001Good evening and welcome to the April 28th, 2026 meeting of the Abington Board of School Directors. I note the attendance of board members with the exception of Mr. Allen who is excused for this evening's meeting. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Abington Board of School Directors has convened this evening's meeting at the administration building and the public is welcome. This meeting is also being broadcast live on the Abington School District YouTube channel. For those members of the public who cannot participate this evening, the meeting is being recorded and will be available on the district website and cable channel no later than Friday,
002May 1st, 2026. Comments from citizens will be conducted in person and by phone. Instructions for calling into each public comment section of the meeting will be displayed on the screen during each segment. The board thanks the public in advance for its cooperation. This is a place where we hold dignity and high regard and everyone's voices are respected and welcomed in this space. Uh Dr. Fetcher, do we have any additional announcements or agenda items? >> Uh yes, Dr. I already have a few announcements this evening. I would like to begin by thanking the Giant Company for donating more than $6,800 to Abington School District as part of the feeding school kids program. By rounding up at the register, customers have contributed to feeding ASD families in need. All funds will be used to purchase giant gift
003cards to help cover the cost of groceries. Uh, next I would like to remind our parents and guardians of students who utilize district transportation that the Zonar My View app is now available to download for tracking their students school bus to and from school each day. Instructions to download and set up the app are available on the transportation department page and that is um you can also visit uh www.abingtond.org backzonar zar. I also want to take a moment to thank our elementary school teams, including our principles, elementary curriculum specialists, teachers, support staff, and so many others who made our April 16th kindergarten orientation day a big success. I know a lot of moving parts uh go into putting this day together districtwide to welcome our families and soon to be Abington School District students. And
004I want to thank all of you for making this day special for our youngest learners. As a reminder, if you have a child who will be age five or older on or before September 1st of this year, they are eligible to register for kindergarten uh for the 202627 school year. You can start the process online by visiting once again uh www.abingtond.orgk registration. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Um, wow. Kindergarteners, they keep getting smaller every year. Um, okay. That brings us to opening comments from board members. Mrs. Brown, I attended one of the, uh, kindergarten orientations. And I'm just going to say hello everyone cuz my heart is pumping cuz my baby, my last baby, my youngest of five is entering in kindergarten. And I can feel my heart. I'm excited, more than proud for my
005son to be coming into the Edmonton School District, but it's my baby, so I'm g stop talking. >> Congratulations, Miss Eisenhart. >> Yes, congratulations, Mrs. Brown, on that. Um, welcome to the meeting, everyone. >> Mr. Common, >> good evening, everyone. >> Miss Falding, >> good evening everybody. >> Miss Hartman, >> welcome everyone. >> Miss Fraser. >> Hello. So, I'd like to congratulate Miss Karima Boyd, principal of Overlook Elementary School, for receiving her doctorate degree. >> Dr. Boyd. >> Congratulations. >> Uh, Miss Ler. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Welcome to the meeting. Um, congratulations, Mrs. Brown. Is it possible that he's really going into kindergarten? >> I can't. I got to think of something else. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um, yeah. Congratulations. It's exciting. Thank you. >> Uh Dr. Fetcher, would you please proceed
006with our board honors this evening? >> Sure. Um we we just in reference to the doctoral candidates um defending their dissertations, we have a few this year and so we are going to make sure that they will be um placed on other upcoming board meetings uh and so they can all be honored. Um, and it it is uh great to see that continuing with our um our staff members who are continuing their education and um looking forward to what they will put into place um as employees here uh from that learning experience and I happen to sit on that dissertation defense and um it was uh very promising for what that could bring to our district. So, that being said, we'll move to honors. >> We'll look forward to that. >> Yes. Yes. >> All
007right. Um, at this time, I'd like to ask Dr. Swift, uh, principal of Abington Senior High School, and Mr. Charles Grassy, athletic director, to share highlights from the 2025 2022 winter sports season at Abington Senior High School. >> Good evening, Dr. Maui, Dr. Feter, and our distinguished members of the board of directors. At this time, I would like for Mr. Grassy to come on in um and we'll begin the uh board honors. >> Good evening, Dr. Fetcher, Dr. Mauy, and members of the board of school directors. Tonight, I am very excited and proud to share the outstanding accomplishments of our student athletes, teams, and coaches for the winter of 2025 2026 season. First, I will introduce the Abington girls and boys swim team, who is led by coach Joe Linen. The Abington girls swim team
008had a very successful outing this season as well as being very competitive at the PIAA District 1 and the PIAA state championships. The girls team had several athletes receive all league honors. Ruby Tucker was selected to the first team all league in the 100 meter free and Julie Chung was selected first team in the 500 meter free. Our 200 meter relay was selected to the all league second team. The athletes that participated on this outstanding relay team included Julie Chung, Mary Carson, Ruby Tucker, and Claire Enama. This terrific relay team was also District 1 and PIAA qualifiers in the entire state. Julie Chung was also selected to the all state honorable mention team in the 500 free. Ruby Tucker was selected to the all-state team in the 100 back. Ruby also set three new school
009records. Her time of 24.08 in the 50 free, 52.81 in the 100 free, and 55.83 83 and the 100 back were all fastest times in school history. >> Wow. >> Congratulations to our girls swim team as well as coach Joe Lennon for an outstanding fun and exciting season. >> Awesome. >> The boys team also had a fun and exciting season. Their hard work and dedication was noted by coach Lenning as he also mentioned that they were extremely hardworking athletes. We had several athletes qualify for the District 1 tournament. District 1 qualifiers were Omar Falconee, Christian Hankle, Gaier Leva, Andrew Suit, Dachi Soorus, Villy, Evan Cohen, and Matias Carson. Congratulations to our girls and boys swim team for an exciting season. Next, I would like to h to introduce our boys basketball. The Abington boys basketball
010team finished their season with an impressive 20 and9 record and finished second in the suburban one Liberty Division. The team made their 15th straight district 1 playoff appearance and qualified for the PIAA state playoffs. Three members of the boys basketball team were recognized for their accomplishments. Xander Grai was nominated first team for the second straight year by opposing coaches in the Liberty Division while leading the team in scoring, averaging 17 points per game as a junior. Xander was also selected as the Philly BBS player of the year. Amari Stone and Kyler Picron were selected to the honorable mention all league team as juniors and look to build on this recognition next season. We would like to congratulate all the basketball team as well as coach Marsh for an outstanding season. Thank you. Next is our
011girls basketball team. Girls basketball finished the season with an overall record of 11 and 11 and an impressive 6-4 in the Liberty Division. Led by third-year head coach at Abington, Allison Lawson, who led her team to a fun and exciting season. The girls looked to build on their season as two players received all league honors for their stellar play. Anniah Williams was selected to first team all league and led the team in scoring with an average of 18 points per game. Annayia will continue her academic and athletic career at Eastern University. Shia Craftton was selected to the honorable mention all league team. Congratulations to coach Lawson, staff and the players for an exciting and successful season. Next we have boys and girls wrestling. The wrestling team had a successful season led by coaches Dave Oay,
012Keshan Gammo, and Don Cologne. They finished their season with several impressive wins. Brian Solomon and Jack Muslinsky were selected first team all liberty division and Isack Pantano, Kai Taylor and Nathan Stal were selected to the second team all liberty division. Ryan Solomon, Jack Mlinsky, Anthony Marzulli, and Nate Nathan Sanders, excuse me, Nathan Sanders were all District 1 qualifiers. Ryan Solomon finished fourth in the region. Suburban one champion. PWCA state all academic third team district 1 all academic and 108 career wins which is second in Abington history. >> Anthony Marzulli finished second in sectionals and was a district one all academic selection. Jack Mslinsky finished third in sectionals, was a suburban one champion and district 1 all academic selection. Nate Stab finished sixth in regionals, fourth in sectionals, and second in suburban one. Thank you, boys
013wrestling. Our second season for our girls wrestling program finished very successful. There were several there were several top 10 finishes and had an impressive a number of impressive wins this season. Sophia Reyes and Chelsea Cam Gang were both selected to the honorable mention all league team which is selected by opposing coaches. Sophia Reyes, Michelle Yakapova, Natalie Barone, Chelsea Cam Gang, Sai Austin, and Lexi Lexi Lynch qualified for the PIAA District 1 Championships. Michelle Yakapova and Chelsea Cam Gang were PIAA state qualifiers and had an outstanding showing in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Michelle finished seventh in the state of PA, second in the region. She was also selected to the PWCA state all academic second team district 1 All-American and the first female state medalist in Abington history. Chelsea Cam Gang was a state qualifier, finished fourth in
014the region, suburban one champion, PWCA state all academic honorable mention team, and was a member of the district 1 all academic team. Congratulations to our girls wrestling team for an outstanding season. Next we have our boys and girls indoor track led by coaches William Neely, Anthony Parker, and Brian Schaefer. The boys and girls indoor track team had a very successful season and continues to achieve as an outstanding program. The boys and girls had several athletes qualify for the meet of champions. These athletes include on the boy side Terrell Wright, Joseph Rajie, Jonathan Long, Jaden Randall, Chase O'Brien, Nolan Flood, Jason Levvin, Arthur Arnold, Rowan Schmuck, Montes McClinton, Abel John's, and Joseph Urban. Terrell Wright, Joseph Ra Rajie, Jonathan Long, and Jason Levvin were all PIAA state qualifiers. Congratulations. Our girls also had several personal bests
015this season. Several athletes qualify for the meet of champions. These athletes were Kayla Brown, Ella Swan Young, Hannah Winters, Lillian Ky, Nola McMackin, Michaela Fitz Maurice, Chelsea Higgins, Jesse Crowe, and Anna Tetsoff. Also joining us tonight is Jillian Silva, Gabrielle Reed, and Mallayia Reed. Ellis Swan Young was also a PIAA qualifier and had a terrific season. Congratulations to our boys and girls indoor track teams. >> Ella also, as coach is saying, finished in fifth place with the medal >> 200 >> in the 200. Thank you, coach. Next we have boys and girls bowling. The Abington boys bowling team also had a fun and exceeding exciting season. Dion Hunter and Alexander Hannichek received first team all league honors. Alex averaged 206, which was second highest in the last 10 years at Abington. Dion increased his average
016from 199 last year to 212 this season. Dion has the highest average in Abington history. >> Thank you and congratulations boys bowling. Our girl our our girls bowling team had an impressive seven and five record and had three athletes receive all league honors. Olivia Renzy was selected to the second team. Grace Elliot and Isabelle Chafield Isabella Chafield were both selected to the honorable mention team in the challenging liberty division. Congratulations to our boys and girls bowling team. And last but not least, we have our cheerleading team. Our cheer team is coached by Crystal Bruce, and Ashley Rose. Tonight we have Claire Sullivan, Camille Cochran, Sha Nichols, Ayana Row, Sai Timberman's, Kaylee Ramsay, and Alicia Rob. Our cheer team had a fun and exciting season. We took second place in our first competition of the season
017at Westchester University and enjoyed cheering for the boys and girls basketball teams through their great season. We are looking forward to continue to build an outstanding program. Thank you girls. I would like to thank all thank everyone for your continued support for our Abington student athletes. >> None of them are in the room anymore, but congratulations again to our to our winter athletes on their great seasons. Uh Dr. Fetcher, would you please proceed with the board orientation for this evening? Absolutely. Uh I would now like to ask uh Dr. Viola, director of elementary teaching and learning and Miss Anama, director of secondary teaching and learning to review the instructional materials proposed for adoption for the school year. >> Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Maui, Dr. Fetcher, and the board of school directors. This evening, Dr.
018Viola and I will be outlining the recommendations for the adoption and renewal of instructional materials for the 2026 2027 school year. Our first set of proposals focuses on optimizing our English resources through realignment. We are proposing the relocation of Julius Caesar from grade 10 to the 6 to 8 grade band essentially the middle school. This move introduces an additional Shakespeare work to the middle school that aligns with the social emotional development of that age group. Currently, the middle school has three pieces of Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice. This would be a fourth title that would be adding to the middle school. Additionally, we recommend transitioning our 9 to2 literary collection, essentially the high school collection from grade specific adoption to a gradeband adoption. This provides the
019flexibility to move select titles based on student readiness and interest. And by repurposing our existing inventory, these updates come at no additional cost to the district. Moving to general studies, we are proposing two key updates to our digital and financial literacy offerings. We are recommending common senses dig digital literacy and well-being curriculum for use in grades K through eight. This resource has online lessons and activities that help students build resilience. Think critically about media and use tech in productive, intentional and healthy ways. It is their updated version of digit the digital citizenship curriculum and these lessons address healthy habits online privacy digital footprint communication cyber bullying and media and media literacy. It is a supplemental resource in grade six. We are proposing the replacement of EverFi with NextGen Personal Finance. This inquirybased program provides better
020vertical alignment with our high school requirements and offers more flexibility, more flexible student centered simulations. Um, in mathematics, our primary focus is aligning with the new AP statistics exam standards. We are proposing a move to the eighth edition of the practices of statistics text. We currently have the sixth edition. So this is a a new edition. This update is essential to mirror the redesign college board units and provide a digital integration with new tools like Desmos. Um to support this, we're also recommending adding a program called Mathematic as a supplemental resource that is designed to heighten student engagement in the mathematics classroom. for select educa special education courses. We're also recommending the implementation of math 180 for targeted intervention. This program is proven to accelerate achievement for striving students by an average of more than
021two years in a single school year. For science, we are seeking the supplemental adoption of science takeout. We recommend these kits because they provide readytouse hands-on lab experiences that are very cost-effective um to ensure all students have access to our newly um our new standards which are commonly called the steels standards in Pennsylvania and provide inquiry based STEM learning opportunities in social studies. We're beginning to prepare for a formal uh adoption at the middle school level following um a committee in the 2026 20ou 2027 school year. Um and although we intend to review a variety of materials, there's one material um called social studies alive that has um piqu our interest in particular because it approaches social studies in a unique inquirybased approach. And we are proposing a one-year pilot of that curriculum. We will
022still maintain our current core resources, but our teachers will be able to facil facilitate select lessons from this new program um with this adoption to introduce this new type of pedigogy which is focused on primary source analysis and hands-on simulations. Um this adoption would allow our educators to gain valuable insight and engagement data to inform our full selection process next year. It's a nocost pilot for one year um to provide us opportunities to evaluate the resource. Moving to our supplemental literacy resources, we are recommending the renewal of several magazine subscriptions. These publications are essential for bringing current real world events into the classroom, providing students with high interest non-fiction that bridges the gap between historical and scientific theory and today's headlines. Miss Anam and I are happy to answer any questions you may have about
023these recommendations. >> Oh, one more slide. Sorry. Additional subscriptions. Um, one, uh, Miss Anama, congratulations. I saw your daughter was honored today, so great job, Mom. >> Uh, the first question is about the math 180 for targeted intervention. Would that be a sort of like a tier 2 intervention or is it a tier three or is it for students who have IEPs? Who how do you decide who receives it? So, we currently use math 180 at the middle level and we had adopted it several years ago and it is used as a tier three intervention with students with an IEP. And so, this adoption is to expand that um throughout the high school and so all the way up to like 12 plus students who might need math intervention. So, it really is a tier
024three. It's for students who are two grade levels below typically um that need that rapid acceleration and that intensive support. It's it's an intensive intervention. >> Excellent. Thank you. Other questions >> with the um history or live text? >> Who selects the lessons? Are teachers selecting the lessons? Are you selecting the lessons? So, the teachers are working with the supervisor of social studies and they are um if it's approved um going to review the material and actually meet with some professional developers during their department meetings um to look at what lessons they would like to implement next year um really probably targeting the earlier part in the year so that they can gather that data early on in the process of evaluating materials. So the idea is that departmentwide in the given schools or in
025the in the middle school particular um they all would be teaching the same lessons and then collecting >> data to bring back. >> Yes. And again this program has a shift in pedigogy. It it looks and feels a little different. Um and so a a big piece of that is to see if that really affects engagement. And so we'll be looking at feedback from students and from teachers um to see how that works. >> And do you know how many lessons are being selected? >> We have not determined that yet. >> Okay. >> Uh a question on the reallocating of the grade specific band for the EL or the English the English books. >> Yeah. >> Um there will be some kind of a feedback loop I assume to make sure that if you read
026it in ninth grade, you don't then get it again in 12th grade, right? You're not going to have Yes. >> classes. >> Yes. Overlap them. >> We have had a superintendent committee looking at secondary English language arts. Um we're actually in our second year of that committee and one of the discussions that um the committee is recommending potentially is to move some of our current text. Partly because we do have a large collection and some are being used more than others. And so we want to make sure that in a grade level where maybe the students have, you know, are not in love with the books at the moment that maybe we move things around to try to increase interest, just to try to balance out the types of genres that the students are experiencing.
027But it will all be done collectively in a in a vertical alignment so that a student would not read the same book two years in a row. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Anyone else? And >> thank you for maintaining Scholastic News magazines. Thank you. I I second that. Um, interesting thought though. I wonder if a student reading uh a text in ninth grade and then reading it again in 12th grade and just seeing their progression and thought, I'm I'm going to stay in my lane with math, but I'm just uh you you brought up an interesting uh concept. So, I just wonder. It makes me wonder. >> I agree. And I do know that, you know, sometimes I'll go back to a book again and and have a different perspective on it. So there
028is there is that piece, but I I do think that with the amount of literature we have available to them, it would be nice if we were able to make sure that we're cycling through you're not you're not with the same book more than once. >> I just had a couple of comments um regarding history alive. I appreciate that you're um you have a committee to review options for social studies curriculum in the middle school, but while you're doing it, you're triing one particular um avenue or option and you're able to like create some data to whether there's an engagement difference with the students across the board. I look forward to seeing the results and seeing, you know, how that goes. And the other thing that I thought was exciting was the science kits, the
029take home, the take-home or take out science kits for students in the high school. Um, STEM related. I think that's a great addition. Um, how would those be available? Where would they be? And if you could just speak to that. >> Sure. So, um, th this was really brought to us by our teachers. Um, so we have teachers in some cases that have come from other districts and so they have other experiences and a few of our teachers in particular knew about this resource and have been very eager to bring it into the classroom. Um, and so what would happen would be we would have the teachers look at the kits that are available and how they align to our curriculum and then we would select kits that make the most sense for our curriculum
030in order to add engagement in particular and explore the newer standards because they are a little different than our traditional book is. >> Um, and then once they would agree on that, everyone in the department would do it. So again, it would be like a consistent piece just to piggyback I think a little bit on what Mr. Muhammad was asking earlier. Um, so it would be consistent. So for instance, maybe all the biology teachers would do one or two of the kits and then all the chemistry teachers would do obviously different kits that pertain to chemistry more and so forth. So that's kind of the idea of it would just be a few um in each grade level that um again best align with our curriculum. >> Great. Thank you. >> Anyone else? No. Um,
031I was wondering if I had a just a quick question about the history alive um, sequences. Can you offer any kind of examples about what the primary sources they use? Um, so I mean off the top of my head, so for instance like in geography alive, I mean a lot of it is map- based. um in that class. >> Um so they're you know >> using maps and things like that. In the history courses they tend to use like a primary source might be the constitution. It might be a a speech or a letter that was written. Um different things like that. I I I don't know because it's we haven't really done it yet. I don't know it close enough to give you an exact example, but I just know in general when we
032talk about social studies in the more recent years, we've been adopting more resources that are primary source based and they might have, you know, the Gettysburg address in them or um different things like that that have um instead of the students looking at um historic historians take on it looking at the actual documents and becoming historians themselves. So, it's part of our efforts to have students be thinking like a historian and to be analyzing like the actual documents as opposed to analyzing a rendition of it that a historian or a textbook writer wrote if that makes sense. >> Yeah, it does. Are the are the sources um whole or are they excerpted? >> The prim primarily they would be excerpted. Yeah. For the middle level. >> Um I mean it depends again on what it
033is but Okay, thank you. I mean, some of them are long. I mean, they're not going to read the whole, you know. Sorry. So, they they typically are sometimes they're annotated for them. Sometimes they're given as like a dual text. Um, you know, if it's if it's hard for them to read, um, depending on, you know, how old it is. I mean, our our sixth graders are doing world history. They're studying, you know, a long time ago. So, they might need kind of it translated or, you know what I mean, like made a little bit easier to understand. Yeah, they they need to be excerted. So, >> we'd be history class would be really long with some of these texts. M >> M Mr. Muhammad assures me this is okay. We might have a philosophical
034difference about this, >> but I'll let it go. >> All right. I don't have any other questions. Does anyone else? >> No. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, for our second orientation this evening, um I'm going to ask Miss Danakola to review uh the proposed general fund budget. This is an update. There's no action required this evening. Uh this update was um at our last board meeting, there were some questions about the budget, the budget process, and um when are opportunities for public comment, etc. And so what we have done this evening is create just an update to explain some of those processes. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. So tonight we'll be reviewing the 2026 27 proposed general fund budget and this again will be an update. Um, from this point up until
035final budget adoption, this proposed budget, um, the numbers may change based upon new known factors, um, and new things that we can, you know, either streamline as far as cost efficiency, things like that. So, while we'll be, um, presenting this proposed general fund budget at the May 12th meeting for approval, from that point through the final adoption, we'll be able to make any changes that the board wishes. So, I'm going to review the 202627 budget timeline, review the referendum exception related to our middle school project, um talk about what the real estate tax increase is in our current proposed final budget, and then um review some of those known factors that we know will be changing. So, our preliminary budget was adopted on February 10th, 2026. Then on March 2nd, we filed our application for
036the referendum exception for the middle school project. We did advertise that notice of intent to submit the referendum exceptions to PTE on February 15, 2026. We received um approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Education of our referendum exception on March 26th, 2026. Then again, we will place the proposed final general fund budget on our May 12th agenda for approval. On June 23rd, we will put forth the Homestead Farmstead exclusion resolution and our final general fund budget um for adoption. The referend referendum exception was approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education on March 26, 2026. The dollar amount of the exception that was approved was $4,830,826. That number directly relates to the interest expense, the debt service that we expect on the middle school bond on what's been incurred through the previous bond issue in 2020
037um in the early part of 2026 and then an estimate for the remaining bond that could be done later in 2026 that will impact the 2627 spending year. So based upon the preliminary assessed value, those dollars of referendum exception equate to 1.3738 mills of that number may change once we receive our final assessed values, but that's what it will be at this point. So our maximum allowable increase in real estate taxes for the 202627 budget year from an act one standpoint the act one index is 3.5%. Currently within our proposed budget there is an increase of 3.5% related to act one which equates to a 1.3492 mill in increase and then again the referendum exception which equates to 1.3738 mills. The impact on the average um homestead eligible property that would be an owner occupied
038property that's eligible for that homestead relief. the assessed value, the median homestead from the prior year was 127,450. Once we receive our final assessed um assessment information on our homestead properties, we'll update what that median value is if there's a change. So in 2025-26, we had a millage rate with the act one increase of 38.55 mills. For 2026 27, that act one increase would bring it to 39.8992 8992 mills which is a monthly increase of $14.33. Then we will have on the tax bills a separate line item to show what the millage rate is related to the referendum debt. That would be 1.3738 mill. So, the average um monthly increase supporting that middle school project at this point would be $1459 for a total real estate tax increase of $28.92 monthly based upon our proposed
039uh general fund budget for 2026-27. Back in February, we passed our 202627 preliminary general fund budget. And that budgeted um amount use of fund balance was just over $2.4 million. The factors that um will may impact once we get to the final budget approval will be what our final um tax assessment numbers are, which we will receive from the county um later this week. Um also, it will take a look at what has developed um at the state level as far as the state budget for education. So if there's any increase or decrease there, we will also include that before that final budget adoption on June 23rd. Um throughout this process, we're evaluating, you know, can we find um savings in any of our largest expenditures, um ensuring that we are looking at, you know,
040salaries, benefits, um looking at attritional saving opportunities to ensure we're getting to that lowest use of fund balance to improve our financial situation. So again, our known and estimated assumptions, the act one index is 3.5%, we know what that millage will be. The referendum millage is um right now estimated based upon the assessed valuation. Um that could change ever so slightly if our assessment values change, but we'll report that back to the board. Um the other items that will may change are state revenue once the state budget is passed. hopefully by June 30th this year um we will know exactly what we're getting from the state. Um so we'll keep the you know the board and the community updated um on all of those items as more information becomes available and that is the budget
041update for the proposed budget. >> Questions from the board? >> I have I have a few questions. >> Okay, go ahead. >> Thanks. Um I'm gathering how to ask them if that's okay. The first one uh regarding um the value assessment being a potential impact. That's not something that's anticipated by the district at this point, but it's important to state it because it can occur. Um so I'm just clarifying that. And then if we look at where's the slide where you break down there it is the slide for the proposed general fund budget um when it breaks down which part is for the act one increase the mill rate for act one over the referendum exception where it shows it the numbers look pretty close. Um, and you have it that the percentage rate is
0423.5% for the act one. I mean, it looks like it's relatively >> 3.56%. Okay. >> Thank you. Um 3.56 is what the estimated increase is specific to the referendum debt. >> Correct. And that mill can only be used that millillage portion related to the referendum debt can only be used towards funding that middle school project. >> Yeah, I appreciate the separation in um what's coming out to the community. I think that's important so we can see on our our bills, our individual bills of how that number is impacted. This is based on the medium homestead or value individuals within the community. It's going to reflect what their percentage is based on their home value. Okay. Thanks. Um, thanks for walking through this with me. I know um it's a little nitpicky, but I I do
043think it's important. um regarding um this is since this is the first time we'll be seeing the referendum um debt exception line item on tax bills. I just want to make sure this is um emphasized and clarified that this is the first of the potential um in previous meetings it was discussed for three buying um separate buying incidences. So this is the first of the of the debt. It looks like it, you know, based on um that percentage. So then as we go through the buying um the different rounds of buying, the two other ones that come, that line is going to increase to match what has been used as the medium value of $54 because that's >> correct >> the language that we've seen. So um as that happens residents will see that pro
044would it be next year that that next buying would happen or is was projected >> in the next year >> there would be a second round where that line is going to increase to get closer to that proposed $54 and then the following year there will be that final >> borrowing that takes place to get us to where that was. Okay. Thank you. And um can you talk a little bit about um the line that I see when we're looking at the year-over-year preliminary general fund budget where it shows use of fund balance? Um last year it was projected use and I I was 5 million 830,000. Um, two questions on this. One, is that money spent already by the district for the current year? That's my first question. And the second question is, why
045is the how is the district budgeting so much less for next year >> that 5.8 million is not currently spent. Okay. >> Um, we've not um exceeded that yet um in this fiscal year. Um we will report back to the board shortly as to where we expect to end at the end of this fiscal year 2526. Okay. >> Um the $2.4 million number um while it looks to be an aggressive you know adjustment um we are looking at attritional savings for in areas where that will have no impact on students. We're looking at our largest cost expenditures to see if there's a way we can deliver them more efficiently. Um and really just looking at every possibility for some cost savings so we stop the deficit spending. Is it possible that that number from the
046fund balance that was budgeted from last year and approved is it possible that 5,830,553 um,000 that number is going to decline between now and the end of the budgeted year. >> Not being the one that built that budget, I hesitate to give an answer, but I will say that we have instituted a spending freeze. We are actively looking at every expenditure. So I am very hopeful that we can dial that number down from what it was budgeted. >> I appreciate that and I am excited to see how that comes in the in the next um meetings that you outlined for the steps of the budget and also um that there is an emphasis on the decline and dependency on fund balance. This has been a long road from my vantage point, from what I've witnessed
047in my short stay um on the board and I I can say confidently that it has been going in the correct um direction um and I appreciate those continued efforts in that area. So, thank you for hanging with me for that line of questions. >> You're welcome. >> So, I'm gonna ask two related follow-up questions to Miss Eisenhart's. Um the first is does PTE offer guidelines for how much fund balance a district should maintain? >> So they offer a guideline of the most that you can have in an unassigned fund balance and that is 8% of your budgeted expenditures. >> Okay. >> 8% of budgeted expenditures would not get you a full month of expenses. So the prudent um thing to do is to hold 20 to 30% >> okay >> two to three months
048of expenditures um you know when we go through our bond ratings calls and things like that they're asking those questions how much fund balance do you have um so those are the items there two kind of conflicting percentages that are looked at >> okay and is that um also to insulate the district against a budget that's late, for instance. >> Correct. Correct. If we um had exhausted, you know, all of our fund balance in this this current year where the um state budget was not passed until very late in the calendar year, we would have been in a position where we would have to borrow funds to meet our everyday expenditures. Thankfully, we were not in that position. But looking at the trajectory of the fund balance that has been spent down over the last
04914 years, it's prudent that we're now seeing this direction of using fund balance go the opposite way. >> Absolutely. Um and I'm relieved and grateful to see that. Um, and just uh to follow up on that, there were districts and municipalities that had to borrow money, which is an additional burden on taxpayers to bridge their finances until the budget was passed. Um, and then the other question I wanted to ask is I know that excuse me that you and and Dr. Fetcher and um district staff are working hard to find savings um and efficiencies. I wonder it sometimes helps community members to put those in concrete terms and I'm wondering if you might be able to offer a couple of examples where the district has realized some significant cost avoidance. >> So when we talk
050about attritional cost savings um it can be you know two different measures. It could be we have a retirement of say a teacher that's at the very top level. They retire and we fill that position at a brand new teacher that are paid at a lower level. Um also attritional savings can be that we um you know have somebody retire. We don't need to fill that position because efficiencies have changed within our software and things like that. Um and then we just don't fill that position. So we absor we absorb that back in to take care of all the other cost increases that the district's experiencing. Um, we are asking our partners, um, from an insurance perspective, whether it be property liability insurance, workers comp insurance, to take us out to bid so we can
051get the best pricing. Um, sometimes, you know, your partners can hit the easy button a little too often. So, we're ensuring that that easy button is not the one that they hit, that they get the information, we go out to bid and see what the market is going to provide us and see if there's any cost savings there. um doing the same thing with healthcare, noting that um we can't change anything based upon our collective bargaining agreements, but that doesn't mean there's not cost savings that we can't look for that will help both the district and the employees. >> Great. Thank you very much for those other questions or comments from the board. >> Uh go ahead, C. >> Yeah, I have a question about the expenses. Uh what is the other services entail? And
052you know, and I see it's an increase of 9%. Why is that? So other services is a misnomer under Pennsylvania school code. It talks about other services, but that's where um our charter school costs are um which are upwards of $2.5 million for our cyber charters. Um the state has a very prescribed way to describe expenditures and they kind of lump purchase property services which or other services which include student transportation, charter school cost, um a lot of things that just don't fit the misnomer of other services. Um they're mandated expenditures by and large. >> Okay. So we just we just lump them there. Okay. >> School the school code requires us to lump them there. >> Okay. And and the other question I have is under the revenues, the real estate taxes, I say
053there's an increase and that's mainly due because of the referendum funds. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Um >> my question was um a followup to Miss Eisenhart's um on slide six where you have it divided um based on the mill rate act one increase and the referendum debt. Will um taxpayers see that on their tax bill split up that way? >> We are working with the printer to ensure that we can get that. We started that a couple months ago to get that programmed in so they can see it. >> It's those line items. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> And just uh for the good of the public, could you talk about the what is meant by assessed value? Um as that's not >> that's not fair market value. Right. Correct. So
054there's a a common level ratio and um Justin if you want to provide a little more legal ease on that. The common level ratio is what is used to impute the fair value against the assessed value. Those common level ratios are released um annually and it's broken down by county. >> You can I just want to chime in. You can find your assessed value for homeowners on your tax bill that comes in. It's listed there. Um I think it's listed as assessed value. Is that correct? So you can see what your p what your assessed value is in comparison to the medium homestead that's being used in this presentation and has been used for a lot of the talk um regarding this. You can see it on there and there's also a place um where
055you can find it. Is that still live on the ad1 feature one or um Dr. Fetcher? >> Yes. um our tax calculator has link to look up your particular homestead um and uh to see the assessed value there as well. >> Thank you. Um, just for fun, I wanted to follow up on Miss Spalding's um, question about that category of other, and you noted that that includes $2.5 million that we're obligated to pay to cyber charters. Um, and am I correct in understanding that there was no relief for school districts in the current budget? >> There was no additional financial relief. However, there has been um more regulations placed on those enrollments into cyber charters which allows um the districts requires the districts twice a year in March and November to verify um residency of
056those students that are enrolled in cyber charters. Okay. >> To ensure that the um tuition billing is going to the appropriate school district. >> Okay. >> And that's new that started that just started um in March of 2026. >> Okay. That's something. But no no no change to the tuition rate that we're obligated to pay. >> Correct. >> $2.5 million >> just a cyber charter. >> It's a much smaller number. Roughly 400,000 to brick andmortar charters. >> Okay. >> Um the cyber charter is really the one that's like ever expanding. >> $2.5 million. >> Correct. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure that was crystal clear. Thank you. >> Can you remind me the the proposed cap of $8,000 per uh student that did not go through? >> Okay. Any talk about revisiting that?
057>> I think there's always talk of revisiting it, but it never gets the support or alternatively the cyber charters have more support for the current program than what um school districts can get for support of that flat dollar tuition. >> Okay. Uh, thank you for your very informed uh, responses. I I know we I appreciate that. I know we appreciate that. I just wanted to second um the intentionality of having the tax not just appear broken down by referendum and um but also when people receive their tax bills, the effort that that is being taken to make sure this remains a truly transparent process and that the community is informed throughout each step. I really do appreciate that and we want to keep that momentum going. So, thank you so much. >> Yep. Anyone else?
058No. Okay. That brings us to our first section of comments from citizens. Um, as usual, comments will be conducted both in person and by phone. The phone number to participate is being displayed on the screen at this time and it is 2677153717. You'll be able to join the meeting by calling in on your mobile or landline phone. A citizen will be recognized once during this period of the meeting and each citizen's comments will be linked to a total of three minutes limited sorry to a total of three minutes accepted the discretion of the president. Time may not be yielded or otherwise transferred by one speaker to another for purposes of extending a given speaker's time allotment. If there's anyone present who would like to make a comment, please use the microphone either to your left
059or to your right. whenever you're ready. >> Yeah. >> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Joe Rooney. I live in Arsley. Um, wow, there's a lot of information here, so I'll try and get through as much as I can. Thank you, Dr. D, for the uh for the budget stuff. I I still don't think you answered the questions that that woman asked at the last meeting, um, which were ignored at that meeting. So, I'd just like to point out a couple of things in this budget. First off, um you're talking about the uh the um referendum for the 202526. We still got 20 years to pay off on the high school and that's not being reflected anywhere for the 97 to $100 million we borrowed there that's going on top of this $285 million. If you
060take a look at the first line, the real estate taxes, we've got a $15.8 8 million increase year-over-year in real estate taxes. All that money comes from the people who own property. That's an 11.8% increase. So, I don't know about the millillage rates and the 3.5 and the 3.6, but Abington Township residents are paying 11.8% more in real estate taxes in the next year's budget than they are in this year's budget. And ladies and gentlemen, if you're watching, the big increases are still coming. This is a small one. This is a less than a third of one. The second thing is um I don't understand. There's probably an explanation. It's simple. Investment earnings is a 26% increase year-over-year. Is that just the money we borrowed is in the bank and it's earning a little bit
061of interest. Um I don't know. The next one is employee salaries on the expense side. It's up 4.9%. So, there are no cost savings. And anybody that says there's cost savings are are uh you're just blowing smoke, you're gaslighting, whatever the word you want to say. We're spending more money than we take in. We had a $40 million plus fund balance and now we're down to 12 to 14 million. I don't know exactly what it is. We're spending millions of dollars more every year than we take in. And you all are voting for it. There are no savings. There are no cuts. The last one is um the dues, fees, and debt service is up 40% year-over-year. So, we've got a $5.5 million increase right there. These are shocking numbers. You all have a hard
062job. The way to cut the expenses here is to reduce the headcount. You have to start at this table right here. Get rid of 50% of these people. You can find teachers that'll do the job part-time and you already got all of their teasers and everything else covered. We need to save our teachers and then we need to look at everywhere else. The people in facilities are doing an important job. The teachers are doing an important job. All these administrators are not. The only way you're going to save money is by reducing headcount because that reduces the peasers of fund going forward. It's a hard call, but somebody's supposed to do it. So, thank you. Thank you for your voice. Mr. Carus, do we have anyone on the line? >> We have no callers. >>
063Okay. Anyone else in the room? >> Dr. Fetcher. >> Uh, I just want to clarify something in terms of um the comment that was made about not trying to reduce the headcount. Uh, that's just wrong. And my reason for saying that is we have done gone across all aspects of the organization whether it's facilities whether it's administration and there have been positions in the past year and currently that we are not filling due to attrition and we are looking and examining every single time there's a position whether or not um we can merge positions or uh work with less people and you know this table alone that was referenced um has reduced uh in the past few years and I I only bring that up because there are there are increases in that headcount. Yes,
064there's percentage of increase of what it costs to have an employee. There are contracts, there are health insurance costs which go up every year and that does raise our liability for expenses. But to state to state that we are not actively working to reduce positions is just wrong and it is part of our ongoing plan and it is the only way that we can get uh this budget under control. As you know, 75% of this budget is personnel and and benefits. And so we do actively look at that and uh it's across the board. It's not just um teaching positions. It's not just administrators. It is across the board. So I just wanted to clarify that because um we do analyze that um and we look at uh when when we do have attritional savings
065um you know call don't call it savings call it cost avoidance because if we didn't make those moves um it would be even more than the percentage that was quoted. >> Thank you. Um I think I would make the following two observations. Education is by its nature a laborintensive undertaking. Um and it's worth noting too that many of our teachers um and other district employees are residents in the district. um they don't you know they they live here they are part of us um I personally appreciate the hard work and scrutiny that Dr. Fetcher and Miss Danakola have brought to the budget. I think the decline in use of general fund is a really strong indication that we are on the right track. Um it takes work um to get us there, but but um
066the decline in fund balance is a really good indication that we're headed in the right direction. Um so I would leave it at that, I think. Other questions or comments from the board? I we've seen the the historic data in regards to how the general fund balance was was built up to that point of 40 million that was referenced earlier. We've also seen the changes in Paser's contribution which accounts for a huge portion of the increase in spending um over the last decade plus. Um and so it it it's very commendable to see where we are. I remember just 5 years ago when I came on this board, we were spending more than 10 million. We were spending 8 million, 7 million, and we've seen that number consistently decrease. Um I I was a um
067I experienced a layoff in 2013 because of district budgetary constraints. um layoffs are are terrible. Um and to sit here and say fire people is is quite inhumane. Um and I I appreciate the um the deliberate steps that are being taken to reign in spending while remembering the humans behind these numbers. Thank you for that. Anyone else? Okay. With that, we will move on to agenda item six. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation to approve the personnel agenda? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approve the changes in personnel as reflected in personnel addendum number 6.1 and 6.1A. >> Second. >> We have a second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Mauy. The personnel addendum begins with the change of status for one professional staff member, requests for leaves
068of absence for three professional employees and compensation for interpretation services. bring your attention to the retirement of Miss Janet Milanog, a mathematics teacher at Abington Senior High School who has served the district for 10 years. >> Okay, questions or comments from the board? >> Congratulations to our retiree. I I hope that um your 10 years here were were very pleasant and that the next chapter is uh amazing. Okay, thank you for that. Anyone else? >> No. Okay. >> I note the attendance of all board members except Mr. Allen tonight. >> Correct. >> Um, roll call for this vote would be Mrs. Brown. >> I, >> Miss Eisenhart, >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad, >> I, >> Miss Spalding, >> I, >> Miss Hartman, >> I, >> Miss Frasier stepped out for a moment. >> Uh, Miss
069Fletcher, >> I. >> Dr. Murray, >> I The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for approval of the financial reports for the period ending March 31st, 2026 as reflected in addendum number 7.1. >> It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approves the financial report for the period ending March 31st, 2026. >> Second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Maui. I would like to ask uh Miss Dakola to please summarize the March 2026 financial report. >> As of March 31st, 2026, the district has received fiscal year-to-ate revenues totaling 167,29,111 compared to $162,518,991 during the same period last year. This represents an increase of approximately $4.51 million, a 3 which is a $3.38 million increase in local revenues and a $1.68 million increase in state
070revenues. As of March 31st, 2026, district expenditures totaled 130,468,321 compared to $128,27,592 for the same period last year. This represents an increase of approximately 2.44 million or 1.91% and that is primarily due to contractually obligated expenditures. Questions or comments from the board? >> I have a peripherally related question. Um, in past, excuse me, in past years, the districts had um contracted for heating, oil, and fuel for the buses and other vehicles in advance of the start of the school year. Correct. >> Correct. >> When do we do that? >> So, we participate um with the Montgomery County Intermediate Union. a number of schools participate in an aggregate fuel bid because of the volatility in the market right now. The um current contract allows us to continue with the same terms that were currently in place.
071So, we're continuing that that on a month-to-month basis until the market responds favorably where we'll be able to go out to bid and receive competitive pricing. >> Okay. And so, when you say same terms, does that mean same price? >> I will check that. It's okay. >> Part of the original contract not being here when that original contract was done. Um I can report that back to you. >> Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. That would be wonderful. >> Okay. Other any other questions? >> No. All right. Uh we can proceed to the vote then. >> Mrs. Brown >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad >> I. >> Miss Spalding >> I. >> Miss Hartman. >> I. >> Miss Frasier. >> Hi. >> Miss Fletcher. >> I. >> Dr. Malry. >> I.
072The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for the payment of bills for the period ending March 31st, 2026 as reflected in addendum number 8.1? >> It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approves the payment of bills for the period ending March 31st, 2026 as reflected in addendum number 8.1. >> Second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Mauy. Be happy to answer any questions you have regarding the payment of bills. >> Okay. Questions or comments from the board? No. Okay, we'll proceed to the vote then. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart, >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad, >> I. >> Miss Spalding, >> I. >> Miss Hartman, >> I. >> Miss Frasier, >> I. >> Miss Fletcher, >> I. >> Dr. Mauy, >>
073I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for permits for use of buildings and grounds? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approves the applications for permits for use of buildings and grounds as reflected in addendum number 9.1. >> Second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Murray. The permanent agenda continues to reflect requests for buildings and grounds for meetings and other school events and activities for this time of year. >> Okay. Questions or comments from the board? Well, I just wanted to highlight um the AVMs or Aidum's strides Against Stigma 5K. It's like a walk um promoting mental health at the Schwarzen Stadium this Thursday after school and I've been asked to pass along that if any middle schooler, high schooler or staff
074member would like to participate um there should be flyers around the school where they can sign up from. >> Thanks very much. >> Looks like a fun event. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Okay. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I >> Miss Eisenhart. >> I >> Mr. Muhammad >> I. >> Miss Spalding >> I. >> Miss Hartman. >> I. >> Miss Frasier. >> I. >> Miss Fletcher. >> I. >> Dr. Bowie. >> I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for advertisement of bids? It is a recommended action that the board of school directors approves the advertisement for bids as reflected in addendum number 10.1. >> Second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Mallerie. This evening we have two requests for permission to advertise. First one is for access
075control districtwide. Um that is our door controls um to get into um the buildings. And this we will anticipate that um on an award of this we would be paying for this with our um Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant. And then the next is for two 72 passenger student transportation buses. >> Okay. Glad to see that um that first item is grantf funded and supported. Uh, other questions and comments from the board. >> I I know I've asked this question before in regard to buses. We anticipate that our buses will need to be replaced. Is this this request to advertise for bids part of that anticipation or are we finding that there are more issues than we've previously planned for? >> Mr. Rem, it Oh, hold there. It's a combination of both actually.
076So uh we do have a nutrition schedule uh that we do uh try to adhere to. Um on average we try to keep our uh our our bigger buses, the diesel buses, they average about 15 years. uh unless we run into a scenario like the one that we have on the the page tonight that needs a significant amount of um engine work done. Uh and getting estimates for the replacement parts for that the cost of the uh replacement engine basically outweighs the value of the vehicle. Um, we take into consideration uh the age of the vehicle. We take into consideration um what we get back from uh our state reporting as far as depreciation on vehicles when we make those decisions as well. Um the vehicle itself is a 2014. It's got roughly uhund close
077to about 150,000 miles on it. And um the cost of a to replace the motor because it is a um the diesel motor. It does require us to replace the um emissions u the the DPF unit. It's a diesel particulate filter unit that filters out the harmful black soot that you normally associate with a diesel motor. Um that all has to be replaced as well when we do replace the motor. So that's why the motor is is very expensive when it does come time for it to be replaced. >> As far as the attrition schedule goes, there's a lot of factors that go into it. You know, not just cost, but um you know, the value of the vehicle. Um if we how long we can, you know, run the vehicle as a spare, you
078know, replacement bus that doesn't run every day like the second one that's on there. you know, that one we had on our original schedule was scheduled to be replaced last year. Um, the condition of the vehicle allowed us to keep it in service for we were hoping to get through the rest of the this year. Um, it is still running, but um, you know, just the age factor um, on that one, that one is 17 years old, so uh, it's time for it to retire. Um, but it it and the value of that is, you know, probably somewhere in the we might get a thousand bucks for it, you know, at at auction or something like that. So, it's just it's not even, you know, to put a $30,000 motor in a vehicle that's worth
079a,000 bucks just isn't, you know, um, a financial, >> it's not wise, >> not sound. That's the word I'm looking for. So, >> yeah. Yeah. And and safety of our students on those buses is very important as well. So, I was just curious to know if this was planned or if it was a matter of >> um us having to replace something that wasn't >> So, the So, well, I said yes. No, the the the f the older one was supposed to go last year. >> You were hoping to get it through the remainder of this year and actually ask permission next year to replace it. >> Um >> uh what we had on our schedule to be replaced, we replaced earlier. um about a month ago, a month and a half ago, >> that
080was all that was our schedule for this year. >> Okay. >> Uh moving forward, we are um with keeping in mind of the budget as well, we are evaluating on if we can maybe stretch a little bit more. >> Mhm. um you know what we can do um as far as uh you know in-house repairs um that may get us you know a couple more miles out of out of a vehicle that may be scheduled to be replaced >> just in keeping in mind of the budget. >> Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. So for for the bus that needs the new engine, I'm just curious, is there corrosion in the frame? >> There is there. And that's after 17 years. Yeah, there is. Um you will find some surface rust under the on
081the underneath the undercarriage of the vehicle. So, in Pennsylvania, school buses are required to be inspected three times a year. There is a um >> once a year the state police do come uh to our location and they do inspect every single vehicle >> um and they put a inspection sticker on the windshield just like they would with your car. Mhm. >> Outside of that, our mechanics are required u under state law to inspect all of our school vehicles twice a year. So, there is a um annual rotation just like with a car, you know, they they get a six a six-month inspection sticker. Um they they're brought in. There's a whole criteria that um you know for on the paperwork that needs to be completed for the state just like with the car that
082>> it has to meet um if corrosion um or um other mechanical factors that uh don't meet that then you know the bus in a sense fails. uh we've not gotten to a point where we've had vehicles that fail. Um you know that have needed extensive repairs recently just from making sure that we're keeping on top of you know anything that might need to be replaced or repaired. >> Um so I agree that safety of our students is is paramount. I guess I'm and I understand that buses depreciate in value over time, but we don't have buses to preserve their value. We have buses to transport students. And even I I'm trying to figure out like even if a bus needs a new engine at $30,000, >> that's less than a hundred grand to replace
083it. Right. >> That is true. That is true. Um, so keeping in mind if you replace the mode, you're only replacing one component of the bus. You still have the entire air brake system, the electrical system, the other components that make up the bus that are still the same age >> as the vehicle. So, um, typically with a car, if anybody's ever had a car, that once one thing goes, it's sort of domino and trickle. You know, >> it can, >> right? >> Um, so, um, you know, the replacing other systems can be expensive as well. Going back to um with you asked about the corrosion. Uh a lot of times in school buses it's not necessarily the frame that corrods. It is the flooring in the bus that corrods. >> Okay. >> Um school
084buses are basically on a steel frame. >> Um under that rubber flooring is basically plywood, >> right? >> Believe it or not, it's plywood. So after 17 years that starts to get a little >> okay >> squishy in order to replace that then you're talking you have to pull up the you have to pull all the seats out first >> right >> and then you have to replace the you pull up the rubber place all the plywood put it all back together it's very timeconuming and it's very expensive to do that. >> H okay >> uh we did do it on one vehicle I'm going to go with probably about eight years ago um Dr. Fetch your pie remembers this one. Um we it cost us in the range of about $8,000 about eight years
085ago to do that. So um again it was on a vehicle that was older that um >> it probably should have been replaced but it wasn't we couldn't financially at the time do that. So we made the choice to do that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> I have a question. >> Sure. Are there any long-term goals to replace the fleet with electric vehicles? >> So, we have explored that. Um, we we did a study with um this is going back postcoid. We did uh look at electric options. Um we started with Pico because Pico um uh has to come out and do an assessment of our facility. Um they have to certify from the roadway to the building first. Then they have to certify the electrical components of the building. So,
086our um wiring our uh help me here. What are they called? The fuse box. >> Yeah, the infrastructure. Thank you. of our building. Um our building is uh not up to it's up to code, but it's not >> up to what would be required for uh uh the 240 amperage service that is required to charge the buses. We have it for basic equipment, you know, our lifts or air conditioning, things of that nature, but we would have to increase our amperage load uh to the entire facility in order to bring on the um electric vehicles. Um that estimated cost just to upgrade the infrastructure uh in 2021 um and Mr. Mr. Um, Alfred did it. I don't remember his last name. Um, was approximately $750,000 just to get us from the street to the building
087and then the service in the building. Um, Dr. Mel Core and I went have gone to three different webinars about electric vehicles. um the cost of an electric school bus. The last time we went to a um webinar and bringing in a vendor as well to talk to us about electric buses, we were looking at uh approximately and depending on what we what options and things we put on it, we were looking at about 350 to almost $400,000 per vehicle. That was just for the bus. Um, then you also have to install a charging station. The charging station for a school bus is not like a charging station for your Chevy Blazer. You know, it is is basically if you've ever been to um like Wawa or a parking area, you see those. It's basically
088one of those, but it's a 240 amp charging station to be able to charge um the battery. Each school bus, a 72 passenger school bus, uh has five batteries in it, having a charge of approximately, depending on usage, uh you can probably get about an 8 hour day out of out of uh one charge, providing you don't travel or if you do travel out of the district. Um you have a very good mapping of where charging stations are. Um because you can't just drive into Wawa and plug it in. It's not going to work. Um the charging stations were hundred $100,000 each roughly. Um and during that program there was the option there were grants um >> that we explored >> uh for some money. um Abington didn't really qualify based on our um location,
089based on our student population, based on a lot of different factors. Um and it also didn't cover what happened in year two. It only covered year one, the initial purchase and setup, but it didn't cover what if something breaks, what if something has to be replaced. Um, a replacement battery uh for one battery for a school bus is about as much as a replacement engine as a diesel school bus. Roughly about $35,000 give or take >> um on the battery. >> Thank you. >> The second problem we ran into was our garage itself is not designed to work on electric tool buses. Um if you recall uh in 200 19 2020 uh we uh replaced two of our three uh hydraulic lifts in our garage. >> Um those lifts are not designed to lift a
090electric school bus. They are designed to lift a standard school bus which weighs up to about 60,000. Um electric school bus is about 120. So it's twice the weight. So we would have to upgrade the garage. Uh there was just a lot of factors that went and the more we explored the more um the price went up. It just kept it was you know um so did I answer your I'm sorry I think I might have got a little a little little off there but um >> thank you. >> Appreciate >> any other questions or comments. >> I just appreciate that um response and the time that you took to walk through it. So thank you for that. I think that is that's an area that residents I think do think about a lot when
091we're making purchases of this kind and if alternative sources of energy would be more useful or applicable. And so thank you for taking the time to walk us through that um and for asking the question Frasier. >> Anyone else? Okay, I think that takes us to the vote. >> Mrs. Brown >> I. Miss Eisenhart >> I >> Mr. Muhammad >> I >> Miss Spalding >> I >> Miss Hartman >> I >> Miss Frasier >> I >> Miss Fletcher >> I >> Dr. Mauy >> I The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for awards of contracts? >> Is the recommended action that the board of school directors approves the awards of contracts as reflected in addendum number 11.1. >> Second. We have a second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank
092you, Dr. Mallerie. Um, tonight we have five awards of contract and one change order. Uh, the first is for access program services and this is paid for by the access proceeds. Uh, we have emergency pipe repairs at Schwarzman Stadium. Food service kitchen equipment. um heated it and the emergency pipe repairsman stadium um would be with uh it's an insurance claim as well. Um so we're anticipating reimbursement for that as an insurance claim. Food service kitchen equipment heated display merchandisers uh for the middle school and this is from the food service account. Um the next is for student school and uh student student data school business and human resource management system. This is Skyward. Um and then following that is website automated communication systems and mobile uh application. This is apt and uh we have a
093change order for the data backup uh solution. I can answer any questions about these individual things. Okay. >> Um, could you just uh for members of the public review what access stands for? >> Sure. I'm going to ask Miss Capola if you could um please review this process. >> Sure. I'm not sure I know what the acronym access stands for, but um AC the access program is the uh medical Medicaid services that we provide to students in the district who are Medicaid eligible. This program contract is with the MCIU. So, we pay them 12% of the reimbursement monies that we receive when we claim access billing. Uh, for example, when a student receives personal care assistance services from a one-to-one PAR professional, we're able to bill Medicaid and we get a percentage of those costs
094back in reimbursement. And those access funds we use to directly put back into the services for the students in the district. It comes with a lot of processing and managing of time studies and that is what the IU does for us with this contract. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And and just to speak about in the past um we did this a lot of this in-house um so we analyzed the cost factor of having an you know employee or employees in our um in our system processing these claims and we have found that it's much more effective to contract out to do this and uh the claims reimbursements are um I think there are better uh claims reimbursements and more things processed at a in a timely fashion because of the what they have going on.
095So, we have analyzed this and I'm going back um we started this probably 10 to 15 years ago and uh we look at that those costs on an annual basis and it it is more cost effective for us and we get the most reimbursement by um working with the IU. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Other questions or comments? >> Does any of those services involve one-on-one or wraparound services for students? >> So, it does involve district uh either one-to-one assistance or personal care assistance, but only the Abington School District employees. So, wraparounds or therapeutic behavior health technicians that parents get from outside agencies, it doesn't cover those. That those go through parents insurance. Anyone else? >> Can you help me understand just the uh food service kitchen equipment? Was that a was that a
096faulty piece of equipment that we're replacing or is that part of regular maintenance or just >> Dr. Malco, you want to? >> Sure. This is new additional equipment to improve service and to improve the efficiency and speed of getting students through the line. >> Okay. >> Um particularly with the hot items so that based on the current configuration at the middle school. Yes. >> To decrease the amount of time that it takes for staff to go back and forth to to rebuild. >> Makes sense. Thank you. >> It it is movable equipment. So, in a few years, we will be able to repurpose it and relocate. Good. Question. >> Just going to follow up with the same thing. Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Okay. Miss Dakola. >> Mrs. Brown. >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart.
097>> I. >> Mr. Muhammad. >> I. >> Miss Spalding. >> I. Miss Hartman >> I >> Miss Frasier >> I >> Miss Fletcher >> I >> Dr. Mauy >> I the eyes have it and the motion passes. >> Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for adoption of instructional materials for the 2627 school year 2026 2027 school year. It is the recommended action that the board of school directors in accordance with sections 508 and 803 of the Pennsylvania school code adopt new textbooks and/or instructional programs for the subjects, courses, and levels reflected in addendum number 12.1. >> Second, Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Mallerie. Uh during our orientation uh this evening, we uh explain the instructional materials adoption. we can answer any additional questions that you may have in regard to that adoption
098those adoptions. >> Questions or comments from the board? >> Just a comment. I think it was a really great presentation and I'm glad you took the time to answer our questions there. Thank you. >> Uh just one followup about the uh intervention and the student for the students who are two grades and below. Does the system itself allow us to uh track to see how students are making progress or do we plan on using something else to see how students are making progress um towards grade level? Um math 180 has built-in benchmarking tools that allow the teachers to progress monitor and they do that every few weeks. Um and the pro the program monitors them throughout and then if they do reach um proficiency within a school year, we would transfer them in out of
099the title three or not title three, sorry, out of the tier three um programming into you know the next tier that would be appropriate for them. But the program has builtin monitoring. It's um similar. Some of you may be familiar with read 180. Um it's the same manufacturer, same type of programming and it has been highly effective in Abington to date. That w that was my next question because I heard you say that we've used it at the middle school and my follow-up question would be how how is it fairing? >> Yeah, I don't know if you want to say more but um we have had it close to 10 years I think and it it it has great results. >> Yeah, we meet with HMH um twice a year to review the uh the
100progress that the students are making. the middle school. It was adopted for the middle school in the past and then they had stopped using it for a little while and they went back to using that program this year. So, this is our cohort ear of students that are um that are in this program for the first time. We also backed it up the uh math 180 flex program is a smaller 20 minute kind of quick intervention. We back that up to fifth grade to give those students some like prerequis prerequisite skills and experience with math 180 for when they go to the middle school to engage in the full program. But we have, like Laura said, we have seen success. We've seen students at the high school who were in read 180 actually come out
101of read 180 and be able to go right into high school English because it's catches the student up two years um academic level in one year's time. Hence the 180. >> Thank you very much. Other questions or comments? >> No. Okay. Miss Danakola. >> Mrs. Brown. >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart. >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad. >> I. >> Miss Falding. >> I. >> Miss Hartman. >> I. >> Miss Frasier. >> I. >> Miss Fletcher. >> I. >> Dr. Maury. >> I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for adoption of the food service policy? >> It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approve the second reading of the revised board policy entitled food service policy as reflected in addendum number 13.1. >> Second.
102Dr. Fetcher. >> I'm going to ask Dr. Milor, could you please review this second reading of the food service policy? >> Sure. As as mentioned at the last meeting with the first reading, um the food service audit that recently occurred in the school district, the auditor recommended uh that the policy be updated to u provide specific additional information regarding non-program food. So you see on the screen a section that exists in the current policy um regarding non-program food. What was requested was that we add additional detail. So you'll see that there is now uh a replacement section defining what non-program food is and explicitly addressing u the auditor's comments with regard to how we track non-program food revenues and expenses and uh how we determine pricing. Um what is now going to be in the
103policy are practices that have been in place but just were not explicitly stated within the policy. questions or comments from the board? >> Thank you for the reminder. >> Okay, we'll proceed to the vote. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I >> Miss Eisenhart >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad >> I. >> Miss Spalding >> I. >> Miss Hartman >> I. >> Miss Frasier >> I. >> Miss Fletcher >> I. >> Dr. Mauy >> I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Uh, Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for approval of the Chartwell School Dining Services contract for the 2026 2027 school year? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors approves the renewal of the contract with Chartwell School Dining Services for the 2026 2027 school year at the guarantee of $75,000
104to the district contingent upon budgeted operating days, student enrollment, and budgeted operating costs. >> Second, Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Mauy. This is for a one-year renewal of our contract with Chartwells. Um this we've been working with Chartwell since 1984 and have been very pleased with that relationship. Chartwells has worked with us in in uh providing us with anything that we need in terms of um changes within our school schedules and and as well as meeting with our students and um parents uh to talk about food options while implementing a quality food program that that meets federal standards. Dr. Melor, I don't know if you want to say anything else about the contract itself. No, you you covered it. Uh, as Dr. Fetcher stated, they've provided the service since 1984. We are required um
105to go out for bid at least every five years. Um, we last did that and brought a agreement to you in June of 2024 for the 2425 school year. Once that initial agreement is approved, then the district has the option to renew up to four times. So, this will be the second renewal of that agreement. >> Can you I wasn't here as part of that one. Can you just help me understand what is included in that cost? What What do we get for that for that $75,000? >> The the $75,000 is their guarantee back to the school district. So, the the district food service fund um which can be used to purchase food service equipment like the the heating merchandisers that you just approved. um that funding um is uh provided by Chartwells as part
106of the guar as part of their agreement. So they guarantee that the district will receive by the end of the year as part of this as part of Oh, they're paying their service that amount of money. >> All right. I appreciate the clarity. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Um, regarding Chartwells, I'm pretty sure I knew the answer, but do they the app that's used for parents to load money to purchase lunches? That is a separate contract with a separate vendor. Is that correct? Or is that under Chartwells? I think it's like my school bucks. >> It is my school books. >> Yeah, it is my school bucks. Um, that is not with the school district. Okay. But I think the question was whether it's part of Chartwells. >> I think so. >> Oh, okay. >>
107Is it part of Chartwells? Do they contract with >> I'm I'm not sure of the answer to that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I believe so. >> So, Chartwells contracts with that app, which is what we what the parents use to load, right? >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, thank you. That's all >> I just wanted to add that uh within my six years here, I remember early on community members coming to the board meeting to talk about food options whether um mostly that they were displeased with it. And then I also recall um at a point Chartwells had hired or replaced someone whose job was to communicate with families and get their feedback to make the improvements. And that is something that um I enjoyed seeing and I no longer see emails or people coming
108to the board meetings to talk about uh food options. Um and it and even if they do, there is a place for them to communicate with a person and I definitely think that is a positive. >> Our our students still have strong opinions about what is offered. Um but but worked into that is a feedback uh and opportunity. Each school has um a food service committee that consists of students, parents um and um employees. So that's and I've have a superintendent student advisory group and um you know our director of chartwells um came into that group and you know surveyed the students on one of the things that you know what they like to see what are some things they didn't like um as well as um the quality of the grilled cheese was a
109big topic for about 10 minutes. Yeah. >> Mhm. >> That definitely needs to be served hot. So, I'm happy we approved the >> the new heating heating system. Yes. >> Heating system. >> All right. I'm ready. >> Yeah. Um I I appreciate the district's ongoing commitment to ensuring that um not only the district itself, but the vendors with which we work maintain clear communication channels with our community. So, >> I'll just make this suggestion. It's been on my mind. I wanted to make it earlier. I want to make it here. >> Are you going to complain about the grilled cheese? >> No. Okay. >> I'm not. >> Okay. >> Um, but in regards to my school bucks, >> maybe there's a way, and we just don't know. >> Is there a way to control spending?
110is eight eight-year-olds get in line and they pick up an assortment of things and it draws down our account pretty quickly. Um, so I'm sorry for being very personal here, but I know a lot of families experience this. There's no one saying, "Hey, 8-year-old, you don't need three bags of chips and two drinks to disperse to your friends." Um, is there a way to like put in controls in the My School Buck system? No, I've tried many times. >> You know, I don't think there's any way to control it. >> We just we just put those controls in the notes in. But it's the looking at the young student and saying, "No, you can't buy those snacks." That's the difficult part I think that people have in our cafeterias and sometimes with the speed of
111which people are coming through those lines. While we can add a note in there that says, "Please no extras." Um it's really hard to police >> quite honestly. I I just want to clarify the reason why I asked that question was because in in agreeing to this for another year, we are in fact agreeing to my schoolbox app to be the way in which we distribute funds for families. So just in case that didn't make sense, there was a reason. >> I had a feeling >> there's also in my school box like a $2.50 charge every time you add funds. >> Yeah. which it's it adds up over the course of the school year, >> especially if eight-year-olds are buying >> two drinks and three bags of chips. >> Ice cream every day. But what
112>> ice cream? Yes, >> ice cream every day. Otis cookies. >> Um, but is I'm curious where that $250 every time I put money in the account actually goes. I know it's a service fee, but >> does anyone know >> it goes to cover the cost of having that application available? So, there's bank processing fees associated with that that the food service fund would be charged and that fee goes to cover those costs. >> Can families still pay cash? >> Oh, okay. >> Um, last I believe it was last year under school code, they passed an amendment that you have to accept cash. You can't go cashless at a school district. >> Okay. Okay, that's good to know. >> Families can put cash in their children's hand and they can Thank you for that. >>
113If you do it in all quarters, it helps. >> Thank you. That's helpful. >> All right. Any other comments? No. Kathy, >> sorry. >> I'm I'm sorry. I'm I'm clueless. I don't have any children. I don't know what you're talking about. You're saying this app to buy snacks? Well, >> it's to load money in your kids's account. >> Oh, >> so they can buy snacks. >> So they can buy their lunch. They're just buying other things. It's the the app is so that they can pay for their school lunch. >> Okay. >> But when you have $20 on there, I think what the conversation is that there's nothing policing the children from spending the $20 a day. >> Okay. >> For example, >> so instead of buying lunch, they're going to buy junk food. it
114seems. >> Okay. All right. You want to see my kids? >> But but to that to that point, um just >> you can look at everything that's purchased. >> Exactly. And that's what we that's >> And I'm saying that as a parent um who had a student in elementary school said, "This round's on me." Um bought ice cream sandwiches for a large group of people. >> We also had to police it at home. That was something as a parent we saw, you know, listed an increase of uh usage and we addressed that. So, >> exactly. Exactly. >> So, monitor your children's diet. >> Yep. >> All right. Anyone else? Mr. Muhammad, I hear you're buying ice cream ice cream sandwiches for the board after the meeting, >> perhaps. >> Okay. All right. Miss Denola, could
115we do the vote? >> Mrs. Brown, >> I. Miss Eisenhart >> I >> Mr. Muhammed >> I >> Miss Spalding >> I >> Miss Hartman >> I >> Miss Frasier >> I >> Miss Fletcher >> I >> Dr. Malry >> I the eyes have it. The motion passes. This brings us to item 15. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for approval of the 2026 2027 school breakfast and lunch prices? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors establishes the following breakfast and lunch prices for the 20 2026 2027 school year as reflected in addendum number 15.1. >> Second Dr. >> Dr. Melor >> back uh what is recommended is a 5 cent increase in lunch prices for elementary and secondary. you see on the screen. The elementary prices would shift
116from $35 per meal to $310. Middle school and high school students from $3.40 to $345 and a 10 cent increase for adult meals. Um the increase equates if a student uh who pays full price buys a lunch every day over the course of a full school year. It's a $910 increase total cost uh for the school year. Um universal free breakfast is still in place and is still part of Governor Shapiro's uh proposed budget school year. So uh free breakfast for all students and his budget proposal also continues um for school lunches um just either free or full price. Uh there used to be free, reduced price, and full price. And what uh was put in place as part of his budget a few years ago was reduced price students are now considered to be
117free uh for school lunches. So that would continue as well as part of this program. Uh this increase u just in comparison to prior years, we haven't had an increase in cost for two years. Over the course of the last decade, uh school lunch prices have gone up 35 cents. And >> do I see correctly that there is no upcharge for the milk? Is that is that what I'm reading on there? That remains the same. >> Yeah. The the milk prices for students and lunch stay the same. For adults, uh the school lunch does not include about >> correct. The $6 is just for the meal, >> additional cost for beverage. >> Thank you. I think it's important we encourage the meal. >> So universal free breakfast. Free lunch requires families to apply. Is that
118correct? >> Correct. So, there's an application annually for um students to qualify for free or reduced, they still um based upon the income level, students are still um determined to be either free or reduced. But if you are identified as a reduced lunch student, then you receive the free lunch uh program. >> Okay. And are we still seeing seeing a drop off when kids hit middle school? Was my understanding that that the application rate dropped? >> Yeah, we we had seen that and we've continued efforts to remind families because there are additional services that can be provided to families that they would qualify for, right, >> beyond the the lunch program. So we do make an effort through student services department to communicate with families throughout the school year particularly at the start of the
119school year but also throughout the school year that they have that opportunity available to them. >> Okay. >> Because those those applications also have impacts for things like title programs. >> Right. Right. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Danola, do you want to speak about what we explore as a district in terms of the lunch and what we qualify for? >> Correct. So there is a part of the national school lunch program that's called C the community el eligibility provision. Um once you meet certain thresholds of percentage of students that are directly certified as free that means there's a direct certification process that comes through the state that says these students while they haven't filled out an application they are directly qualified for free meals. Okay. as those numbers um increase, you can become eligible
120at an individual school to be universally free. Um a number of years ago, for years, it was a 40% threshold that 40% of your students would have to be um directly certified as free in order to be able to participate in that. I forget what year it was, a few years ago, they dropped it to 25%. We do have a number of our buildings that are just over that 25%. So, we are currently evaluating whether or not financially we can support universal free meals in our um individual schools that qualify. Um but the ultimate goal would be can we figure out a financial model um relying on the C reimbursements to go districtwide as free. We feel that would be the most equitable. Mhm. >> Um the buildings that are currently and being currently eligible
121doesn't mean it's financially sustainable, but it's when you become eligible, it's important that you analyze it to see if you become financially eligible because it is such a benefit for students. So the current schools that would be eligible eligible would be Copper Beach Elementary, Highland Elementary, Overlook Elementary, Roslin, excuse me, Willow Hill, the middle school, and the high school. So there's will be more to come on that. I'm actively analyzing that. Um the state did just recently release those numbers to say, "Hey, look at your look at these schools. You may be eligible for that program." Um there is over the years there were some concerns that participating C would impact your title one funding allocations. Um that does not occur. So we could participate in C and not impact our title one allocation. So
122we are actively looking at ways to do tons of things. Solve a budget crisis but also look for more programs for students. Look for ways we can you know maybe help some of that food inequity or food insecurity that people are feeling. Um and we think that if we can if we can get the numbers to a level that it makes financial sense that we become a you know break even at our food service fund um that could be a true um benefit for our community and our students. >> That's great. Thank you very much for undertaking that assessment. >> Yeah, >> I am thrilled to hear that. One thing that co taught us when lunch was free was that families showed up >> and they needed it and hungry kids don't learn. >> The
123body is not designed for you to be able to learn if you are hungry. I guess my next question is with the breakfast. Do we know what percent of our students actually take the breakfast? >> That I'm not sure. I can get that information together though. >> Okay. But that news, that update, uh you said C is Thank you. I'm excited to hear that as well. I agree with my colleagues on the board regarding that. Um one question for Dr. Fetcher. Um, as we prepare for the end of the school year, does the district have a plan um to look at resources to help assist families and specifically their children that qualify over the summer? um is there crowd sourcing that's happening to see what's available in the community level or through other um avenues
124that um I may not be aware of to provide um resources for to address food insecurity over the summer months. >> I'm going to ask um Dr. Rosenthal or Dr. Lasain if you could speak to that and some of the programs that we're involved in. >> Thanks Dr. Petra. Yes. Um our social workers are they actively work with their community um around food insecurity. Um they um uh we also uh use a county website that um lists all of the the uh co-ops and uh outlets for food in our area. Um uh and then um we also get the gift cards from Giant that we look at distributing um for families that need that over the summer. >> In past years there were programs that were situated, I believe it was discontinued last year, but
125in previous years um I believe one of the locations was Cresmont at the rec center, the community center there where they offer daily um lunch um for anybody. it was free to anyone in the community who wanted to access it. Are is the district aware of any similar offerings or if that funding was restored or similar funding was restored for something like that? >> I'm not sure if about that specific funding source, so I can't answer that. But um we do uh uh work with um the county um looking at the list of um resources in our community, make sure that's updated and make sure that's shared with the families that need it, but I'm not sure about the funding source about that. >> Okay. >> I know this vote is only for the uh
126increase. So uh I'll just I just wanted to clarify something that I said. It is a common practice in our district that no student is turned away because they do not have money. So, I just want to make sure that is clear. I am aware of that. Um but the universal breakfast and the universal lunch sounds amazing to me. >> Agreed. >> Some of some of the programs, Miss Eisenhart, are um township funded or county funded as well. So that's we'd have to look at the specific program and we can we can uh find out where that fund what that funding model is and um whether or not there are additional ones open. >> Yeah. And just generally we appreciate the district making sure that they're looking for resources and options where they can to
127provide um assistance for our families over the summer. So, it's more just a reassurance that that's happening and and communicated uh to the students and their families. Um because that is a huge two meals in your day is huge and and to ensure that um we can point folks to where the need is or where it can present elsewhere is just really important over those months. So, I appreciate that um continued diligence on that in that area. We we also do the it's called the um Sunbucks program and that is a summer benefit um and I think it I'm trying to look it provides $120 in grocery benefits per eligible school age child when school is out in the summer. >> And just I just want to clarify this if I could. We already have
128universal breakfast in place. There is the potential through the C program to institute universal free lunch pending a financial evaluation. So we do not yet have universal free lunch, but we are investigating whether that will be possible and we hope. Okay. But that would only be at certain schools, correct? >> No, it would be the district. >> Okay. >> Our hope is that we can make it districtwide. You can um without getting too technical, you can blend your currently directly certified rates um and apply and group schools together. So those schools as a group exceed that 25%. So we're looking at different ways that we could group them to ensure that all of our buildings receive that same benefit. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Can we proceed to the vote? Any
129other questions? >> Okay. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart, >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad, >> I. >> Miss Balding, >> I. >> Miss Hartman, >> I. >> Miss Frasier, >> I. >> Miss Fletcher, >> I. >> Dr. Malry, >> I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for project access? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors authorizes the administration to enter into an agreement with with the civic solution group for the processing of school-based access program claims for reimbursement in the amounts of 35 cents per claim for direct services and 18 cents per claim for transportation services that are provided to eligible students who participate in the district's special education program for the period of July 1, 2026 through July I
130through June 30, 2027. >> Second. Dr. Fetcher. >> Thank you, Dr. Maui. Uh, Miss Capola, could you review this item and explain how this is different from the award this evening? >> Yes, this um is actually a necessary contract that PTE uh makes the school district sign. They have chosen the vendor civic solution to do the actual processing of the claims. And um the charge is 35 cents for every claim that they process for us for direct support and then 18 for every claim for transportation services. It's different from the contract with the MCIU in that the MCIU actually does all of the paperwork for us to submit and the MCIU additionally tries to help ensure that we are maximizing the submissions for the but this is just the actual processing of the claim. >>
131But in order to receive that funding this this is required. Correct. >> Yes. We have we in order to get the reimbursement we have to contract with them. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. Questions, comments? No. Okay. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I. >> Miss Eisenhart, >> I. >> Mr. Muhammad, >> I. >> Miss Spalding, >> I. >> Miss Hartman, >> I. >> Miss Frasier, >> I. >> Miss Fletcher, >> I. >> Dr. Malry, >> I. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Mr. Muhammad, can you please read the recommendation for the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit Services Contract Cost Plan? It is the recommended action that the board of school directors authorize the board president and chief school administrator to execute an agreement between the Abington School District and the McGomery County Intermediate Unit number 23 where
132the intermediate unit will provide the school district with special education services for 2026 2027 as reflected in addendum number 17.1 said agreement being subject to changes based on district needs and intermediate unit costs. Second, Dr. Fetcher, excuse me. >> Thank you, Dr. Mauy. Um, regulations of PTE require that each school district develop a shared service plan with the IU. Um, this plan is to provide estimate costs of special education services that the district intends to contract with the IU during the 2627 school year. Uh, I can answer or Miss Capitol can answer any questions you have about this. >> Questions or comments from the board? When you say shared service, that indicates that the professionals providing these services are also working with other districts and we're just splitting the cost of those individuals. >> Yes,
133the these are for services that um we may use. So we estimate how much of those services uh we would use. So for for example what you see there is a summary of um what we anticip what the service price is and how much we anticipate using that service. Miss Capital, anything you want to add to that? >> Yes, you're correct though. Um if we contract with the IU to provide us with say instruction in the home teacher, that person could also be shared with another district depending on how much of that person that we need. But the plan also includes placements in the IU's um self-contained intensive special education classrooms, access to their assisted technology program. Um and we have been able this year to contract a full vision and deaf heart hearing support
134teacher when we weren't able to hire on our own. >> Thank you. that. Yeah, I was going to ask about just cost benefit in regards to using these services as opposed to hiring on our own. >> So for a full-time employee, it's a cost savings to the district to contract with the IU because the IU takes care of the benefits package. So just looking at the vision support teacher um we roughly estimate about 107,000 contracting with the IU where that would have been a teacher that was very high on the pay scale coming into the district. Um so we saved on not only the additional salary but also the full benefits package >> and is that that that assessment of the cost benefit have you done that with some of these other positions? So the
135only other position in there that we are using is the deaf hearted hearing support. Um that's just a sbatical. So it's a temporary spot. We we did try to fill it, but there's not too many um hearing support teachers out there that wanted a part-time position. So there wasn't really a cost comparison for that one. The other is um the instruction in the home position. Depending on how many students we have, it does not pay for the district to hire a full-time instruction in the home teacher. So, I think we have maybe three or four students at a couple hours a week. So, it it's cost benefit to us to contract with the IU for that position as well. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments from the board? Yeah, just to clarify
136the right column it says actual cost at the top but that's the estimated cost correct like it may change based on student needs or >> so it's a unit price is the first column so >> uh an emotional support placement at Anderson school is 465 >> right >> per student and that's how many students we have placed there currently so that is an actual cost to the district. It's predicted because it could change between now and the start of the school year, but as of right now that those are the services we anticipate contracting with the IU4 >> in 2627. >> Correct. >> Okay. Got it. >> You are you are correct. It is an estimate of what we think we will >> use. Okay. meaning we estimate three students at the Anderson school next
137year, >> but there might be additional students that are added or that one of those students might be removed and so the cost may change. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Just because that came up and I don't quite understand. Is that a full-time school placement or is that supplemental emotional support but they're still a general education student at Abington School District? that full-time emotional support placement similar to an APS. >> So, an approved private school placement. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And this these funds are coming out of how are we funding this? How is it how's the district fund the 661 um $661,000 for the for these services through the intermediate unit? Is that through the access? No, these are not attached to our access. Okay. Okay. >> These are part of our
138general fund. >> Got it. Thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. I don't know why I think you can see the um we talked about that in other agenda items today. So, thank you for clarifying that. >> Other questions or comments? >> Okay. >> Mrs. Brown, >> I miss Eisenhart. >> I >> Mr. Muhammad >> I >> Miss Spalding >> I >> Miss Hartman >> I >> Miss Frasier >> I I >> Miss Fletcher >> I >> Dr. Malry >> I The eyes have it. The motion passes. Dr. Fetcher, are there any additional reports andor recommendations by the administration? >> Yes, Dr. Mallerie. I provide the conference attendance and professional leaves for your information. I'd like to bring your attention to Miss Alice Allison Renier, our supervisor of world language, uh, who will be presenting at
139the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit's English Language Development Synergy 2026 event on May 4th. >> Great. Glad to see our teachers uh, out and about. >> Yeah. >> Presenting work at at a variety of conferences. That's um great for the district and great for our students to have their teachers professionally engaged >> and may the force be with her. >> Mhm. >> And uh I think I think the other thing that stood out for me was the number of um music festivals that are going on right now. Point many of our students acknowledged at the state festival last week which was pretty amazing. >> Okay. Um, any other business that may be brought to the attention of the board of school directors? No. Okay. That brings us to our final section of comments from citizens. So
140once again, um, comments will be conducted both in person and by phone. The phone number to participate is being displayed on the screen and it is still 267-7715-3717. You'll be able to join the meeting by calling in on your mobile or landline phone. A citizen will be recognized once during this period of the meeting and each citizen's comments will be limited to a total of three minutes except at the discretion of the president. Time may not be yielded or otherwise transferred by one speaker to another for purposes of extending a given speaker's time allotment. If there's anyone present who would like to make a comment, please use the mic either to your right or to your left. >> Go ahead. A couple items. The first one, uh, there was a good segue. I'd like to
141talk just for a minute about toxic rhetoric. And, uh, I've noticed it on the board here. I know you all know about it, too. When you're referring to people as fascists, when you're slandering a employee, an honorable employee, using anti-semitism, when somebody comes up and makes suggestion, you say it's inhumane. Okay? I'm sure it's meant to intimidate. But what you end up with is it's an ad hominemum attack. Okay? ad homonym attacks are intellectually weak. They're unprofessional and it's also the tactic of bullies. So what I would suggest is you have an executive session and you should talk about appropriate conduct and also professionalism. Just a suggestion. The second one is um what are you all's ideas for how you reduce spending? Because if you want to talk about inhumane, taxing elderly people out of
142their homes and poor people out of their homes, that's actually inhumane. But you have to have some empathy. You're in here talking about my Bucks program and kids buying a uh a uh a bag of chips or a Coke or something like that, and I'm not familiar with the program. And everybody goes, "Oh, yeah." Wagging their heads. And then you're talking about $285 million spent on a building that's not necessary, tearing a hundred million functional middle school down. Well, there's people who actually are going to be forced out of their homes with these tax increases, and there should be some level of care about that. So, that would be great. On a completely different level, I will look through this um this list of books. It's awesome. I don't know. There's 130 128 books, 127
143books on there. I've probably read about 25 of them and uh it gives me a good reading list for where to go. I don't know how many of you all have done it. I'm just curious, how many of these do our kids get assigned a year. Can't be more than two and three, but it's an awesome list. And uh I compliment you on that list there. Um two other real quick things. I think I have a little bit of time. The MCIU um Mr. Allen's not here, but have we heard anything else about the um senior staff and abusing funds going on vacations with public monies about the MCIU? And the last one is I know you all know about the uh um Southern Poverty Law Center has got a pretty shocking um charges against
144them by the federal government. And I saw in 2020 Abington School District paid $7,000 to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I'm going to find out. But do you all know are there still ongoing programs where we're paying money to the Southern Poverty Law, the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center? And finally, I would love to hear your ideas. When I say get rid of these jobs, it doesn't mean get rid of the people. Move them back into the classroom. Imagine how good our kids would be if Dr. Melor was teaching a classroom instead of just shuffling paper. He could do that job in in part-time and you can eliminate some Is that it? >> Yep. >> Okay. Sorry, I got lots more ideas if anybody's interested. >> Thank you for your voice. >> Mr. Cargus, do
145we have any callers on the line? >> We do. The next citizen for public comment, uh, phone number ending in 4437. >> Please state your full name and full address. >> Oh, it's Connie Briggs, 2953 Suscuana Road in Rosland. >> Go ahead. We can hear you. Hi. Uh uh I just want to uh uh just quickly just uh I have to thank the board uh and staff for uh answering my uh emails about the questions for the budget and for clarifying that the 7.06% tax increase is the cap that we are working with right now. I appreciate that. And I think the residents we went back and forth uh with another number and then uh now we've arrived at that one. So, thank you uh to Dr. Mauy for uh letting me know about that.
146Um you did answer most of my questions and some I I guess you can't answer because you don't know what uh certain funds you don't know what you're going to get from PTE or or or whatever that is in the budget. There's some uncertain uh rows there that you don't know what you're getting. I just wanted to quickly though remind you that the the seniors in the this um in our township are just in our school district are just you know a lot of them are financially stressed and based on census estimates. We we really need to remember these 2500 to 3,000 senior households that may already be housing cost burdened. about a thousand or more may be severely burdened and their social security uh is not meeting their costs and also those with roughly
14717,000 or less than social security income as primary income receive um uh they get can get the uh only those can get the maximum amount from the uh property tax rebates from the Pennsylvania and ASD uh resources. Um, I just wanted to just make sure that you understand that all of the new tax increases are not they're going to just wipe the effects of those those uh, you know, benefits that you give them out. I mean, they're just already a couple hundreds of dollars per month um, under what they can afford. And so now we have another $29 a month if this 7.06 taxes approved uh, in two weeks. uh on the uh final proposed budget. So, I'm just asking you please do whatever you can to reduce that number uh for these uh 25
148to 3,000 senior households in Abington and all of your students who uh whose families have uh financial stress. Um and I just need to ask and you to do this and do the best you can to find other ways of reducing this tax increase as as far down as possible. Thank you. >> Thank you for your voice. I appreciate it. >> Mr. Carus, do we have anyone else on the line? >> We have no more callers. >> Okay, Dr. Fetcher. >> Um, I just would be remiss if I didn't say that, you know, I can assure you that Dr. Melor does a lot more than shuffling papers. And um and this district wouldn't run as smoothly as it it does without the people sitting around that table. >> Absolutely. >> And um you know I
149I also think it's important that for those who have come to board meetings, this table has gotten smaller over the last few years and we continue to evaluate that. But, you know, I I just I look at the table there and the staff and what they bring on a daily basis and some of the cost savings that people around that table have brought to this district as well as the quality programs and compliance with many mandates and um PTE requirements that this table ensures are in place so that our teachers can do the job of teaching our kids. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Melor, for the work that you do. Um, as well as everyone who sits around that table. Um, with that, we will move to closing comments. Mrs.
150Brown, >> I I believe we're the second largest school district in Montgomery County. So, I thank you for everything that you do to help us run smoothly. Um, fifth and eighth grade take science PSSAs tomorrow and the next day and followed by Keystone. So, get a good night's sleep. I will be testing tomorrow. I'm going to go get a good night's sleep, too. >> Miss Eisenhart. >> Good night, everyone. And just thank you for a really uh positive discourse on the subject matter today and all the uh information that was shared on every avenue. I do appreciate it and um I think it's helpful to the community. Have a good night. >> Thank you, Mr. Muhammad. It's remarkably ignorant to say that someone that works as hard as Dr. Melor and the people that work
151extremely hard around this table um to say that any of them are simply shuffling paper. Um, so I just hope people would um do some research on what it takes to run a large district and um stop just saying things to say things. Good night everyone. >> Miss Balding, >> um I I I mean I I can feel the pain of what people are saying about the um especially the seniors because I'm in that age bracket. Um, and I filled out a couple this year of the uh forms for the state rebates and I advertise if anybody contacts me, I'll fill them out for them free of charge and I've done a couple of for the uh school district and and I get it and I mean people talk to me all the time about
152it. It's it's but it's not only the school taxes. I mean look how much more we're spending on food. I filled up my gas tank today and it was like, "Oh gosh." So, I mean, we're getting hit a everywhere and we see it and uh you know, I've been looking at the numbers and I've been looking at some of the numbers here and I see, yeah, well, we're spending down our budget, but we spent 3 million less. We're we're projecting to spend 3 million less in the upcoming year than we have in the current year. So, I think as a board and the superintendent and and I give a lot of credit to Patty, we're doing the best we can to provide um a good ed good quality education for our children. And and then
153it's it's it's just difficult. It's just hard for everybody in a lot of ways, not just not just with the school taxes. And I mean, I I don't know. I don't know what to say. All I can do is I just tell everybody, save what you can, pay down your bills, and and hang in there. I think better times are coming. >> Good night. >> Thank you for that, >> Miss Hartman. >> Um, I just want to say thank you to to everyone for everything that you do and to Patty for working so hard to help us to improve our budget. And it is a very slow process and we are making changes constantly and thank you Dr. Fetcher for all the changes that you've implemented. I think that we're doing a great job but
154we're not going to see immediate change. It's going to be change over time. So we have to you know stay positive and keep doing the good things we're doing and um it's been there's been a lot of improvement in the past couple years. So good night everyone. Miss Fraser, >> I'm um thankful for Abington School District, all of the staff that my kids have encountered over the years. Um out of the out of the three out of the four, actually, two have master's degrees, one has a doctorate degree, and the baby just texts me, although he got into several um dental schools, he just text me a fourth one. He says, "I got into Penn." So, I'm feeling very happy. So again, thank you for everything that you do. >> Good night, >> Miss Fletcher.
155>> I'm between us and the door, aren't I? >> I'll keep it quick. You guys are amazing. Um, I know I'm new to the board, but my experiences here have been phenomenal. I appreciate everything that you do and everything that you bring to the table. So, with that, good night, Miss Lee. >> Good night, everyone. And I hope to see everyone at the 5K on Thursday. >> Thank you for that. Um, thank you everyone for the work that you do. Um, the budget is a work in progress until it isn't. Um, I appreciate the community members um, thoughtful engagement with the district. Um, it makes us a better district and a better board. Um, and with that, I think I'll wish everyone good night. This meeting is ajourned.