001ladies and gentlemen welcome to the abberton high school board meeting for Wednesday March 19th 2025 would everyone please rise and pledge the flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America stand naice okay okay Mrs OD roll call please Mr abdella here Mr AAR here Mrs Henderson here Mrs hillbrand here Mrs carum here Mr Moran Mr robon here Mrs Tierney here Mr AER here eight present okay may we please have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second roll call please Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr robon yes Mrs tney yes Mr AER yes 80 thank you can we please have a motion to approve the minutes for the meetings of February 19th and March 5th so moved second on the
002motion roll call please Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AER yes 8 Z okay are there any board reports at this time Mr AER I have a board report okay Mrs Kum the finance committee met on February 26th with our advisers Zack Willard from pfm and David Payne from PNC as well as uh Jim relli we were able to narrow our discussion to six financing scenario scenarios if you recall we were looking at 40 um in the last couple months uh our goal at that meeting was to essentially evaluate our interest rate risks um the six scenarios allowed us to compare the total financing costs with basically two bookends uh taking out the minimum amount as a line with
003the construction draw schedule uh and then conversing conversely excuse me taking out the total amount needed to cover the cost of the entire project so fully funding the project uh we closely examine the interest rate risks and budget impacts through 2034 we also discussed how we intend to use and incorporate our Capital reserves in this project the committee along with Dr Schaefer narrowed our scope of borrowing options down to two to three of of these Financial scenarios and we are hopeful that we should be able to make a recommendation to the board after our next meeting but we decided to press pause and push our our finance committee meeting back to later April early May uh scheduled to be determined um after we discuss the project bids which the board will the entire board will
004see in hopefully early April and then we will revisit our financing recommendations based on this uh new information thank you perfect thank you very much are there any other board reports okay how about our student representative did Mr mcvety leave your hind right at uh yes I'm filling in for Owen this evening he's not feeling well but I hope you told Revenge will be sweet okay um so for our academic report uh we want to give a huge thanks to the AIU for Grants awarded to fbl mock trial and the math department the math department is hosting an upcoming math festival at CSC on March 27th where students and department members are currently busy with the planning for that event um inter interact Club is hosting the bunny breakfast which is scheduled for April 5th
005at um the high school from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for more information you could visit the high school Facebook page for the QR code and to register a huge congratulations to Mack trial who is moving on to States as well as the Science Olympiad who's also moving on to States uh day of song was held for all three sections of the music department Orchestra on February 11th banned on February 25th inquir today on March 18 March 19th um this event allows middle school students to travel to the high school to participate in small group sessions led by high school students and then to experience a class conducted by our high school music teachers additionally members of the middle school will be able to perform in our Spring Concert Series uh lastly for this report
006third quarter ends April 4th and the sound of music is scheduled for April 11th 12th and 13th um I apologize but the uh athletic report is a little lengthy um for our boys basketball the Comets started off slow but kept pushing and finished their regular season with the number two seed in District 2 5A and won another District Championship their last game was March 7th in the first round of States against upper Morland in a 5760 loss they had a great season winning the district championship and hosting the first round of States senior Robbie Lucas had a stellar season reaching many Milestones including hitting nine threes in one game to go along with a 35o performance he also reached the 1,000 Point Club against Valley View on senior night and ultimately was named Lia first
007team Allstar as well as first team all defense Jordan Schaffer was also named as an honorable mention selection for a girls basketball they ended the regular season with a win against West Granton and played North Pocono in the first round of District playoffs where senior Maggie Coleman had a great night uh she ended the night with 40 points and 12 threes marking a stamp in the record books for her the 12 threes gave her the most in Abington highight School history she also reached the 1,00 point Club in a 5637 win against wall Paul pack on January 23rd Maggie has also the most career three-pointers in girls basketball history she was named to the first team for the liaa league all stars and her sister Emma Coleman was Rec to the honorable mention team Lily
008scoblick was also named as a first team defense selection for wrestling um Brian herd and Mason Whitney repeated as Place winners in the PIAA 3A Wrestling Championships Brian herd finished with 176 career wins in is setting to a new standard at both Abington Heights as well as PIAA District 2 he's the only only one of third four time or he's the only third four time paaa qualifier in Abington Heights history as well Mason Whitney finished eighth this season finishing up his sophomore campaign with his second medal in as many seasons uh he is on track to follow in Brian's footsteps as another four-time PIAA qualifier freshman Jake shavone fell short but showed great promise and lo in losses but two upper classmen uh his F future as well as the entire Comet wrestling program will
009continue to Pro progress forward by Mason and Jake Slade uh for a boy swim and dive the boys had a great season only losing one meet to Delaware Valley they had multiple champions for swimming and held the top three spots for diving at districts the two swimmers Jason Casper and Derrick Williams along with divers Michael White and Brian horts traveled to the state championships this past weekend and performed very well Jason Plays 27th in the 200 free and 22nd in the 100 fly Derek was 27th in the 503e and our divers Micah placed 20 and Ryan play 16th for our girls team they had a great season only losing two League meets to Delaware Valley and Elk Lake at districts they multiple swimmers compete and became Champions including Gia Vino Hadley palman Katie germansky and
010a relay team consisting of Casey Johnson Hadley palman Audrey Wimer and Gia Vino uh the girls have one swimmer compete in an individual event at States giia Vino competed in the 100 yard freestyle and place 32nd the girls also competed in the 400 free relay uh Gia Vino audre Wimer Ella Bannon and Casey Johnson were all swimmers for that relay although the relay team did not place all swimmers performed very well uh we also had several All Region selections for swimming and Diving uh those students included Jason Casper Derek Williams Ethan hortz Micah white Hadley palman Gianna Vino and Kaitlin germansky uh for UniFi Bachi team one ended the season with three wins and three losses team two ended with four wins and two losses team two Advanced to the playoffs on Tuesday February 18th
011at Lakeland High School and finished fifth overall the team had many highlights on their season especially at their annual Jam the gym event on Tuesday February 4th where the Abington Heights Community including many other sports teams and coaches faculty and other Spectators helped to fill the gym and give our unified student athletes the feeling of a packed house for their competition it turned out to be a very successful day with both teams winning and the leachers filled with fans to support our teams lastly for our indoor track for our indoor track they competed in their last event on Sunday March 3rd this was the ptfca state championship at Penn State indoor state championships Amington Heights Junior Anna pelowski finished 16th in the one mile she had a time of 512 52 and tomorrow seed and
012Abington Heights senior finished 16th in the triple jump uh she h a distance of 351.217430 a very successful season and we couldn't be more proud of all of our athletes uh thank you so much thank you thank you great job especially proud of this young woman named GI Vino yes that you very smoothly kept naming in the third person I just want to point that out great season okay uh do you want to do public comments before yeah we can do that y so we're going to do public comments next uh if you want to address support and haven't uh passed in a a card please uh see Mrs oday we ask that you come forward uh state your name where you live and try to keep your comments to more or less three minutes
013uh first up would be Tim hobin Habib I'm sorry Tim I apologize myh it's my fault it's no School District learn how to write um thank you for the opportunity two quick questions I'll take much less than three minutes number one I looked on the website I'm looking for enrollment statistics year to year for the district are they available anywhere yeah yep where where would I find them they're in several spots um it's it's easy to to get it on the State website but I I have I can make a cop that's all right website I could take from yeah I have a um a copy downstairs it's one page it gives y that's okay I can take it as long as I have a jumping off point yep number two I attended the meeting
014the information session on the project at Middle School which was very informative thank you and I did have a question about that that is that a bid contracted price that can't change or something like tariffs for example which could drive construction costs up if that happened would that price go up or we locked in y so um I can answer that in my I'm going to give a very brief superintendence report and that was something I was going to mention so I can answer your question there thank you thank you very much okay Robin demo Robin Domenico Clark green um 27-year resident four children that went through the district um the proposed Renovations for the middle school is long overdue no one can argue this I've spoken to my kids and the first thing they
015said is put up walls they're um I've spoken to my neighbors there's been comments on my Facebook post and no one is against fixing this building um I think we all agree that the district should put the students first in this endeavor what I mean by this is very clear the proposed changes do not address the major flaw in this building design the team areas um this is where the students and teachers spend the majority of their school day and I know they move around they go to lunch they go to gym um adding a third gym is not a solution for this flaw it's a major flaw it's always been a major flaw and I believe it comes down to safety ask anyone what they'd like to see done to this building and they
016the answer is overwhelming fix the team areas put in solid walls and I continue to say that a third gym is a want by this board it's not a need and I firmly believe that we need to correct the flaw to this building and give the students teachers and staff a building that they can work in properly thank you thank you very much are there any other public comments okay Dr Schaefer sure thank you i' I've got a a a brief um guess I call it a narrative I guess um uh today and and Robin I'll I'll address um your comments and then that of dovetail Tim and uh into yours which I was planning to address and like respectfully Don I would Robin I I would I would lean into the the the gym
017uh piece and and I'll tell you why it has everything to do with Equity but when you take a look at the middle school and you take a look at the high school the enrollment is almost identical there are four GR grades at the middle school and there are four grades at the high school they all have state regulations requirements relative to physical education the problem that we have is at the high school there's approximately 17 to 18,000 square feet that is allocated for physical education space um the middle school is around 9500 but yet the same expectations exist that that is uh a safety risk in and of itself um and that that is disproportionate to a very large degree secondly and what I've told the board before um is the auxiliary gym which
018people would refer to as a second gym if you've been in it it's it's approximately 2400 Square F feet it doesn't it doesn't meet uh a uh the the to my mind the definition of a gym as I as I see it um and whenever we talk talk to an architect what they would tell us is keep the squares because if we move on to that second stage we want to take a gym and in this case the auxiliary gym at 2400 square feet and convert that to classrooms with walls um um that you speak about um I think that's the uh most efficient and safest way to do it the problem with design and you hit it on the head is well you know it was a good idea and was fleeting in the
019mid 70s like many um ideas back then um but 95% of the students are in a semicircle half above half below that's the worst case scenario for trying to do any type of renovation it is not safe for students to do I don't know where we would put them um you you couldn't renovate above while they're down below I mean just trying to pay attention to that so regardless we would have always started with this um um stage one however there's this probability in this spe to Tim that um it it on on on one hand it could be a a moot situation in that when we uh started this this project um the board talked about all the risks that were in front of us one that we spoke about quite frequently was interest
020rate risk as it is for anybody whether you're you're purchasing a car or a home or you're looking at home insurance or for me grinder pump insurance um it just keeps on um you know going up um so we had concerns about that and at the very bottom was bid risk we've got a construction management team we've got Architects uh all of our our bid documents that we were working with um two different groups we we f pretty solid about the market and where we were um with bid risk that was two three months ago now bid risk is our top concern um it's it's uh volatile out there uh relative to tariffs uh we we know this and speaking with our construction management team our Architects and many people on the board have personal
021experiences um whether they're they're they're buying uh products raw materials so on so forth um from Distributors outside the country um things like that what I what I mean by that is you know Tim to your point um I couldn't have told you a month ago how many aluminum smelting plants there were 30 years ago in the United States but I now know that there were 30 I can tell you that there are five now that are owned by two companies and I know that because I know the pricing I'm very familiar with Johnson Controls and the Mechanicals they produce and the high quality Mechanicals they produce because we use them in our buildings as we try to get continuity what I couldn't have told you two months ago uh was where they're located which
022is in Canada so I now know uh that bid risk so on April 2nd we're going to have uh a team of Architects and construction managers here to talk to the board and the public about bid risk and what we can do to mitigate some of that risk and one of the things that we can do to uh protect ourselves from escalating prices is is um put elements of the project on what we call an alternative bid so i' met with the construction team i' met with the Architects and uh through those discussions we thought that it's the most prudent decision um to make sure that we protect um the district and put the gym on the alternate bid so what that means is uh come April 14th when our bids go out there will
023be the building and the renovations that are Bid And Then There are separate alternative bids that contractors can also bid on and one of them will be the gym that will protect us come May 15th when all the bids are publicly announced then on May 20th when the board gets information regarding the bids we will then know the prices but we won't be strapped in to a project that escalated in there the most important piece of this project is the instructional spaces and I will make the argument over and over that physical education and the inequities that I talked about relative square foot size are very important physical education is very important that's why it's a requirement with that said it is a higher priority to make sure that we have the appropriate classroom space
024for all of our kids as we as we build this space for uh seventh and eighth grade so that's what would uh provide us the most protection in this case that way when the bids come in and we look at the prices we'll be able to make an informed decision um about the cost of those those pieces um versus if we built or bid the 78 grade ring the renovation and the gym if the if the bids escalated Beyond a point that um we couldn't afford or we had to trigger another hearing then we would um you know incur costly delays so Tim I hope that answers your your your your question that way I just did the math on 20% 30% right well so what's important to note too is when you hear a
02525% tariff that's um not that's not what is passed on to us uh while I don't uh work daily on the mechanics of tariffs what I can tell you is that um they don't include the labor so for instance Alcoa is um the largest aluminum producer are on the United States are located in Pittsburgh and they Source a lot of their raw materials um from Canada so they will get those raw materials let's just hypothetically say a 20% overage but they also know what their labor costs are and that's not part of that so it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's uh their labor cost is more than a half of that um so as we talk with our our construction management teams and Architects um and we won't know till bidday but right
026now um we're starting to hear numbers on other projects where that the real number is close to 10% which is a very real number but it's also 15% less than 25 um so you know there's that it could be worse scenario so um good so on a that's that's what I have but so on April 20 on on April 2nd which would be um the last board meeting prior to bids going out we'll have a team here and we'll we'll talk about that and I would imagine there will be um many things that change between now and April 2nd just like many things changed the last time I talked to everybody at the ACT 34 hearing thank you very much you're welcome our next action item is to review the treasures and bills Mrs Karen
027would you please give us the treasuries report sure we began the month with a cash balance of 28,9 28,1 1684 we took in $3,361 th000 $144 excuse me20 cents in monthly revenues our net dispersements or expenditures were 5,964 26025 for a cash balance available of 26 M325 529 thank you very much may have a motion to approve the treasures report so move second any questions roll call please oh Mrs Mrs Tierney please did you raise you have a question excuse me but I could ask good question if you want me to roll call please m Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robeson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mr AER yes 8 z Mr a as board consider a motion to approve the personel report as presented
028so moved second on the motion roll call Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mr AER yes 8 z Mr AER ask the board consider a motion to approve the March 2025 volunteer list so moved second on the motion roll call Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr Azar yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mr AER yes 8 z Mr AER i' asked the board consider a motion to approve the request to establish a Student Activity account for the minithon so moved second under motion Ro Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr a yes 80 sir I could ask
029the board consider a motion to approve the University of Scranton's affiliation agreement for an additional three years until December 15 2027 to place students for field experiences so moved second on the motion roll call Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr ropes yes Mr AER yes 80 Mr AER ask the board consider a motion to approve the rental agreement with Clark Summit University so moved second other motion roll call please Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillan yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs tney yes Mr AER yes 80 and Dr Schaefer congratulations on putting this together I think it our students will benefit greatly this time I'd ask the board to approve the Scranton School District agreement
030for aedy program for student 46a along with the Scranton School District agreement uh for Center based emotional support for student 47a so moved second on the motion roll call Mr AAR yes Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AER yes 8 Z sir I could ask the board to approve the 2025 26 I notice of adoption of policies and this is through the neiu because we like a pass through through them special so moved second on the motion roll call please Mrs Henderson yes Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs Tierney yes Mr abdella yes Mr AAR yes Mr AER yes 8 z Mr akard asked the board approve the following Abington height school job descriptions human resource generalist and
031Executive Administrative Assistant for human resources too so moved second on the motion roll call Mrs hillbrand yes Mrs carum yes Mr Robson yes Mrs tney yes Mr abdella yes Mr Azar yes Mrs Henderson yes Mr AER yes Z okay um are there any informational items for the board any new bit any unfinished business Mrs chair I think this is unfinished business is it possible to get an update on how well the um cell phone usage is throughout the district I've had a couple um uh neighbors inquire about what actually is the district doing and is it working then we can gather that information thank you okay any other new business I'd call for a motion to adjourn in that case so mov thank you