [Music] good eating this year good evening my name is Audrey Matheson I am the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here with us this evening and thank you for your interest and
256willingness to fill the vacancy on the Allentown School District board of directors and each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement after that each board member will ask you up to two questions this section is scheduled approximately for 20 minutes so if you time yourself uh roughly at two minutes each for question answers you'll fit within that total of 20. so we'd be glad to hear your opening statement thank you so much and thank you board for this opportunity so my name is Alia Sierra I'm 19 years old I was a William Allen graduate um in 2019 2021 I am also a youth leader from promise neighborhoods a facilitator with cohesion and also youth city council president for the past two years I've been able to establish authentic relationships with youth and um with
257youth and members in my community by being a mentor a big sister and a support system for all youth I've been able to create a safe space and be a safe space for youth to discuss their issues within their district and I'm relatable to our current generation I'm credible and I'm passionate on doing what's right for our students I would Implement new ideas that are effective to our current generation of Youth and I would hope to pave the way for other youth or to motivate inspired to bring out their inner youth leader thank you thank you all right thank you for sharing your opening statement with us I'd like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your immediate family
258if you were to be appointed examples would include whether you are if you or a family member or employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the district things in that category so I do work with promise neighborhoods at the Lehigh Valley um other than that I don't and I also with cohesion that is working in the schools and elementary middle and high schools but other than that that's what I have thank you thank you good evening board of directors of the governance role absolutely your responsibilities would be absolutely so to be a school board director means to be an advocate for all students and for the betterment of their education in the Allentown school district and board directors also oversight they discuss
259and vote on rules budgets contracts and curriculum changes they also could make certain requests to the board regarding any further changes we feel are relevant and effective to implement this is all with the approval from the board board president vice president and the superintendent sorry good evening can you please tell us what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe that the Allentown School District should compete with charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district so when it comes to Charter Schools I understand especially with our conversation that we had today on this meeting just the importance of just how can
260we support our Public Schools more with students who are leaving the public schools and going into charter schools um I feel there's definitely an issue there and how can we get more youth to feel comfortable to go to their you know their school down their street or um sorry I'm getting stuck I'm sorry I'm getting stuck well are you able to represent part of that question do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and should we compete with um Charters that enroll our students um okay I think that's what I have I'm sorry thank you thank you good evening good evening how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that
261could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of that incident that was a great question I would handle that situation by obviously bringing um bringing it maybe to also the parents as well involving the parents and that involving the student involving the whole board the staff I feel everyone when it comes to especially a staff member faculty we need to understand the root cause of certain issues certain you know reasons why certain things happen so I would just bring it all into discussion make sure you know we're advocating also for our student if they had a certain incident with that staff if that's what we're you know mentioning oh yeah thank you thank you how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of our financially challenged District
262while at the same time addressing the needs of our professional and non-professional staff in negotiating Equitable labor contracts I'm so sorry can you please repeat that again I'm sorry that's okay how should the it's it's getting late should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of the financial each of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of our professional and non-professional staff when when negotiating their labor contracts okay so to answer that question um I can just think of where I would want money where I would want the money allocated so I would want you know mental health support programs for students and staff I would want Workforce Development programs I would want you know more support with our sports teams um our school events
263and also for our school and classroom improvements thank you thank you all right what you what do you believe to be the Allentown school district oh I'm sorry what do you believe to be the stress of Allentown school district and what do you believe to be the positive impact of these Trends on our school Community I feel like the biggest strength has to be um honestly I see it with the with their students I see them as our biggest strength I see a lot more students now than when I was previously in school who want to get into certain you know higher positions they want to get into rooms where you know it may not seem like you can get into those rooms as a youth so um I feel like that's our biggest strength
264and also um what was the second part of the question uh the impact of this of these strengths on the school Community the impact of the strengths of the school community the impact of insurance this impact um it builds agency within their students and that helps impact their schools by building them into as I said the youth leader thank you thank you foreign [Laughter] what do you believe to have some what do you believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges thank you for that question so the main issue for me with the Allentown school district is their bullying issue and how we handle that when it comes to our youth I notice we have an
265out of date system when it comes to our bullying um bullying isn't new but it's having a profound effect on the learning aptitude for our students and technology has made that issue way worse by giving students different Avenues to torment students um also poor academic performances as well family factors as in how can we support the family with their child's needs online schooling how can we make sure students are learning the material they need to to move on to the next step and also classroom sizes um facilitating at different schools around the school district I've noticed the classroom sizes are either overpopulated or for example I also put the infrastructure within the public schools so there's certain classrooms where art classrooms music classrooms where the paint is tearing there's broken guitar strings and it's this
266place where you're supposed to express creativity but it doesn't show your school doesn't show that this is how they're going to you know that they support you that they want you to express that creativity they want you to learn you know and also I remember school being the same when my parents were in school so like especially with our Public Schools updating that just and adding more you know and just painting goes a long way I noticed thank you how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development okay so to answer that I can just think of what my vision will be um so for my vision for the education and the community so I put my vision as a community where all students feel loved respected
267and encouraged to develop to their fullest potential by providing high quality education and child care in a safe environment that builds a foundation for lifelong learning for all students all schools in ASD will acknowledge and respect children from diverse families and different cultural backgrounds which establishes hope and belonging within their schools elementary students are getting the proper assistance and skills they need to transition to middle middle school and high schoolers are more engaged within their community and develop a sense of agency within their schools I would also encourage Workforce Development to establish skills that many young adults I noticed lacked once entering upon adulthood and this and also college readiness classes for youth who are focused on their career path or who would like to be focused on the career path and who would like
268to learn how to punch into a Time Clock critical thinking and you know just anti-management sorry I also Envision mental and emotional needs are supported and accessible to faculty and staff I mean faculty and students in the ASD and their the resources are there they just need to know where to find them so also just opening up and bringing that into conversation because not a lot of students or parents know where to get their resources so if we can also you know help them out but you just it's just as simple as letting them know we also know that there's a language barrier as well with many parents so if we can just make that accessible and also just respecting the children from you know the diverse families diverse families that ties into that thank
269you Monsieur thank you all right and last we're going to circle back around to you and your willingness to submit your name for consideration tonight what qualities skills and experience would you bring to the board so over the past two years I I say I'm credible just because also I'm relatable to my youth so I Mentor many youth in the community who are able to you know Express and just be open with me about what they're experiencing so I feel I have a greater scope on what's going on in the school district and what the youth needs are I also um I also as I said before just want to encourage and motivate other youth to be on the school board or to be you know leading certain programs at their school and to just
270be motivated to also encourage and help other youth because we need each other so that's what I would bring thank you very much thank you thank you so easy foreign I may have to remember the way to learn things good evening good evening everyone good evening my my name is Audrey Matheson I'm the board president on behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for being here tonight especially since uh you've had to wait till the end of the alphabet thank you for your interest and willingness to fill the vacancy on the Allentown School Board of Directors through December 2023. each candidate can begin with a two-minute opening statement regarding their interest in filling the vacancy after that each board member will ask you up to two questions this section is scheduled this whole
271section is scheduled for about 20 minutes if you time each of your answers for about two minutes and we have a time keeper as well uh you'll we'll accomplish all of that okay so anytime you want to start your opening statement yes my name is Anna tubercio I graduated in derriff high school in 96. I also worked at Allen from 2003 2007 at The Lending wing I worked at the daycare for the teen moms and um after that due to that I was married I took some time off for that I've been very involved in the community since my dad ran for state representative and 2012 against Jennifer Mann from there I noticed um helping him out with his campaign all the help that we needed in Center City because we did have a daycare
272ourselves and we was worried about involved in Keystone stars and helping out the parents in Center City as you could tell um I do speak both languages English and Spanish so now I am a tax preparer and I do see the deficit that we have with the new population coming in of immigrants having their kids in school I don't just help them with their taxes but form filing and most of the things that applies to schools usually they come to me due to that they know me for so long and me being involved with different programs as community services for children and non-profits that my dad was handling through the daycare so when it comes to school and they're like we don't know how to fill out this application it's a little hard and that's
273what mostly concerns me is that being the voice of the unheard all right thank you for sharing your opening statement with us I'd like to begin the questions by asking if you are aware of any conflict of interest that would impact you or a member of your fam immediate family if you were to be appointed examples were to include whether you are a family member or employed or do business with the school district whether you work for a company or entity that does business with the districts those kinds of things no it is the most diversio um my question is as you most likely are aware the School District Board of Directors is a governance role it's a governance role as you almost likely aware the School District Board of Directors is a governance role
274yes can you please share with us what you perceive to be the responsibilities of the school board and in particular what you perceive your responsibilities to be I believe it's overseen um different schools and what's impacting impacting them on each one of them and how am I able to help them thank you you're welcome good evening what do you know if anything about how charter schools are funded and Opera how charter schools are funded and operate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do you have any views on the delivery of Education by cyber and brick and mortar charter schools and do you believe the Allentown School District should compete with the charter schools that have enrolled resident students of the district I don't think that we should compete I think that we should find and um
275ways for the our children to stay in the Allentown School District instead of competing that has actually been a big concern for me because I do see a big population before I came to the meeting and they were talking about it how a lot of parents are choosing charter schools because it's a smaller environment and they get more help so I think that we should work on actually giving that help that they're looking for so our kids could actually stay in our district thank you good evening how would you handle a situation as a board member if you have personal knowledge regarding an incident which occurred at the district that could ultimately impact whether an employee would be disciplined because of that incident I believe as a board member um we should talk things out
276as a team before I make any decisions to handle that's what I have seen thank you back to me how should the Allentown School District balance the need to enhance the financial sustainability of our financially challenged District while at the same time addressing the needs of its professional and non-professional staff when negotiating Equitable labor contracts to be honest there I haven't looked into the financial part of being honest thank you all right what do you believe to be the strength of the Allentown School District and what do you believe to be the positive impact of these strengths on our community I believe there should be an involvement between the administration the parents and the student that would actually make our district work better I think we're lacking on that part good evening what do you
277believe to be some of the challenges facing the Allentown school district and how can the board of directors work with the district to face these challenges challenges at the moment I believe that it's the issues with the fighting in the schools between the bullying and I believe mediation would be a great asset but most of the um that would be a great program for the school just to have a third person also um with education not being the parents not being much involved because of the language barrier I know that we have a program as far as like to teach them English as a second language but in the application really when you go into it it's mostly in English to test that you got to take so a lot of people don't understand it
278so if we get the support to actually teach them one way or the other not baby the parents because we're not here for that we're actually here to work as a team and make it better thank you I could even miss tubercio um how do you think the school district can approve students academic achievement and the staff's professional development please repeat the first part first please how do you think the school district can improve students academic achievement I believe what having more tutoring programs not just um 21st century I believe now that um certain schools actually having taken kids to the different classrooms and noticing not everybody needs an IEP but it's good to actually have some type of assessment so that that way we everybody doesn't feel that they're in the same level so
279having an extra you know extra test is always good you know an evaluation that has worked for South Mountain I believe if we put that in other schools it will work also okay and the second part is how do you think the school district can improve the staff's professional development more workshops like before I think after covert we haven't um have enough workshops and believe it or not the teachers are a little drained so that actually that was always something that everybody always looked into the more motivated the teachers get the more they give you're welcome in closing we're going to come back around to you and to your willingness to submit your name this evening what quality skills and experience would you bring to the sport it will be communication education and finances that's
280it thank you thank you thank you foreign people who were kind enough to come and talk to us this evening uh I'll give everybody a couple of minutes to think and then let's try an informal approach where we'll just go around the table and I'll ask you to nominate your top two candidates and we'll see if we have some consensus and we'll take it from there if we have to that's okay we're calling the numbers or names no I'm just calling yes names please of your top two candidates thank you first one Brown uh second Ocasio okay hey Ms Brown Can You Escape me I can't hear you I'm sorry can you set me or do I have to go I was I was trying to go around but I'll skip you and I'll come
281back I'll be kind as well um number one Andrew Brown and number two Dr Evelyn Santana Ms O'Connor O'Connor what did I say Conover I think you know what I I have to control myself con over I will get there forgive me for the hour that's okay number one Andrea Brown and number two is Dr Evelyn Santana for myself as Adrian Brown and then Anna teresia um and Ms Brown and dream Brown um and Anna Fabricio say it again I'm sorry I didn't hear Andrew Brown and Anna tabrisio but I pronounce your name correctly yeah okay and as for myself Adrian Brown and Dr Santana [Music] Audrey for me it's going to be Dr Santana and Anna Toby tervisio okay all right it looks like uh we have uh six votes for Anne Greene Brown
282and four votes for Dr Santana which would be enough to appoint both individuals to the school board this evening uh so we could have uh a motion if that's uh the parties are willing to uh appoint and dream Brown and Dr Evelyn Santana to the school board you don't need to vote for that but there appears to be sufficient votes for that I didn't work out the pairing if it depending yeah there should be if there should be sufficient votes to vote for each one of those individuals but you're suggesting a combined motion if if you know given the late hour uh or the early hours you certain certainly uh very soon we may want to simplify that process but that's up to the board what would somebody be willing to make the motion to
283appoint Adrian Adrian Brown and Dr Dr Evelyn Santana but was that uh you said yes and Miss Conover will second it I'll call the roll please Miss Ortiz yes Mr Palmer yes Miss Wilt yes Miss Brown yes Miss Conover Miss Harris yes Miss Matheson yes 7-0 I think you found your board members let us all congratulate our Junior board member now we'll tell them the secret of what they're really getting into in terms what I haven't finished yet thank you I would just like to make a comment and I would like to thank everyone who submitted their names tonight I would like to I've been on in the hot seat in another position to a very late hour similar to this and I want to thank you all for sticking it out paying attention to
284our meeting and being willing to serve and um you all brought valuable um ideas and comments to the table so definitely um definitely consider um continuing to Advocate and support um ASD in whatever capacity you feel comfortable um do we have any requests to address the board on non-agenda items I want to make a comment Audrey I'm sorry I want to make a comment it doesn't wait for a minute one second okay right no cards all right now old business now is Brad okay um so I would like to say for everyone who did come out today and you know just stand before us and to speak your truth do not be discouraged if you were not selected tonight um sometimes it's hard when you're making a vote um we had many candidates that did
285a great job that could have been selected but when making a vote you don't want to waste the vote in a sense you still want to capture the vote for who you think is a good fit so what I would say is 2023 is coming so again you had a chance the opportunity to come to speak your truth people got a chance to hear you you know do not stop your passion I heard something good from everybody that spoke whether if you had the professional background or not like each and every one of you touched an area that can active actually impact our district so continue your truth and when those seats are up please because we need a lot of people that's going to come out and take the time and run for a
286seat so thank you there's five seats up for election 2023 5. is there any new business to come before us no I also would like to uh thank everybody who applied to this evening and with the uh two individuals who are going to be joining joining us come and see me for a minute and then may I have a motion to adjourn I have no idea who moved it or who seconded it but you this is one night you may vote with your food all right