001best year after year after year. Oh, do you want it up now or Yeah, you can do that, but just they don't have a presentation, do they? For what? I don't know if they do. Oh, okay. All right, that's fine. I'm going to give a report tonight. No, 20. It's going to be 27 minutes. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight and welcome to the Averton Heights School Board meeting for Wednesday, May 21st, 2025. Would everyone please rise and pledge the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all Mr. Mr. Abdullah here. Mr. Azar here. Mrs. Henderson here. Mrs. Hillibbrand here. Mrs. Karum here. Mr. Moran here. Mr. Robson. Yes. Here.
002Mrs. Tierney here. Mr. Aker here. Nine. Back. Can we please have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Second. on the motion. Roll call, please. Mr. Abdella, yes. Mr. Azar, yes. Mrs. Henderson, yes. Mrs. Hillibbran, yes. Mrs. Karum, yes. Mr. Moran, yes. Mr. Robson, yes. Mrs. Tierney, yes. Mr. Aker, yes. 90. We have a motion to approve the minutes for the board meeting of May 7th. So move. Second. on the motion. Roll call, please. Mr. Azar, yes. Mrs. Henderson, yes. Mrs. Hillibbran, yes. Mrs. Karum, yes. Mr. Moran, yes. Mr. Robson, yes. Mrs. Tierney, yes. Mr. Abdella, yes. Mr. Aker, yes. 90. Thank you very much. Okay. The next item is for board reports, but I just want to stop for a moment and and say what we're going to try and
003do is have board reports um in particular on facilities committee and some of the work they've done and then we are going to have an extensive presentation by Dr. Schaefer on the construction project and after that public comments. So, and in between that of course student representatives. My point is I want to make sure people know exactly how we're going to be doing the public comments. I want to try and have the public comments after we've made as many as much information public as possible so that when you come up and make a public comment if it's about the building project, you have the best information we have at the same time. Okay. So with that, uh, are there any board reports? Mrs. Henderson, Mr. All right. I curriculum committee met um on Wednesday, May
0047th after our marathon full board meeting. Um wanted to thank the members who stayed for the meeting. I know it it made for a long night. Um Mr. Calder and Mr. Evans also joined us. We had four items on the agenda. I'll just run through them quickly because I know we have a lot on tonight's agenda. U the first thing we did was reviewed the new comprehensive social studies curriculum uh that was written this year. Mr. Halder did a great job leading his um curriculum guiding team on writing a new comprehensive curriculum. Currently, we do not teach social studies as a standalone um content in K through uh sixth grade. So, they created resources that will be taught um by the elementary teachers um that will be more supplemental in nature from K4. Um, fifth
005and sixth grade will now have lessons that will be taught after PSSAs, uh, for the seven remaining weeks of school. Um, seventh grade, uh, we'll be doing world history. The biggest change, and I do want to comment on this because I have been getting a lot of questions. I want to dispel any rumors that are out there. Eighth grade will now be learning, uh, geography. Civics will continue to be taught in Abington Heights School District. It is a state standard. um it is getting moved to as a high school cla uh CL high school curriculum. So those students who are current eighth graders and above have already had civics as a part of their um middle school um content. So moving forward, they will have the choice to take the new written uh civics class
006as an elective, but those incoming eighth graders and below will have to take it as a um requirement when they are in the high school. So, we are not getting rid of civics at Abington Heights. It'll still be taught. It's just being taught at a different grade level, different level. Um, I'm sorry, my mouse is not working. Anony's excited. It's still working. Um, all of the links to the content um that was written um is on it will be on the website and it will be in board docs. We also went over um PBIS is one of the things our initiatives for a comprehensive plan. Uh we are working with the IU to do a deep dive in the PBIS um work that we're doing. So each school has basically taken a survey. Um and
007each school has also highlighted the things that are working well, things that they're doing um and things that they have um coming up. We will be conducting surveys again. Parent surveys will be going out um they went out at the beginning of May. Teachers and student surveys will follow. Uh the purpose is to assess school climate and to give a voice to the students, teachers and families. We completed our caregiver workshop series. Um we are looking at a way to rework them for next year. Um I do want to thank those uh who are involved in holding those monthly uh caregiver workshops. We also did a quick review of um the different types of assessments that we do with our children so that all of the curriculum committee members had a comprehensive view of what
008what assessments are we using, why are we using them, what is the frequency, um you know, when is benchmarking used, when do we use sumitative assessments, formative assessments, standardized assessments. We just wanted to make sure that all committee members had a shared understanding um of the assessments that are being done. And we also um finished up with talking about AI. We reviewed our current policy um mainly being the goal to uphold academic integrity while students learning how to use it to responsibly enhance their work. Uh we talked about different considerations that can be found in the committee report on boards. Um our next steps is to really you know we've been talking to the administrators to see how they're using it to enhance and the teachers um are using it to enhance what they're doing
009in their everyday jobs and we're going to do a deeper dive um to get deeper dive to get a specific um view of how they are using AI in their um daily work um and then we'll determine what the next steps are. Okay, I believe that's it. Thank you very much. My mouse isn't working. So this was from memory. Any any other reports before Mr. Mr. Thank you, Mr. Uh the facilities committee met on Friday the 16th on an ad hoc basis in the immediate wake of receiving uh the bids for the middle school project. Um our two primary consultants for the project were both on the call, IC, our construction manager, as well as KCBA, our architectural and design firm. Um the two purposes of the the ad hoc meeting were one to review
010the bids that we received on the four different prime contracts. There was a lot of um concern going into the bid process about tariffs and what the impact would be uh on the proposals. Unfortunately uh we were we were I will say pleasantly surprised. I had uh some very significant concerns as did others. uh but the bids did come back very close to the budget within 1%. So Dr. Schaefer will go through some of that during his uh presentation tonight. The second and the the really the bigger reason we had the ad hoc meeting was to talk about one of the alternates to the bids which was included uh primarily because of our concerns about the tariffs. there was uh an alternate included in the prime contract uh for the general contractor uh that would
011exclude uh the gymnasium at the middle school. And um once we received those bids from all the biders, uh the facilities committee got together to talk about whether or not to recommend to the board tonight to accept uh excluding the gym at the middle school. So, uh, to make a long story short, the committee unanimously approved not recommending to exclude the gym. So, in essence, recommending to keep the gym in the bids. And the three reasons that I will mention uh to everyone tonight. The first one uh was the fact that we primarily included it because of the concern about the tariffs and when the bids came in basically at budget, that concern uh didn't manifest itself. Um the second reason is and everybody talked about this during the committee meeting. The existing gym at
012the middle school is um very substandard, very small and doesn't serve the interests of the the middle school students currently. So we need a new gym at some point and the fact that we could do it now uh was very attractive to the committee. Uh waiting would would probably result in higher costs. costs tend to go up over time and so we could avoid uh the potential inflation risk of building the school in the future and there is a real need today uh for that additional space. Um the third reason and and perhaps the most important is our administration was strongly recommending to keep it. The experts that are in the school that that we rely on every day uh to tell us what's needed at the district were we're all strongly recommending that we
013keep it within the proposal. Um, so that was the primary reason for the meeting and and that's the recommendation that we're making to the board tonight to to not accept that alternate bid. Okay. Thank you very much. We're certainly going to have some comments after Dr. Schaefer's presentation. May I ask one question about that committee meeting? Sure. Was our business manager present at that meeting to discuss the financials of the uh results of the bids and to um help us guide us through the financial um uh decisions that were made that night? No, the the business manager was not at the meeting to to do any budget review or any additional review of the budget. Um the the review in the meeting was purely to talk about the alternate bids themselves, the dollar amounts that
014were received and and determine whether we would accept it or or not. Thank you. Okay. Uh next up is our student representatives. Uh Gia, it's a it's a good night, right? This is the last night you have to sit next to uh Mr. McBetty. Yeah. Uh the season is coming to a close now as the school year's kind of dying down, but um not too many notes this evening. Um but here they are. Uh our environmental science class took two teams to the annual Environ with the teams placing first and second in the region. One team moved on to the state competition held today right outside of Pittsburgh. Next, uh, several junior students have received recognition for the National Merit Scholarship Program. Those students include Mark Barbar, Jonah Khan, David Zurich, Sona Hamali, and Michaela
015McDaniel. Last night, our annual reflection ceremony at Montdale Country Club. We honored all students who received scholarships for their tremendous athletic, academic, and leadership efforts throughout their high school career. Congratulations to all those students. Um, the National Honor Society will be inducting members from the junior class and awarding honor chords to the senior class on next Tuesday, May 27th. Uh, congratulations to the new inductees and thank you seniors for your impact on the environment at Abington Heights. Senior WC day, the timehonored tradition, will be held this Friday, May 23rd. The senior class officers have filled the day with fun, including a hypnotist, senior superlatives, an outdoor cookout, and many other activities to help commemorate their time together. Lastly, the junior senior prom was held this past weekend at Ferellis. The junior class planned a wonderful
016evening for 500 guests to dine and dance the night away. Overall, it was a great night. Thank you to the junior class adviser, Miss Brown, and of course, all the junior class officers. Uh, that wraps up my notes for this evening. Thank you so much and we hope you have a good summer. Oh, thank you. You as well. Good evening. Um, this is my last meeting, so I thought I'd do you guys a favor and keep this one a little bit shorter than normal. But that being said, our spring sports were very successful. And even though we're at the end of the year, um, our athletics remains in full force even in spite of all the weather related challenges we've faced, especially in the past two weeks. We are currently entrenched with district and state
017playoffs among multiple sports. As of Tuesday, May 20th, our varsity teams have achieved six league titles with our girls lacrosse, softball, boys tennis, boys volleyball, boys track, and girls track all taking um the league titles. Our unified track and field captured the Special A uh PA Northeast Regional Championship and is competing in states this weekend uh May 23rd through the 24th. Our ver varsity boys and girls track and field teams will also be at the state championship this weekend held at Chipping Shippensburg University. State qualifiers include DJ Rogers, Aaron Bartell, Anna Puchalowski, Reese Morgan, Maggie Coleman, and Tamara Seid. Our boys tennis captured its 12th straight district title as the team went on to compete in states last week. Abington Heights has three individuals representing um us in states this Friday the 23rd. The threetime
018AAA district singles champion Pneal Mallayia and the AAA district doubles champions Brady Commtock and Liam Ferrell. Overall, the team went three for three in titles available this season. And Abington Heights is represented well in district playoffs with our boys volleyball and softball both hosting district semi-final games tonight at Abington Heights and tomorrow the 22nd. Baseball hosts its district semi-final. Uh while the girls lacrosse is competing in the district final both at the high school. So I really encourage everybody to go out and support our teams. They've had a you know wonderful success this season. and we'd like to see him continue that on. Um, and through our partnership with the Lehigh Valley Health Network, we are again offering free on-site physicals at the high school nurses suite for athletes entering grades 7 through 12 in
019the 202526 academic year. Physicals will take place in our school's nurses suite at the high school on the rescheduled date of Tuesday, June 3rd from 5 to 8:00 p.m. And as a reminder, athletes must pre-register for the physical at the specified times available. And that link will be emailed to the students and families within the next few days. And please refer to our athletics website, www.hsdathletics.org, for the most up-to-date information. And as this being my last board meeting, I'd like to sincerely thank my administration and all of the board members for the, you know, kindness and support you've shown me these past two years. And yeah, just thank all of you. Thank you. Don't don't don't go away. Don't go away. So, you know, typically this is the point in time where we ask the
020student the senior stu student rep, what are your plans? What are my plans? So next year I will be attending Nor Eastern University for their international business program and through their international business program I will be studying in London um come September 1st for the entire year. That's great. Very good. And what are your career plans? My career plans I'm I'm not typically not or I'm sorry I'm not too sure. I would like to go into economics or international business something along those lines with a you know big investing banking company something like that. Owen, thank you very much for your your time here, your service to the Hey, as a reminder to all of our our parents here that have high school students, why don't you tell them about what are you going to
021be doing this lazy summer? This lazy summer, I am going to be working non-stop. What? Tell us your hours. Yeah, I had this conversation. So, a a typical summer week is about 70 to 75 hours for me uh between two jobs because college is expensive. So, got to get through it. Owen, thank you very much for Thank you guys. Thank you. Good luck. Okay. Uh Dr. Schaefer, I I think you kind of have a double header here if I understand this right with your report. We'll turn it over to you. I'll turn it right back over to uh Dr. Tion in the the high school Cleo Club. Am I right? Oh, here we go. Right. Okay. You're ready. All right. Thank you. Sorry, I wasn't looking at an agenda. Um, thank you for having me.
022I'm Lisa Bath. I am high school English teacher and I'm here to um to propose to you an approval for an a new a new chapter of a national organization called Cleo Club which is part of a Cleo initiative that began in a high school in Florida in 2021. So it's a brief overview of why I'm here. So thank you for your time. I will also do my very best to try to keep this concise. uh a lot of information because it's been tremendous to have this experience this year, but I'll try to keep it concise as I said. So, first of all, um I saw a segment on CBS mornings back in November. Unfortunately, Homesick um decided to settle down and watch a morning show on a Friday morning and I saw a segment
023that was part of a series called Kindness 101. And it was about a group of students from a local high school. And again, this was in Florida, who went to a local senior center to help seniors learn about the technology they carried around with them all the time. However, they just didn't know very well how to use all of its potential. And so, they were feeling kind of disconnected and isolated. So, these students decided this was working very well. developed a relationship with the people at the senior center and continued to do this very very much like our student representatives had a tremendous amount of initiative and vision and made an official an official organization out of it called cleo and cleo stands for computer literacy education outreach. So while it started there, it has
024grown up the east coast and uh what when I saw this I just said we have to do that. I want to do that and we have to do that. So it's an init I'm going to read a couple of things for you from the official CLEO initiative website to give you the you know the what is it exactly? What's its mission? Because of course as part of the national chapter we would uphold all of these. So, it's an initiative that bridges the digital divide between generations, connecting high school students with seniors to share essential technology skills. And I say seniors meaning seniors in our community. The mission is to empower seniors with knowledge and confidence navigate the digital world, helping them stay connected with loved ones and maintain independence. So, how it works is,
025and as I've made reference to, student volunteers meet with seniors in local community centers, can be libraries, it can be senior living centers, etc. to provide one-on-one guidance and training with smartphones, computers, any digital tools that they have that they feel like they have a need to uh to understand better. So, beyond technical skills, and this is what I've I've had the privilege of witnessing firsthand, beyond technical skills, Cleo creates meaningful intergenerational connections. So, it enriches both the students lives and the seniors lives and serves a part of our community that our volunteers aren't necessarily targeting in other groups, but this group specifically does target seniors in our community. So, I am requesting recognition for an Abington Heights chapter of National Clo initiative. Um, and of course for approval to be the faculty adviser creating
026an EDR. If approved, we'd be only one of 35 school chapters in only 15 states at this point. According to their website, there are only 35 in the country. And um, I think it's very exciting to consider being a part of that. There's actually only one other CLEO initiative in Pennsylvania at the according to their website and that's in Westchester, Pennsylvania. So, we have had some experiences already with how this works. I've been very fortunate to have um the support of Dr. Tion to have a provisional Cleo club and we had 64 students join our Google classroom and a consistent I'd say 30 to 35 students although we did take attendance so we're between 30 and 35 who showed up for meetings in my classroom about I think we've had about four meetings thus far
027but what's great is that we were able to move beyond just talking about and actually do something so I'm very fortunate to have part of our student leadership team here u very briefly we have co-chapter leaders and we have a chapter support team. So instead of just having a president of the group, I made because I had the freedom to do this, I made six leadership positions. Not everyone could be here tonight, but we do have several. Um so I wanted to ask them to join me because they'd like to talk about the specific experiences we've had again briefly, but we've been to the gathering place and that's because I reached out to Ann Armazani who was a longtime middle middle school teacher here. She's very active with the gathering place. told her what we're
028doing and she said, "We'd love to have you." So, we took a group of 13 students to the gathering place on March 31st and we spent two hours with them just meeting one-on-one, sitting having conversation exactly as it says, you know, building intergenerational connections, but also helping them with their laptops and their phones and having a really neat experience. Um, so in addition to that, which uh Morgan Morgan Kelly is one of our representatives, she'll be speaking about that. In addition, we've also made a connection with the Abington Community Library and Judy Ded who is running adult services at the library. And I will speak more to that in a moment. Um, but that's our other community connection. So, Morgan, if you'd like to Oh, you're right behind me. Go right ahead. Um, hi. Thank
029you so much for having us. Um, so my name is Morgan. Um, and I'm a member of the chapter support team for Cleo Club. I'm speaking on behalf of what we as Cleo have already accomplished thus far on our mission to help the senior community navigate new technologies and bridge the gap between generations. We had a very successful first meeting at the gathering place right here in Clark Summit. I met with an extremely sweet senior, but she was genuinely scared of her phone. We were all scared of new things, but anxiety about something that has become such a prominent part of everyday life saddens me. No one should have to feel that way. We, as Cleo, want nothing more than to alleviate the stress of venturing towards something so new and foreign to our senior
030community. My interaction with this lovely woman was entertaining and enlightening for the both of us. I taught her how to take screenshots and even taught her how to open emails, which we both laughed as she turned up a Christmas elf jingle from years ago. Um, we shared conversations and she enlightened me about her own experiences, likes, and interests. We ended up having a ton in common and we both shared an appreciation for the performing arts and we talked a while about that and a number of other things related to the topic. At the end of our interaction, she told me she would keep a list of more questions she had for us and random things she wanted to tell me. She walked in feeling really nervous and scared to even touch her phone um but
031left feeling confident and excited to use her phone. This experience was not only positive for both parties but acts as a vessel to soften the rigid stereotypical differences between two generations. I hope to continue our endeavor to serve our seniors and students. These seniors built our generation and we are honored to help them navigate ours. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Vita and I am a member of the Cleo Club and I'm also a part of the Cleo chapter support team. As Morgan mentioned, the event we had at the gathering place where we built our relationships with this with our senior community members. The volunteer experience gained during our events is crucial for the students academics and extra extracurriculars. In the post-graduation preparation class, all gra all all juniors are required
032to pass to graduate. Volunteers hours are required. Volunteer hours are also required for major clubs such as the National Honor Society and Interact Club. Cleo Club provides opportunities for students to fulfill those necessary duties more effectively and purposefully. Thank you. So in addition to what we've done with the gathering place already, they have asked us to be regulars next year. We've greatly appreciate the opportunity to do that. And I've been in connection, as I said, with Abington Community Library, which recently received a grant for something called like Texan Tech and Teens. And instead of hiring students because they could be paid with the grant money, Judy Dat, as I said, is part of the adult services coordinators. Um, she asked us if we would bring our students and if we could use the money in
033some way to support what they do, like having gettogethers where they actually pay for, let's say, snacks or they pay for any tools or accessories that we buy for people. Um, we would like to get, of course, t-shirts. we have the Cleo logo. We'd like to get t-shirts made in and various other ways. But she specifically reached out to me and said, "I think we can partner and I'd like to talk to you about this." So, one of the things we did, um, we met on, uh, Friday, April 18th. We sat and talked about it. And decided we definitely would have a standing relationship if we are official. And she would like us to be going regularly to the Edmonton Community Library. She would reach out to senior centers and of course library patrons. and
034many of them are seniors to begin with. Um, and invite them to our programs and events. So, that is an experience that we're looking looking to do. We're actually going next week to make a plan for next school year. I feel like our group is unique in that, as I said before, we do target the older community members and their needs. Um, we all know that our phones keep us connected and that's one of the things that we want to be able to provide for them is a sense of independence and confidence, but also keeping them connected with family members and their community. Um, another way I love how this organization works is that I actually couldn't start it. Uh, there are a lot of things I didn't have access to initially. When I reached
035out to the creators of the initial Cleo, they said, "Great, thank you. We're happy to have you. However, this is about raising up student leaders. They said, "Once you have student leaders, reach back out to us." So, that took a couple months. Um, and we've had elections and we have a group, as I said, of six, two co-chapter leaders and four chapter support team members. I thought with such a big group of kids interested, we need to create a number of leadership positions. So, that's really what they're all about. And then when they reached out to the organizers, they were they were provided access to a number of trainings. For example, we don't just send students into the gathering place or into the library. They have training specifically about handling privacy issues that may come
036up if seniors say, "Hey, can you help me to um set up my bank account and you know how we do not do that kind of thing, of course." Um how to maintain like the privacy and confidentiality of any of their information. um talks about boundaries, even provides us with dress code recommendations for going to our events, um general rules for how to speak to them and how to be good listeners. So, we actually had access to a number of trainings from the Cleo Initiative, uh the national chapter, which was only released once we had student leaders. So, I love that that's the way that this group operates. My role of course is necessary. Um they do require that there be a faculty adviser for the Cleo Club despite the chapter leaders. Um I focus
037on obviously establishing meeting routines which we will have uh officially next year being present for them obviously being present for any events that we have. I've been the contact for both Mrs. Armazani and uh Mrs. because I know them and I've been able to with you know a long-standing presence in the community be able to reach out to people um for the students who may not have those connections. I also um will oversee any of our efforts proposals that the students may bring to me um and be what I hope is the faculty face of Cleo um signing off on official events and just being present and being part of of everything that they do. So that's that's my concise version. If you have any questions, please feel free. I'm sure there are things I
038haven't covered because I have like six pages. So if you have any questions or you have comments, I'm happy to take that. But I also know you have a lot to do tonight, so I don't want to belabor the point. Anything? Um, this is awesome. Uh, I saw this on the agenda and I was really excited because there's a lot of ways that students want to volunteer and there's not always obvious opportunities for service. Um, I actually had I I was an AmericanoR Vista and our program, the national program I I volunteered for was um connecting college students with um uh underserved populations to do things like resumes and and other, you know, volunteer income tax assistance, things like that that college students had more access to technology and whatnot. So, I think this is
039fabulous. Um I I serve on the Lacuana County Library Board and um the Abington Library is one of several libraries to just get a grant for 100 new laptops for the public. So this is a great way for them to actually be used and by the population by everyone by everyone in the population. Right. Right. And and a lot of the population is underserved. And you know I I can I I don't want to belabor this. I just I know um maybe I don't, but I I I think that I speak for a lot of us here that I've watched my own children um help me or help uh members of our family um use technology. And so I just this is such a a nice way for them to be exposed to um a
040different population and be of service. So thank you so much for seeing that on CBS and bringing it to uh our district. I think that's awesome. Thank you. If anyone wants to look for it, it's like under the kindness 101 uh CBS Morning's kindness 101 program, but specifically Cleo. Um yeah, I've been I've been in education 30 years. So, I'm actually closer to the seniors when it comes to age and experience with technology, but because I work with the youth all of the time, I I feel like I'm right well sort of in the middle. Not quite. I guess closer to the other end, but I think it's a great way to to connect the two generations that I I love. So, so we'd like official approval, but also because the faculty adviser is required,
041I'm also requesting to have an EDR created for me to do this. And because I am on that closer to the senior's end, I will be retiring at some point, not an immediate future by any means, but I'd like it to be able to continue. So, if there's an official position that someone could take over eventually when when I would vacate that position, um, that would be secured by an EDR position. So that's what I would like to officially request. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Thanks to my students for coming along. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So, tonight um we're going to be uh voting on some aspects of the the middle school project. And I wanted to take a moment uh to uh speak to the board and to the
042community, to the folks here in in the room. Some of this is a review of what I've already discussed and I do think it's important to reiterate uh the steps the board has taken to get to this place uh that we are today. So I first want to talk a little bit about investing in our future and our our middle school uh project. And I apologize upfront, but I uh I was a history major and that's a perishable skill. But there are uh a couple things that I that I still hold on to. And I hold on to them for a reason. And that's because of the job, the calling um that I'm that I'm currently in and the role that Pennsylvania has played in that. Uh public education in Pennsylvania has long been rooted
043in a belief that strong schools build strong communities. In fact, um for those who don't know, the common school reform movement started in Pennsylvania with a lawyer, US Congressman, abolitionist, and architect of the 14th Amendment, Thaddius Stevens. In Pennsylvania, they believe that education should be universal, non sectarian, and free. In fact, we didn't start that way in Abington 193 years ago with the fell school in the Madison Academy. That wasn't the case then, but it became the case uh shortly after. Daddy Stevens argued that the benefits of education extended far beyond the individual student to families, neighborhoods, in fact, the whole economic vitality of the state. And in fact, that was almost repealed in Pennsylvania in 1834 when Thaddius Stevens made a a a very well-known address in defense of education, the the US Congress,
044where he talked about, not in these terms, but education being a pillar of democracy and seeing that as a way to social mobility and equity and so on and so forth. It's one of these areas where oftent times I'm asked by my friends and sometimes it's like uh I I cringe when some folks ask me well you know I compare United States to this place to this place and to this place. I've been to a lot of countries over my the last 30 years and we talk about education and visit places and it's it's few and far between when I find communities outside the United States that educate everybody. Um so we've done a very good job um that way. However, I always come back to that if we if we think about the common
045school reforms movement and that is our civic obligation as members of this community and living in this community. You must ask the question or answer the question, what is the value of an Abington Heights diploma? And I've spoken about this uh several times each year and I will continue to do so because I think that that matters. Oftentimes we talk about education particularly public school districts in this K12 focus and it needs to expand far beyond that. In fact, every year I talk about national student clearing house data. All of us, if you go to college, postsecondary school, trade school, you're you're tracked by your social security number and there's all sorts of data available. I can tell you that the secondyear fall persistence rate of Abington Heights students, that's their second fall going into
046college. That is a very important indicator. When you take a look at post-secary education, ours is 95%. It's 95% in public schools and it's 95% in private schools. our six-year graduation rate, which is a national metric, our five and four year, all far surpass any national averages. You ask me why I talk about that because when I see low persistence rates, that's a coralate and an indicator that students aren't prepared for post-secary education. And what we talk about is preparing our students for post-secary education, whatever that may be. And those are the metrics that we follow. We take a look at our AP scores. We take a look at our Keystone assessment scores. We took a look take a look at our nocti scores. We take a look at our ASVAB scores. And by all
047measurable and anecdotal indicators, the value of an Abington Heights diploma in education is unbelievable. And if you want to get in to social coralates more then that matters and I will argue this till the day I die more than anything about where you live. There is a strong positive correlation a relationship correlation between the success of the school district and the housing values and appreciation. When folks look for homes, one of the first things they look for are the schools. Are there great schools in this community that I want to move my family to? If the answer is yes, the community becomes very desirable. That's something that we look at. And everything that I'm talking about in this slide is interdependently linked. And if you think that you can maintain it doing nothing, you're wrong.
048Because just speak to me privately and I'll give you a bunch of examples about communities that went south because they didn't tend to the details. We're fragile. And you have to work hard for excellence. And it's an investment. So from those earlier reforms that I mentioned with the common schools, one idea has remained central and that is communities thrive when we invest in education. The buildings where our children learn are more than classrooms. They are the foundation for opportunity, focus, and excellence. Quite serendipitous, Miss Bath, that you guys are here today. Communities thrive when they invest in education. When you see a group of students and a teacher here today wanting to invest in the community on their own time for the betterment of the community. That is a pillar of democracy. That is why
049we invest. we invest in our children and they're able to pay it forward with other members of the community to help create a better shared understanding. We will thrive as a community. That's what keeps community strong and it is it is an investment. I've talked about the 193 years of education in the Abingtons and you can see that up here. This is something that I talk about where we were once six different school districts and it wasn't until 1967 when we opened up our new high school on Noble Road where we all came together. So what we're proposing tonight is a approval of the middle school construction project and this reflects the enduring legacy of community support. Just as prior generations built the facilities we use today, it is now our responsibility to ensure they
050are updated and ready for the students of tomorrow. And to make it clear, this project is not about luxury. It's about necessity and opportunity. We're responding to clear infrastructure needs that affect safety, accessibility, and educational quality. We are positioning ourselves to align with modern educational practices from collaborative learning environments to STEM integration to many things that we haven't even thought of or imagined yet. And we are making sure our facilities reflect the focus and excellence we expect from our students and staff. And to be clear again, this board of school directors has approached this project with transparency. strategy and fiscal responsibility. When I went through the interview process almost three and a half years ago for this position, I was sitting with board members who are no longer here and we had a discussion about
051facilities and they said, "We've got some new board members coming on and some of us are sticking around, but we know that we have to make some investments in facilities." and we talked about it. So that's what quick means in education because we didn't waste a second. We opened an RFP in the spring of 2022. We're a little over three years in. So when I talk about transparency, strategy, and fiscal responsibility, three years in, we haven't put a shovel in the ground. If approved, we put a shovel in the ground in the summer and we open up five years from the time we started talking about it. That's due diligence. That's strategy. That's fiscal responsibility. We've had an independent facility study to assess the needs. It was very comprehensive. We have public hearings, plenty of
052stakeholder input, a project budget that came in below the original $50 million cap, and built-in contingencies to manage the costs without surprises. The next two slides, and this is posted, I'm not going to go over this, but I've laid out a timeline, and I know that I'm missing things. These are some key indicators and and moments that we've had in addition to the 7,000 respondents in one year that we had to our survey that we've done for three years. Over that same time that we talked about the facilities, we also had to think about how can we leverage grants, create savings, and invest. Over the same time, we've received at least $2.1 million in grants. We've invested shrewdly to the tune of 1.8 million in investments. We clawed back some charter school savings, which is
053an ongoing battle. We had to make some cuts as a result of esser where we yielded 586,000. All of this yielded 5.1 million of reinvestment into the most important areas of the school district. So this board has thought about, studied, researched what strategic investments into our facilities look like while simultaneously charging me with finding other ways to generate revenue to help augment the services that we have. So today's vote is a vote for the future. It's also a statement of values. We believe in creating environments that inspire learning. We are honoring our responsibility as stewards of taxpayer dollars and we are willing to invest in the long-term success of our students and the community. In the spirit of the common school reform movement, we are once again asked, will we invest in our schools as
054a public good? Will we build a future our students deserve? So with that said, um that is a presentation I have. Um we have a uh public comment period and then we have uh a motion to approve prime bids. At that point that is typically where the board uh engages in discussion. Dr. Schaefer. Thank you very much. Uh, at this time we have public comment. We ask that you, anyone wants to speak, give Mrs. OD a card with your name and where you live. Uh, we ask people to keep their comments to more or less three minutes. And, um, at this point in time, we have two people that have asked to speak before the board. First would be Robin Robin deco an old one. Okay. Well then we have one person and it's Mark
055Staller. Evening. Appreciate the time. I have