001Oh, boy. Chad You lost Chad? Yeah, he went to the restrooms. Yes. Black That's terrible. What? And if you can hold it the whole time it'd be great. Please do. Hold it the whole time it'd be great. I'm excited. Focus. You got chocolate. Good evening, Blackhall. Welcome to the April 16th regular voting session of the Blackhall School Board of Directors. Would you please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Evans, please call Mr. Payne Here. Mr. Miller Here. Mr. Shaw Here. Mr. Smith Here. Dr. Springer Here. I'm here. Uh Mr. Wire Here. Mr. Wisner Here. And Mr. Zackowitz Here. We have nine of
002nine. There was a executive session prior to this meeting to discuss personnel and legal matters. Mr. Manzo, do you have any updates for the board tonight? I do not. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Dr. Benatar, do you have a story to tell about the music meeting? Um just a a brief update. We did a um with the assistance of uh Jody Bernier and and Sherry Fleischman a phenomenal job with the dinner and a show. We had about 200 senior citizens attend last night. Um served them um a nice dinner. Did you say 200? 200. Holy cow. 200. And um our students, we had, you know, about eight volunteer students that assisted, you know, in serving and serving them and um and helping them out. And then they were able to go and see um the
003show, a you know, special special preview just for them. It was wonderful. They were extremely appreciative and extremely impressed. Um I spoke to um our our class representative today and just told her I could I could not have been more proud of those students and how they helped and carried themselves and um I mean they just they they're acts of kindness. I hope they always remember that because it was it was tremendous, phenomenal. So, and the show is is so good. So, I'm so excited for anybody who hasn't seen it. It's very good. Thanks for that update. So, so glad that the musical preview went well with our senior citizens last night. Thanks to everybody that was there last night. Uh Mrs. Smith We take great pride in our students' achievements and the extra curricular
004opportunities available across all grade levels. And I want to thank you also for last night, Dr. Benatar. I understand it was just very well received and even from having a child who's in the musical said that it was just a great crowd last night and um really enjoyed having those people there. So, thank you for doing that and just want to encourage everybody to be able to go see that this weekend. I think it'll be be a great show. And there was nobody that was signed up to do any speaking uh on any um agenda items. Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Uh Mr. Manzo, do you have any board updates tonight? Any updates? No. Thank you. Mr. Evans, do you have any updates tonight? No report tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Mr. Miller, do you
005have any updates for the board tonight? Uh not today. Thank you. Uh Mr. Shaw, do you have any updates tonight? No. Thank you. We will now move to the full consent agenda. Uh I would like to make a motion to move items uh 9.1 through 16.1 to the full consent. Do I have a second? I'll second. We have a motion. Uh any questions or discussion on items 9.1 through 16.1? Um I think we should talk about 10.2 and um I know that we've had some ongoing um discussions about uh the kind of the annual report idea and um expenditures on that and I know uh a couple of us have had some uh further thought and discussion on that and so I was wondering, Carol, do you have something you'd like to present about that?
006Yes, uh thank you, Dr. Benatar. I think it's important uh that we keep the students abreast of what we're doing and um I know you've been busy there making recommendations to the board this past night. Uh this is a piece of additional research I did that outlines the responsibilities to our school district. Uh I think I really value and appreciate our board's efforts to try to have a quality school board. And this document outlines key achievements, strategic initiatives, performance, and key goals. Shannon, the good news is happening in Blackhall. It's really important. And then we have the words from the values that take into account transparency, communication, and how we celebrate the great work of our team and staff. At the same time, I think it's worth pausing just to ensure that this is the
007best way to achieve our goal in terms of Blackhall's story. >> [snorts] >> Last week in social media, uh it has an entire marketing department in his company that does social media. And I thought that was a really important comment because public education has changed dramatically over the years. And now school districts are operating in a very competitive environment with absolutely no high-tech marketing departments. I wanted to bring this as a perspective and I saw that Blackhall School on September 20th. And I just wanted to share publicly that Blackhall spends approximately $1.1 million annually on our traditional marketing. We can find that our school reportedly spent $3.3 million over the past four years in marketing and advertising to public school students. And so we can see that our charter schools have had an incentive of
008$21 million in the 2022-2023 school year on their marketing efforts. Each one of these dollars ultimately funded by taxpayers and the local school districts such as Blackhall. Blackhall has not additionally needed to market itself the way to be competitive with cyber charter schools. But our marketing exchange has a lot of value in telling our story, showing parents and programs and engaging them to understand the opportunities that are available here. And keeping our kids in Blackhall is really important to preventing them from going to cyber charter schools and how that saves us money. So, my recommendation is not that we cut marketing. My recommendation is not that we we cut opportunities in telling our story. But rather look at some more cost-effective, sustainable ways to promote our district. Perhaps look at some things like digital communication,
009social media strategy, video storytelling, video storytelling, so the target audience can utilize the in-house resources. And I do believe that and I've already kind of looked at that a little bit. And so, hopefully we'll hear more about that in the future. Uh I really do believe that Blackhall has a great story to tell and I look forward to exploring ways to do that. But I would recommend um if the board is in agreement that we table 10.2 for right now and start that exploration in a different way. I couldn't agree more, Carol. Uh Dr. Springer, I feel like at this point in time it is really important for us to really showcase our district. It's just with all of the great things that we have going on. A lot of other schools do have communications
010teams in place that they're getting paid to do that. So, if we could just explore what options we might have to continue to showcase our students the best way we can and table this for now and not have that spend at this or have that approved now at the music meeting. I would just add, I mean I think it's something we have have a plan for. I mean I I don't I don't I mean what I said last week, I think we need to do a good job at promoting all of our good news and the things that are going great here. We talk about it a lot. As you can see, there are a lot of people here to hear us. We answer people online. I think that's awesome. We have lots of communications,
011but um I do think a strategy is in order to to really try to focus on it because we're busy doing other things and I have you know whether we have the people internally and we have to use somebody externally or some combination of the two. Um I don't know that but I do think it's really important for all the reasons that you said and I wasn't even aware of all the spending. I mean you see the PH on the school advertisements and things like that that is very obvious but um I think somebody brought up that if we were able to just bring one I think it was maybe maybe you that said if we were able to just bring one student back from cyber and that would be like 10 to 12,000 dollars
012and so um in that being the five grand doesn't seem so excessive but I'm certainly willing to table until we get a better strategy. I think Dr. Bonadonna said at one point that if we don't tell our story somebody else will and I think we do have a great story to tell at Blackhawk. I'm appalled by those numbers of how much is spent by cyber charter schools and by Lincoln Park to um you know the advertising to our students using our taxpayer dollars and so I think that it's what very wise for us to be looking into ways to market ourselves a little bit better as well because we do have a great story to tell and um you know Blackhawk's a great school in Beaver County and and really should be attracting a lot
013of people to the area. Any other discussion So at this point we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. If you would like to pull 10 page 12 it is um for further consideration I need to be a motion to pull out of the consent agenda this evening. I'll make a motion. Is there a second Mr. Chairman I second. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Any discussion on pulling 10 page 12 out of the consent agenda We all in favor of pulling 10 page 12 out of the consent agenda I. Any opposed The motion carries. Any other questions or discussion on any other agenda items 9.1 approval I make a motion to approve 9.1. Is there a second >> [clears throat] >> I second the motion to approve 9.1. We move to the
014vote. All in favor I. I. Opposed The motion carries. At this time we will open the meeting to public comment on agenda item 17.1. Does anyone from the public have the right to speak Seeing none we will move on. Um 17.2 for action and I have a pledge to you. Is there a musical or something going on or I heard there was something. Do I have to be a senior citizen to go or anybody's allowed to go All right. So there is spaghetti dinner for me. I'm pretty far away from that. >> [laughter] >> I would but So listener can you please tell the moderator that I am not 55 Got it. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> I had a few teachers offended by that. I can go next year. So on behalf of
015the school board directors everyone is encouraged to attend the school tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Blackhawk. Our next board meeting will be held on May 7th, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. I hear at the high school auditorium. >> [clears throat] >> And do I have a motion to adjourn I would like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Is there a second I'll second. Thank you Mr. Vansil. Any um questions or discussion [clears throat] All in favor I. The [snorts] motion carries. Thank you. Good job. Thanks for having me everybody. I I feel like today is Okay great for a public hearing. Is that right Speaking of good mega bucks.