April 14, 2026 Committee Of The Whole Meeting

001Good evening everyone. Like to call this evening's meeting to order for Tuesday, April 14th, 2026 Chambersburg Area School District Board of Directors Community of the Whole meeting. Uh if you please rise and join me for a pledge allegiance followed by a moment of silence. 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. Thank you. Uh 2.03 um item is order of business. Um last week, last meeting, when I say last week, 2 weeks ago, um we had two great presentations from student reports. Uh it puts a smile on my face to to hear to hear and see um these students who have the the courage and the ability to stand up here and

002give a presentation. And uh those two young men did a really great job. Um you know, they had a lot of people laughing and smiling uh and everything else. So, uh that is a super positive of a great takeaway. Uh and uh but one thing, uh they're here to give presentations to the board. We don't want to turn it into a question and answer session. So, uh you know, I I guess, you know, being volunteer elected volunteers, we're allowed to ask questions, but it's it's a board report, it's not a town hall meeting forum type thing. But again, I just uh take that takes nothing away from the two young men uh that spoke. And I was going to mention this part in my president's report, but I'll mention I want to mention it now.

003Uh the one young man man Braden, uh just a shout out again to one of our own, Chambersburg's own, uh uh child of one of our students in Chambersburg School District as well. Uh he was recognized at SkillsUSA. Uh he talked about it briefly here 2 weeks ago. He won uh student of the year for Pennsylvania SkillsUSA. So, uh congratulations to Braden and his family. And uh yeah, I didn't see or hear the results yet, but I think they did pretty good. So, that's uh all I have to say on item 2.03. 3.01 Superintendent's Report. Yep, thank you, Mr. Norcross. Uh I got two major items. One is the lineup the board you have in front of you for the rest of this school year and into the summer of presentations that will come before

004the board. Tonight, we have three presentations that you're aware of. In May, uh we will move into uh three additional presentations. I Sorry, we're on presentations uh season here, but you'll see a middle school presentation, not middle school, but fourth through eighth grade programming from Alyssa Cashdollar. We will have 3D renderings of the buildings, so more of the fun uh out exteriors. Um and then we will also have a PAYES update, which is the Pennsylvania Youth Survey um from our lead counselor Lindsay Leonard. So, those will come in May. We will also have some approvals in May about uh ninth grade all going to CASHS and CareerTech going to CASHS in our future um academy model. And then when you see down in June, we will have the certainly the the budget approved, but also

005that special meeting we talked about last time. And then we have a tentative date potentially of June 15th for another session if needed. Um so, a busy season ahead of us. I just want you to know what's coming before you. The second handout you have is preliminary survey data. So, the survey was sent out last week. We have approximately 817 responses. It'll stay open for the remainder of this week and the weekend, and then we will close it. So, I'm very pleased so far with the responses. We'd like to get up over 1,000. Um but just a few highlights for the public and for you. I'm not going to read through all of them. Uh 55% of the people have been living here more than 15 years. But that was pretty interesting. It's pretty high

006number. Uh there's about 30% less than 5 years. Uh and then the others were in between. A couple major highlights. 73% of the respondents give our schools an A or B. The national average is 50. So, that's a significant um gap between what the national average of an A and B school is versus our community. So, love hearing that. Um 72% believe we have a safe school environment, but we have some things to work on. And so, when we got into the things to work on, um they said we have to do a little bit better job at discipline management. And if we were to add more resources to safety, they prioritized out of the four mental health first, police officer second, uh discipline man or um uh metal detectors was third, and then cyber

007safety was fourth. So, again, this is just survey information at this point. Uh academically, very supportive of existing programs, um which I was I was very pleased to see that, but we could use a few more interventions. So, when you look across the board, they liked our academic programming, they liked our core and elective programming, they'd like to see more supports for struggling students. Um when I got to the technology, I was somewhat um surprised, pleasantly, that 80 almost 81% supporting reduced screen time for kindergarten through eighth grade eighth grade. We never get 80% ratings on anything. So, to have an 80% support of something is a very large number. So, thank you for those who have said reducing screen time in kindergarten through eighth grade specifically. It was a phrase of 45 minutes to

00860 minutes for the whole day. Uh the cell phone policy feedback so far, this was for 9th through 12th only. 54% 55% support a bell-to-bell cell phone uh ban or restriction with 15% neutral. So, those 15% could go either way. So, that's not too bad. Um I thought it might be a little bit higher than that, but we have a little work to do on that one. Uh career internships was our next 80-percenter. So, Brad, your work's paying off. 80% go full force with internships for our students in the future. Um and one that surprised me was the 62% approximately expand pre-K programming, which is not necessarily our uh funding stream. It comes from the state, and it's pass-through money, but there was strong support for for some of that. The last one I'll just

009highlight, uh AI, mixed reviews. I think we're all trying to figure out AI, and our survey responses say the same thing. Mixed reviews on whether we should or should not use AI and to what degree. So, I think we're all trying to figure that one out. So, thanks to everyone. We'll have another four or five days of the survey being open. We'll close it, and then we will formalize the survey results and send it out to the public uh so everyone can see it. That concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Berger. Item 3.02, President's report. Um As usual, um I like to always mention We are loud tonight, aren't we? I'd like to always mention the schools of distinction project, um and I've often talked about that in three components. One being being the actual

010buildings, one being the financial component, and the third being what comes with it, which is uh the grade level realignment um with the with the grades K through three and then our four six building and the consolidation of some the the consolidation of some elementary buildings that that come with that realignment. Uh we've talked a lot as a board in the past couple months, and we will continue on the first two topics of this, uh the buildings, as we see on the layout for the future board meetings, and the financing of those buildings. But I don't want to lose sight of I don't want anyone to lose sight of the other component of this is the is the grade level realignment, which is going to include moving of district moving of enrollment boundaries, because you're

011going to have we're going to have that as we consolidate some buildings. One thing that one of the things one of many things that allows us to continue on with this $270 million project are some savings that we hope to realize through the synergies of this realignment and redistricting. Uh So, um there are things that people don't like to talk about, and uh some people like to take my comments and say that I'm against it. I'm not against it. I make my comments for uh information and evaluation. I'm a firm believer that these things we cannot we can't talk about them enough, and just to keep everybody informed. So, uh with that, that concludes my President's report uh this evening. So, back down to the presentations, 4.01, Chambersburg Engagement Center. Hello, everyone. Hi. All right.

012Um I'm Andrea Mills. I'm the ESL supervisor, and I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about the Chambersburg Engagement Center. We've been open a little over a year now. So, just kind of giving some information um and data about the CEC. So, first um I want to start with a celebration. We just recently had our 1-year celebration at the CEC, and a Leadership Franklin County Community Group, that is an organization that um is funded through the Chamber Foundation, and those groups get projects, and they work on their leadership skills through those projects. So, one of those groups actually had our event as their project. So, they were able to coordinate and plan the event and work on their leadership skills. That project was guided by Lindsey Breslin and I. We had nine community agencies

013there, and I also just wanted to thank the board members that were able to come. I really appreciated uh your support in being there. And then also just thanks again to the board for your support in helping us to achieve this initial vision. So, I really appreciate it. A little bit of background about the Chambersburg Engagement Center, especially for those of you that might not have been on the board at the time that we started this initiative. Before and during the '23-'24 school year, um just some some background, the enrollment process, the registration, was a little bit disjointed. So, kindergarten registration happened at any building, which could cause a lot of confusion. For example, if your child was in the Hamilton Heights school district area, but you went to South Hamilton because physically it might

014have been closer to register there. Some parents might have gotten confused as to where they were going. Um there was also a lot of turnover in the registration position prior to that time. In the '23-'24 school year, this is where my part came in in my role. There was a very high number of ESL students, English as a second language students, that had enrolled that that particular year. Typically, we had had about 100 to 150 students every year prior to that that particular year, we had increased the ESL student body by 300 students just in that particular school year. In spring of 2023, as I was um in the first year of my position, Chris and I had talked about visiting different schools to look at different programs, and we had seen a center and

015Washing in Washington County public schools that inspired us to build a registration hub for all Chambersburg Area School District students. And we'll talk a little bit about more of what that looks like later in the presentation. But then, from that, I believe it was July or August when the lease was signed to January of 2025, that's when we were able to open. Going over a little bit of data from the CEC, when we initially started, I built a spreadsheet so that we could try to keep track of how many people were coming through, what types of services were offered, and we've tweaked the process along the way. But as of the end of March, we have had 1,353 families that have come through the Chambersburg Engagement Center. And then, as you can see through the

016slide on the screen different times we have different levels of engagement at the center. So for example, in January of 20 or sorry February of 2025, that's when we started kindergarten registration of that year. Kindergarten registration of this year started in January of 2026. And then you'll notice our high enrollment time of July and August just right before school starts. So a lot of parents coming in registering their children whether it's new families or kindergarten registrations. The appointment data chart that's up on the screen the blue bars are the walk-ins and the red bars are the actual scheduled appointments. So you'll notice throughout the the year that there's a lot of variety. Some parents are walking in for questions or appointments and a lot of parents are scheduling appointments. But during our high enrollment time

017of August, we actually had more walk-ins than appointments. We also kept track of the languages that the students prefer or that the families preferred as they came in and the blue bars are the families that spoke English, green families that spoke Spanish, and red families that spoke Haitian Creole. We did have some Nepali speaking families, but it was less than 10 overall, so I figured I would showcase the majority of the languages spoken. And all of the staff except for myself they're bilingual in English and Spanish at the center. This is some data about our McKinney-Vento students. And McKinney-Vento, that's children and youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. So students that might qualify under that McKinney-Vento Act would be living in the following types of situations due to an economic hardship

018or something similar or similar reason. So they might be at a shelter. They might be at a hotel or motel. They might be living in a campground, couch surfing, or in a public or private place that's not meant for sleeping. So that's how those students are qualified. In the 25-26 school year so far, this was at as of early March, there were 274 students in our in our district that qualified for McKinney-Vento services and the uh social worker and McKinney-Vento liaison in our school district believes that our number this year will actually surpass last year's number. And then she also collected data about students that have received services through the Chambersburg Engagement Center because she's there twice a week. I looked at the variety of appointment reasons that parents came or families and guardians came

019to the Chambersburg Engagement Center and the majority the top reason is for registration purposes. A lot of our registrations are with our interpreters and not just our registrar, but it's a multi-step process. So sometimes there are multiple touchpoints in the registration process. They might need to come back to give additional documentation. They might need to meet to answer a variety of questions. But that those are the majority of our appointments. The second highest appointment was for WIDA screening, which WIDA is an English language proficiency assessment. So if we feel or based on a survey if we think that a student might qualify for those types of services, then we give an assessment at the center to get that information up front before the child even enrolls in school. The third appointment reason is for Keystone

020Health. And first of all, big shout-out to Keystone Health. Um they have really helped to decrease barriers for our registration process and I'll talk a little bit further about that in a little bit, but uh their case manager helps individuals schedule appointments for immunizations helps schedule appointments for physicals, helps them with health health forms, can help them with insurance uh questions and really just helps the family to establish care as they're registering in our district. And then the fourth reason, other. Some of those reasons can include a parent needs to change the the student's address in the system or they need help finding a specific form or paper. They have questions about transportation. They might need help getting on Dojo or Sapphire. They have a lot of kindergarten questions, a lot of pre-K questions as

021they're coming through as well. And many of the questions that come through that aren't even totaled in in these appointment reasons come to us through phone calls. Some of the time frames for some of these appointments for student registration that can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the the level of student need or the parent needing assistance. Keystone Health and new patient appointment is about 2 hours for that appointment just as trying to establish care for the family. A WIDA screening, that English language proficiency assessment could range between 1 to 3 hours. And then phone phone calls from parents which could range from general questions or creating appointments or about 5 to 10 minutes each. I listed the staff that are housed at the Chambersburg Engagement Center and our positions as

022well. And you'll notice the majority of those individuals including myself are there full-time. Um one individual Gabby who is our social worker and McKinney-Vento liaison is there 2 days a week and the three other days of the week she's at Children's Aid Society helping the students there. And then our district interpreter and parent liaisons, they rotate on on a schedule. At least one of them is there on any given day to support families that are in need. Um but they're only there about once or twice a week each. And then in the last column, where were jobs done previously or who did them just noting that where certain offices were. So for example, my office, the registrar's office was previously at the admin building. The ESL secretary, ESL services assistant, some of their jobs were

023previously done by teachers, other secretaries, and myself. Gabby was previously 5 days a week at the Children's Aid Society and she noted that it was really difficult to connect with the the families that qualified under McKinney-Vento because she's working with students most of the time while she's there. And then another new position which is not funded by Chambersburg, it's actually at no cost to us and funded by Keystone Health is the Keystone Health case manager who is at that location supporting the school district um in their role. Looking at some benefits and challenges of the Chambersburg Engagement Center, first just the comprehensive support for families. They're in like a one-stop shop for registration. They're getting registered. If they need screening services, if they are struggling financially also Keystone Health is again decreasing those barriers. Many

024of our students actually were held up in registration prior to this partnership being implemented because they needed immunizations or they needed health care records and this has decreased that wait time by a lot especially for some students in certain situations and Keystone has been very flexible with us and working together to try to work through some of those special cases as well. We have the appropriate space to meet with families. We're able to collaborate in real time across some of these different individuals and what they serve. There's bilingual support for a variety of questions. We've experienced a lot of increased community partnerships. It's a time savings for English as a second language teachers. The amount of time that it takes to test ESL students as well as to investigate their educational backgrounds is it takes

025an extensive amount of time. So that's time that they get to be in the classrooms that they now don't have to do those assessments. And then increased support and growing for McKinney-Vento students. And some big three solutions that the CEC has helped to create for the district is first Keystone helping to streamline that process and removing that barrier for immunizations. So that was a big problem before and this the CEC has helped to create that solution. Second, the amount of teacher time that was spent on just assessing students for English as a second language services, and that time savings. And then three, the disjointed or potentially confusing registration process before, and now everything's at one location. Some of the challenges of the the current location are the loca- the location navigation. So, if you're not

026familiar with that area, sometimes people try to find an entrance on the square, and have a hard time finding the back entrance. We are able to see some people through the windows and get them in the back way, but uh for the most part, we have had some a lot of success in helping our families navigate that. And then, the cost of the lease, which I have on my next slide. So, some options for the CEC, number one, whether or not to renew the lease and move to another location. The second option, renewing the lease for 1 year, and moving locations within that year. The third option, renew the lease for 3 years, and move location to Buchanan when that is vacated. And then just a few notes about the in addition to those options.

027So, first, all existing services will still be provided regardless of the location. Some alternate location options could be the armory, existing schools, partnership with another location. And then just noting the annual lease is approximately about $60,000 per year. Any questions? Board members, questions, please. Uh thank you very much, uh Andrea. I appreciate so much the detail in your report. The radius of and what I'm talking about the people coming to the center, are they mostly, you know, close to the center of town, or out, or do they come from, you know, way out to like where I live, Fayetteville, or, you know, you know, other areas outside of the town? Yeah. That's actually a great question. I don't have the answer to that, because that's not a point of data that I collected on my

028spreadsheet. But we do note that a lot of families are tend to walk to the CEC. Um so, I would say it's it's quite a mixture of those that drive and those that walk. But I I unfortunately do not have that data, but that's something that we can look into for the future. >> Yeah, because with looking at whether to move to Buchanan in a few years or the armory, will affect people getting to it because of the location is the reason I'm really asking that, you know. I mean, I know the armory's up up here, you know. I'm just wondering if you have a a feel for that, or is too early to really know Yeah. >> what would happen. Unfortunately, I do not have any information on that part, but I do know

029that that Keystone had built their new location in that similar area as well, for that type of reason. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Hi Andrea, thank you. It's a great layout. Um First, I want to congratulate you for uh pulling together this community partnership with uh Keystone. And anytime we can save for any teacher is a benefit, cuz they need more time. And uh especially um the McKinney-Vento students as well, trying to support them. And so, and that's probably our most uh vulnerable population, so I think that's awesome that you're able to do that. Um I have a question similar to Carl's, and I know you don't have the answer, but uh I'm also interested in um the cost associated with moving from the existing CEC to wherever, assuming it's

030in the district, so it's maybe equal where you go. So, that I can judge whether it makes sense to go to the armory once, and then move again to another place, or, you know, wait a while. So, that would be helpful, and I wouldn't expect you would have that information, but that's the type of information I'll be looking for. Okay. So. Thank you. Um I have a question about um I'm making an assumption that this families that are coming in are primarily kindergarteners, young elementary students. Tell me I'm wrong, and tell me that you're also seeing students who are moving year at the middle years, or even high school. Oh, yeah. >> registering them as well, and that they their needs are the same or different than the younger students. >> Yeah. So, I'll actually,

031if it's okay, I'll go back to one of my slides. Um right here. So, we can see different times where there might be peaks due to kindergarten registration, but we're registering students of a variety of ages, elementary, middle, and high school. They're coming to the center throughout the whole year. So, that is definitely something that we're able to cover. Um I would say the services that are needed for elementary versus middle versus high school, I think it just really depends on the needs of the family, not necessarily the high school student's family, or the middle school student's family, just the family unit as a whole. Are they in need of some additional services? Are they in need to be connected with Keystone Health? Um are they a vulnerable population like McKinney-Vento? Each family presents its

032own set of needs, so I think that that that would be something uh to think about. Not necessarily the the high school, middle school versus elementary. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey Andrea. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. I was just looking at at your graph there, and and walk-ins and appointments and all, uh is it safe to assume that July and August is when you're crunched for space and and time? I mean, it looks like you have a lot more people coming in in those times. I would say not necessarily crunched for space, but definitely time is that's the crunch time for the district as a whole, just getting uh students registered as quickly as possible. Those that have moved in at some point over the summer are trying to get their students registered before before

033the school year starts. Um or some families that may not have thought about kindergarten registration yet are trying to get their kindergarteners registered. So, I would say those are definitely the peak times, and I anticipate those always being the peak times. I was just wondering if, when you know, considering alternative sites, the uh this current square footage, I think it's 3,400 square feet, something like that. Uh how how that flows month to month and and the needs Mhm. that related to that. Yeah. The office space is always the same. So, that that part doesn't necessarily change. Those that are in the offices don't necessarily change. We don't really bring in new staff for it for some of those peak times. We manage within the time that we have. I was wondering did the adequacy of

034that uh how you evaluate it compared to your month-to-month needs. Is it sometimes uh more than you need, the same that you know, what you feel like it's fairly uh partitioned, or uh how would you evaluate that? I feel like it's what the space that we need, especially for the offices that are located there currently. Um I that part is also something to consider as well. Yeah, that I I assume the the lease doesn't include utilities or anything, right? I mean, is that paid by the The only bill that we pay is for internet services. Okay, so it does include the lease includes utilities. Yeah. >> Okay. And cleaning? Okay. That's that's helpful. Thank you. Andrea, I have a question. You have on there total monthly visitor trends and all those numbers. I'm assuming that

035you're not accounting for the phone calls that you mentioned. >> Correct. >> And could you give me just an average of maybe how many? Because, I mean, I'm just curious, cuz I know you have people coming in, but if you also have people manning the phones that would otherwise have to call somewhere else, I'm just curious what those 5 to 10 minutes they add up over the course of a day. Yes. Um I I am not sure how many phone calls, especially during the beginning of the school year, that would be very difficult to keep track of. I know the first day of school, uh the ESL secretary, Maria, was extremely busy um in those first few days of school, just answering some general questions. But she answers a lot of uh general questions on

036a daily basis for parents that just need somewhere to go, and not aren't sure with the question that they might have, who to turn to for that information. >> So, that's another service you offer that might not be captured on the slides that are Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It appears as though your visits are decreasing. I assume that there's been a decrease in the influx of ESL students. Is that reflected in in that decrease? So, the the amount of ESL students has impacted the district, absolutely, coming in that are registering. Um but as far as overall registrations, there is a slight decrease for this um year, at least from what we're seeing. But kindergarten registration started a little bit earlier this school year. So, I'm not sure what those numbers will

037look like overall balancing out that kindergarten registration and overall registration time frame when we capture it from January to July or August. So, actually might balance out a little bit more. But that's something that when since we're capturing this data throughout last year and this year that it will be an interesting comparison to see. It seems like a very spacious location as far as the available space. How many square feet did you say it was? 300 400? 3,000. Um Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate the presentation. Um Before I get into my questions, I have several of them. Uh I'll start off with the note on the bottom of the slide 12, number one. All existing services will be provided regardless of location. Um the top of that slide is entitled Options as of 10 16.

038Um you know, I think it's a great informative presentation about the service and services and the mission that's being accomplished um at the center. Uh I think the board question um coming up is uh is location. I think that's a big question. Uh and that's where I want to go with with my my questions. Um because note one tells me that regardless of location, we're going to be able to do everything that we're doing there. But early on in your presentation, you mentioned how uh kindergarten enrollment was disjointed. And it was being done in individual buildings. Mhm. And I don't know uh my baby turned 25 just a couple weeks ago, so it was 20 years ago when I did kindergarten enrollment. Uh history lesson, you all love history. Uh but it worked pretty smoothly.

039And it was done right here in this building. Mhm. And and it was I don't know if anyone knows when when that might have changed or why it changed from a central location to individual locations. Thank you. >> I'm a big I'm a big believer in synergies and I can't imagine Yeah, I'm I'm sure it probably was disjointed when you bifurcated >> Mhm. 13 different locations. It's It's been done many ways. I think they tried numerous things. Eric Michael tried some different things. Uh Kathy Dustman tried some different things. Um they they did they brought kindergarten teachers out of the classroom to come help with with registration. Um they would do it all in in this room for a while. Then they went to the schools. Um I don't know what You said it the

040way you did it was here in this room. Um and then that was a little disjointed as well. The The problem with doing it here with all the kindergarten teachers, we were pulling teachers out for They They did it uh Do you remember how how often or how many days it was there, Mr. Nelson? It was quite a few days and they would run it at different times. Uh lot of appointments to do that, but it took a lot of staff to do that out of the out of our buildings. Okay. Um on the the chart that showed the visitors to the average of 90 per month, is that like one family or one student? Say a Say if a family >> It'd be a family. So, it could be multiple students. Okay. Yeah. So,

041if it's one student and two parents and a grandmother, that's one on your chart. Mhm. Okay, good. Yeah. Uh and it averages 90 a month. Um Mr. Norcross, not not to stop your lot of thinking, but Sherry's online, too. She'll probably have some questions, just uh FYI. >> Well, I'll pause. I like pausing anyway. I don't like to run off all my questions. Dr. Diller. Can you hear us, Sherry? Okay. No. Okay. Um Okay. You Your office is in the engagement center. It's a full-time office. Are you there pretty much every day? I am usually there every day unless I'm at a building for the majority of the day helping teachers. So, but my my office space is there. Okay. And when does the current lease expire? June 30th. Is it possible for a 6-month

042lease? Is that something that the owner uh Is that downtown Chambersburg or Franklin County? Who owns that building? >> It's a joint ownership between the chamber and FCEDC. >> Would they Would they entertain Sure. 6-month? Yep. I guess and the reason I have that question is if we're going to move, obviously, right, June is too quick. I think that would be an unrealistic expectation at this time. But if we're going to move, why wait a year? Why not 6 months? Um and the reason for for um I would be in favor of 6 months versus a year, but definitely not more than a year. Um I had this conversation with Chris the other day and I'm going to go back to the schools of distinction, right? The district's going to send 200 spend $270 million

043on the schools of distinction. Uh you're going to see a budget tonight that has a deficit number in it. I'm sure it's not as bad as what it looks on paper. Mrs. Stouffer will explain that to us later. But on paper, it shows up as a deficit. Um so, my my conversation with Mr. Bigger was and I've been an advocate for these buildings and I'm going to continue to be an advocate for the building. However, we need to be We need to be very fiscally responsible or prudent on our other spending. If we can spend if we can save a little bit of money somewhere else, then we need to do it. And if it's $60,000 a year, I say we take it because those $60,000 a year add up when we're talking about capping

044our tax increase at 2 and 1/2% and spending $270 million and incurring the debt to do that. So, I'm in favor of exiting as quickly as possible. I don't think June is a realistic or option. She's online in case you have Go ahead, Sherry. Try to talk through my cell phone. Okay. Can you hear Can you hear me now? Yes. >> Yes. I'm so sorry. Um first of all, I just want to say uh thank you uh Andrea for for all your vision and pulling it together, especially with the enrollment. I really appreciate that. I uh love the benefits you've listed. Um I do. What happened with me is I basically, you know, saw the the 3-year lease and it's $187,000 and and and when I added it up, I thought, "Wow, if I had

045$187,000 as an elementary principal, there's a lot I could do with that." Or we could use it other places in the district. And last year I voted 60 60,000 for this because I do think there were needs in enrollment that you have that you have fixed. And then it came up with the idea that in my mind I thought, "Well, you know, while the central office was being renovated, um we were over at the armory and there's there's offices in there and there's a big room in the back. I've toured it. And I thought we we we can save that money." And um the you know, the the I don't think moving in the summer is a good idea because I looked at your data and your data shows that um the kindergarten enrollment is

046going on in in August and and I know you can even have kids even uh registering the first day of school. Some people wait till the very end to register and that's that's often a you know, a big problem. So, so anyway, if if we make a move, uh I looked at the enrollment uh it looks like it's a good time like in October um to to move consider moving into the armory. And I'm like you, too. I I really I really believe that um Keystone has done an outstanding job in helping. Um there are parents that don't know how to go about getting their immunizations and the fact that they'll give us somebody to be at that office all day is wonderful. I also found out there there's two two people down at the

047facility, the new facility down at Keystone uh the Southgate Mall, they um have what's called navigators and those navigators will help anybody who goes in there. It's a wonderful facility. I toured that the other day and they have all kinds of services and these navigators help them with the insurance claims, with all the things that they need. But actually I found out the immunizations are only given to the students over at the one on on Norland Avenue. So there's two two navigator employees over there. So you have two at one facility, two at another and then you have a person, you know, that is using an office in the district. So I think that they they really do have a lot of help. And while I was talking to one of the navigators, if we

048would ever move it over to the armory, there's a Spanish speaking church that's nearby. And you know, I agree with you, the the current location is an alley that's really hard to find, but people do find it eventually. But it's easy to tell people that our enrollment services are behind the Y, very close to the central office or close to the high school. And I I I also think that I'm I'm hearing that there's other other needs out in other communities like Marion, Fayetteville, Scotland. There's there are needs that it's just not our downtown area, but even so if if where it is right now, it's people can walk over to to the armory. I mean, it's a it's a possibility for them. But I really I really appreciate all you're doing. And also, do

049you know the number of kindergarten students out of those numbers who would be registering? I do not have that separated in the data. But that's something that I could try to >> Isn't a class about 650 to 700? Yes. >> Yes. Okay. So so of those Another question I had that I didn't know the answer to was if if you would can people just enroll online that they don't even have to the facility at all or is it mandatory that they come in? Because you know, I guess it's it's whether you're a student on the computer and can do it or you can't. Yeah, it's it's not something that they have to do to come in. Some parents do choose to register online, but some families do feel more comfortable getting assistance as they were

050registering. For example, me. When I was registering my kindergarten student at in January or in February of last year, I wanted to make sure that that process was done correctly. So I chose to have an appointment rather than register online. Okay, got it. Now who administers the screener and who the screener who who administers that when they come in for ESL? The ESL services assistant. Who? The ESL services assistant. The So it's a teaching assistant that's giving that. Now when they have to do the WIDA are are your ESL teachers coming down to the center to do that? No. >> they take They come to the and you do that by appointment. So are you asking about the annual assessment or the screener? I'm I'm asking about the the initial Isn't there an initial WIDA?

051>> Yes. WIDA? >> There is an initial screener and so that assessment is done by the ESL services assistant. The only thing that the teachers do is they score the assessment and that takes about 5 or so minutes to score. Okay. All righty. Okay, well I've I've had some difficulties with being online here tonight. So if I missed that, I I I just wanted to say that I I am concerned about the money. We paid 60,000 last year for the center and I think it's a grand idea, but if we have space in our district that can be utilized until the Buchanan opens up, I I I strongly I feel that that that can really help us out. But thank you for putting together such a wonderful presentation and actually pulling together all that data

052because actually if it's in a different location, the services will not change. It will just be in a different location. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Board members, other questions. Can you clarify that there are some services we're partnering with other organizations? Right now, would they all come to a armory building or a Buchanan building? What What is the district thinking long-term with some of the partnerships that have made this a win? Like would the would those groups have interest in moving to the armory? What What partnerships are you specific Uh like Keystone, for example. >> Well, Keystone has multiple locations, so I can't imagine that they would have any issue with versus Norland Avenue versus Catherine Street versus Keystone wants to keep the partnership, for sure. There are some

053other partnerships, for example, the Franklin Literacy Council that was actually looking to rent space within the same building that we're currently in to kind of partner with some of the services, but they have not established that as of yet, but it's something that they were looking into. So I think some agencies were looking at that location as a potential partnership opportunity. I question if it works well at the armory whether First of all, we don't even know that Buchanan is going to be an option a few years from now. Right. >> We have not made decisions relative to that. It seems to me that the armory has better parking, better visibility, less navigation issues than the current location and potentially could be a permanent not a stopgap gap location. Um I I see it as

054being much more user-friendly and there's sidewalks that go all through Chambersburg. So the ability to get to one place versus another is not any harder for somebody who lives on East Washing or you know, East Washington Street to have to walk clear downtown to go to the downtown center versus somebody from downtown needing to walk to the armory. You know, it's six of one and a half a dozen of the other. I think that >> you do have population density at the current location. And you also have a higher percentage of people that wouldn't be driving that are within that proximity. >> to see that the Office of Aging is moving the Chambersburg Senior Center from its current location on Norland Avenue clear out to close to where our schools are being built in Green

055Village. You know, Rabbit Transit transports people wherever they need to go. So it's not really a uh can't get there. People get to the grocery store at Wayne Avenue or Norland Avenue if they need to get groceries. Um There's I I see the armory potentially not being stopgap gap, but permanent as a good location. The other thing that I question is if during these low periods of workload, if there's other district offices, there could be some teamwork between staff from one department and another to help with phone calls if it's a high workload period, answering the door, you know, those kinds of things, cross-training and working in conjunction with other departments versus staying in your own silo and only doing my job. Well, and and they do have other job duties other than some of

056the appointments that are listed. So I just want to make sure that that's noted as well. And as I said earlier, the space is huge in my opinion for the amount of um need that it appears to me to be. Would this conversation be better suited for 7.02? Because we have other presentations that we're needing to get to. And so if we're not asking her questions directly, I would like I would like the discussion to continue. The words of David that Chris sent our district sent to notes to him. What I wanted to him was I think this is a very healthy discussion. So I would prefer to stay on this discussion unless you want to pause it and then reinitiate it later. But usually what happens with that is we start repeating the same

057things over and over again. Um item 7.02 is just a preview of what we're going to actually vote on in 2 weeks. And that's something once I didn't want I don't want to talk to you real quick. It's one of the Chris's notes to me. And we're going to get to that here, but I don't want to I'm I would prefer not to suspend this discussion because I think it's a very healthy discussion. I appreciate everyone's uh thoughts on it. But if you all want to wait and talk about it again, we can. You tell me. I think I'm fine in the way. I think we're into the discussion. Had we said that maybe earlier? I didn't realize it was going to go this way to have that discussion about where we all stood on

058things. So, I was Sorry, I was a little late to the party. I was just trying to be understanding of the other presentations that we have. But, since I started talking, um sure, why not? I'm with the 1-year. Um I think that 6 months still is not enough time. I think the 1-year is sufficient, and then we kind of cuz I would like to know where are the kids coming from? Are they coming from the majority down by Southgate? Because if she can get us that information based on addresses, and 85% of the kids are coming from that side of town, what sense does it make to move it anywhere else? I think there's missing gaps of information that would be very beneficial for us to have before we make any decisions on about where

059we want to move that if we choose to move that. So, that will be my vote for the 1-year extension. My take is that we should decide on the next location, and then decide the timeline. And maybe we just let the administration decide the timeline because you all know the ins and outs. Does that make sense? Because I don't know if 3 months, 6 months, a year, or 3 years You know, that You know the intricacies of the annual calendar. Um I I like Fay's idea, move it to the armory. I've been in that space, um but I'm I've not thought through the downsides to that, and maybe the administration has. I I would I would love to have answers to that. What What are the downsides What are the drawbacks? We already own the

060space. Um I mean, it I I think the current space feels spacious. The armory could feel the opposite way. Um So, but I'm I'm certainly open to that. I I think Mike's point about moving costs is interesting. I would like to know You mentioned utilities and cleaning costs. So, we're going to start paying that. What would that cost be? So, it's It's probably not 60,000. It might be 45 or 50,000 till it's all said and done, which may not be a game-changer, but it it's still Well, someone's cleaning your armory already, so >> Right. Right. The usage would be different, but yeah. Actually, the due to this conversation, the more I've heard, I'm more inclined to think that actually a 6-month lease would be appropriate to get us over the hump of uh summer registrations

061into the school year. Um I like the idea of the armory because I think of the district as having like a campus, and the idea that we're going to have the one middle school, which is up the street McKinley, the high school here, um however long Buchanan last where it is, but um there are a lot of people that know where this place is because they either A, take their kids to nursery school at the Nitterhouse program center or the YMCA on Colebrook, or they go to the YMCA before or after school programs. I think that's an opportunity for the CEC and the Y to collaborate, which is the Y is is a great resource. Mhm. And um potentially, that could be the permanent home of the CEC because wherever you move it, you're going

062to have to do some remodeling anyhow, and buy furniture and all that stuff. So, um it may be appropriate just to cut to the chase, and ask the district to work on the schedule, but maybe the armory is the place to go. To To Stephanie's point, um whenever you get to 7.0, the number one item is month-to-month lease, and move to the engagement center to the armory in the fall of '26. Month-to-month to me means that it could be 6 months, it could be 4 months, it could be 8 months. And so, I would I would suggest that month-to-month is probably the way to go to give uh administration the opportunity to work with the space that is available, and maybe it can be done by September, October, but maybe it might not happen until

063April. You know, I don't think we should be tying their hands to a fall of '26, but I also see that the month-to-month gives that flexibility versus saying a 1-year, and then we're tied to uh a full year. I kind of lean toward if Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, man. Doctor Go ahead. Phone guy here. Go ahead. Oh, okay. Well, I like using the data cuz the data that has been presented to us is has been extremely well done. The data shows that the end of September is when the enrollment is is starting to be at is at low point. That's also after maintenance has has had their summer to get all the schools, you know, up and ready to go. So, it's a very good time to do it. I would never move

064that center with it right now without informing parents. We have to have time to inform the parents. But, certainly, 4, 5 months from now, week, 6, whatever, is is is a good time frame, and and and I do see some value in in doing this. Plus, you know, it's just not about the money, but at the same time, you know, 187,000 or 60,000 every year is is money that we don't have to spend. And as I'm thinking about the armory, we're already paying for the electric every day. Are the electrics on? I don't think they have any of that shut down. Maybe I'm wrong, but you know, the utilities are are going to be the same as what they are currently. So, anyway, I did but wait till the till it was brought up at

065the very end because I was afraid I was going to be off the phone, and I had I did have some comments. So, thank you for having this discussion now. Well, and Uh I was going to If if we don't know where we want them to move, I I personally would rather not see them move twice. So, if we think that the Buchanan is a possible destination in the end is like 3 years from now, I I don't really like the idea of them moving in 6 months or a year, whatever time. I think the administration should decide the timeline. But, um I I personally don't like the idea of Andrea having to move her staff in 6 months, and then 2 and 1/2 years later having to do it again. They just got set

066up not that long ago. I mean, we don't even have 2 years of data. So, we don't even see trend, you know, that There aren't firm trends yet, um year over year. So, Mike made the um reference to the YMCA and the ARC program. We also have much closer to the uh armory, the pre-K program at the old Stanley uh daycare that many of these families probably are utilizing in addition. They could. Andrea, how challenging would it be for you to potentially be able to get us information on to see if the people that are utilizing the center are spread out across the district or centralized in maybe a certain area? That would really help me make a decision about whether I'm in favor of moving it from its current state. So, if that's something

067that you could get for us in a you know, in a fashion, I would really appreciate that. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. >> Absolutely. And I assume they are open to a month-to-month lease. Uh I've been in conversations that they know some change is coming, and they're open to whatever ideas I go back with. Okay. Cuz the other option is probably nobody, you know, being in there for a period of time. So, yeah. They'll work with us. They've been great to work with so far. Okay. Thank you. Um I'm in favor of the armory. Excuse me. I'm in favor of the armory, and I go back to the presentation that the board had several months ago by Dr. Long when we were talking about where will the new middle school be? And I think

068I asked the question, where is the geographic center of the district? And he said, right here, Camp South, is the geographic center of the district. And that when we were talking about Camp South or North, which one's better? And this And this this was the sweet spot. Uh and again, uh we're spending a lot of money. Any money we can save, I think we need to do it. Uh we're in a bit of a tax and spend situation, and we're taxing because we're going to do this big project, but we need to we need to be very cautious on what we what we spend and how much we spend. And every bit we can save helps. If it even if it's 45,000, if we find another $45,000 somewhere, that's one more teacher. That's That's where

069I come on this. I just really like to implore my fellow board members to see what the data is that Andrea brings back. And if it is centralized, and everyone is utilizing it, I'll be the first one to say about moving. But, if we do happen to get the data, and it is clear that that is the place that is mostly the hub of where the people are coming from, I just ask that you please reserve any solidified ideas about where it should be until we see that data. I'll be the first one to move it. If you say that there's people from all over, by all means, if this is the center of the district. But, if we could all just maybe wait till we see that data to solidify who's actually utilizing that,

070I would just implore my fellow board members to keep that in the back of your mind. How far are we? Eight blocks away? I am. If you live on the south end of town, it's probably a wash. If you live on the north end of town, it's probably a little bit further. I mean, keep spending money. If that's what you want to do. Any other conversations, discussions? Okay. You're pretty good, Chris? Yep. Okay. Item 4.02, secondary programming. This is Laffey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Hello. My name is Mrs. Laffey, the director of 9 to 12 education for those tuning in at home. I'm here to I'm going to thank you for the opportunity to talk about the secondary programming, particularly at the 9 to 12 division.

071Um we are really focusing on the academy model this evening and how that could be very transformational for our students in receiving a high quality education that they're not used to experiencing perhaps at this point. So, a few months ago, you might have you might remember that I talked about some changes that were occurring at the 9 to 12 division and how some of these changes are actually setting the groundwork for moving forward with the the career academy model. So, we have aligned the Career Magnet School, the Career Tech Center, and CASHS schedule all to be on the block schedule. We also are using similar resources with Schoology and iPads, and then of course Mr. Renneisen and his new leadership revitalizing CASHS culture at the high school level. Um before we dive into the academy

072model specifically, I would like to just review the three pathways that we are looking for for all of our students to have success. So, in 2027-2028, not next school year, but the following school year, the plan is that all ninth graders will go to CASHS for the ninth grade academy to experience one Trojan community. And we understand that this year they're doing the freshman academy there and that we want all of our students to do the freshman academy and just to be reminded what that means is that we have a small group of teachers assigned to approximately 120 to 150 freshman students who are monitoring their attendance. They're monitoring their grades. They're monitoring their behaviors. They're having counseling meetings with the teachers. They're having parent meetings with the teachers. So, we have this small cohort

073of ninth graders being closely monitored so that they don't fall through the crack. We have a decrease in discipline. We have increase in grades, less failures. Like the this is a positive result of the freshman academy. And so, in 2027-2028, all freshman will experience this. When those students become sophomores, they will have the opportunity to go into the career academy model, a career tech center placement, or the foundational studies. So, like I mentioned, we're going to go a little bit more in depth in the career academy model cuz that's something that we might not have a lot of background in, but we're not taking anything away from the Career Tech Center. We love the Career Tech Center and all of the opportunities that it provides for our students. And to explain the foundational studies a

074little bit more, these are students that perhaps may not be interested in one of the career academy models or attending the Career Tech Center. Cuz remember, in this switch, the Career Tech students will be going to the Career Tech for their shop and then they will be returning to CASHS for their academics. The foundational studies are the students that are not interested in any of those two options. These students will be having a well-rounded experience very comparable to what you would have right now. Those students can select a variety of different electives beyond their core classes. They could take art one year, music the next, culinary the next, tech ed the next. So, they're they have a well-rounded experience, which is beneficial. However, they may not need the focus of a career academy or a

075career tech center because they may already know their path. You've heard a lot of push from Mr. Ocker in doing the Zello programming. Maybe these students already have their path identified and so they don't need that additional support. If you have any of the students or know any of the students that would be an all day advanced placement, AP, or IB student, they also would be in the foundational studies. These students that are taking those higher level courses and very rigorous courses would almost be in a self-selected cohort of students that are going to be in the foundational studies. When we talk about the career academies, we're going to be providing a stronger career foundation for our students. So, they have a cumulative sequencing of courses. They're going to be able to earn um credits

076and credentials from the industry that make them more marketable, and they're going to be attaining an internship experience during their senior year. When we offer these programs, we're going to be offering them at CASHS and the Career Magnet School, so they are parallel programming, not necessarily competing like offering one academy at CASHS and, you know, seven at Career Magnet School. They're both going to be able to offer four um career academies. When we look at what that academy day looks like for the students, we're going to be looking at what the career academy consists of. We are hoping that there are 480 students at both the Career Magnet School Academy and also 480 students at the CASHS Career Academies. And then within each of those separate career academies, we're hoping that 120 to 150 students

077are within those academies. And then within that, we have grade levels, 40 to 50, and then specifically for those specific courses, we would have 20 to 25 per the cohorts. So, we would be having two cohorts per grade, three grades, so we would be having six groups of students per academy. And of course, the four academies. When we look at the actual school day, the academic formula down there consists of two career classes that would be cumulative. These career teachers will be looping with the students each year, so the students will have the same two career teachers every year. The career classes will be sequential. We're working on the sequencing right now. They will also the students will experience core classes, so they will be able to take their math, science, English, social studies graduation

078requirements. And because we're working on an eight credit or eight credit opportunity, there will be additional classes that they students could take outside of the career academy. So, those courses might be JROTC. They might be glee club. They might be a ceramics class, or it could be additional time in the internship experience that those students would have. And from that career academic experience, those students will be able to get some college level coursework through their advanced placement courses and hands-on experiences from their internship experience. The eight academies that we're going to be running at CASHS and CMS are based upon the data that the district administrative team looked at to look at 10-year trends from the workforce development. So, you can see that there are is a variety of courses and career academies from robotics

079to manufacturing to biomedical, education, business, and finance. How we got to this spot is that we started taking trips down to a school in Kentucky called Ignite. Some of you may have been on those trips last year. Um this year, Mr. Ocker and I took a group of 10 educators, both teachers and administrators from Career Magnet School and CASHS, and we went down to see what characteristics of that program can we duplicate at CASD? When we returned with this Ignite team, this group of 10 educators, we determined exactly what we would like to bring to Chambersburg, and then we started working through the process. After we identified what the academies were, we determined what the sequencing for the courses would be, also for the core classes, your math, English, science, social studies, but also for

080the career classes. And then we had a second day of career develop development and curriculum development in hoping that we could get more specific about the certifications that would be required and also is the sequencing appropriate? However, when we got to this point, we did recognize that we needed to get beyond this Ignite team of 10 individuals. And so, we know that we needed to include other people in this journey. And so, we identified two major stakeholders that we needed to include, which would be our teachers and our students. Um we presented to the teachers on an Act 80 day as to what the career academies are and gave them an opportunity to complete a survey so that we could get some feedback from them. Following that Act 80 day, we met with the small

081PLC groups for each different content area both at Career Magnet School and CASHS so that we could get um ideas and concerns that they may be having regarding the academy model. After that, we followed up then with another Act 80 presentation separate at Career Magnet School and Cashiers so that we could get additional information and show them some mock-up schedules of the courses in the classes for both the teachers and the students. And then finally, I will be meeting with the principals and doing one last pop-up forum for them to be able to come and ask any additional questions before we get the application process out for the teachers. The other group that we wanted to include in this is the students and get some data from the students. What are they thinking? So, we

082started presentations and when I say we, Mr. Ocker and I have been on the circuit for talking to ninth graders, eighth graders, and seventh graders because the current seventh and eighth graders are going to be in our first cohort of students doing the academy model. We wanted to know what pathway from foundational studies, career tech, and or the career academy model, which one they would be most likely interested in along with also what career academies are they interested in at this time. So, from the conversations that we had with the teachers initially, the challenges that were raised by them is number one, what if you have an imbalance of, you know, requests for certain academies. What if you have, you know, 500 students that want the biomedical but you only have 10 students wanting the

083science and aviation. So, that really reinforced our, you know, our need for gathering data from the students and making sure that we know what they're thinking and what their interests are at this time. In addition, like where are we marketing, how are we marketing these to these students, the different academies. While many people have asked, what are you going to do in ninth grade to get these kids ready for the academy, the preparation really extends beyond down the K-12 curriculum to K-8. You know, Mr. Ocker is working this summer heavily with the middle school career classes to make sure that the eight academies are heavily influenced in the career sequencing and curriculum for next year. But we need to make sure that we are advertising and marketing these academies so that there is a high

084interest in some of the, in all of the academies. Also meeting the diverse needs of all of our students. When we met with the math groups particularly both at Career Magnet School and Cashiers, the teachers indicated that they were concerned about the level of the math courses offered to the students. They didn't think that this necessarily matched the percentage of students and the group of students that we're targeting. So, that is going to be an area that we know right now once we get our academy teachers identified and we start really diving deeper into the curriculum that we're going to have to make sure that we're looking specifically at the math sequence. And finally, our special education and our L ESL teachers were just concerned that the representation of their students in the academies is

085comparable to what it is in our student population. The data from meeting with the different teachers and getting some surveys back from them, as you can see on the chart on the left-hand side, the Cashiers feedback, 40% of the teachers indicated they'd be interested in a career academy, around 40% indicated they would be interested in teaching foundational studies, which is the general, you know, high school experience that they have right now, with about 21% teachers indicating they would be interested in remaining in the freshman academy. The top academy choices that they would like to teach in would be the biomedical, computer science, and education. When you look at the CMS feedback, there's 87% of those teachers indicated that they would like to teach in the career academy model with education being the top education academy

086model that they would like to teach in. Science and aviation second and business and finance as the top third. The students, when we met with them, this is just the current ninth grade data. I did not include the seventh and eighth grade data yet into any presentation. But when we look at the student data, the preferred learning path, whether it's the academy model, career tech, or foundational studies, there are 40%, 42% of students indicated they would be interested in the academy model. This does mirror the 40% that when Mr. Bigger did his landscape analysis initially, that there were about 40% of students that were not getting their needs met at the high school division. So, are these the same students? I'm not sure, but it's definitely something that mirrors that this middle group, middle high,

087middle low, like this middle group of students that need a stronger focus is what we need to be really addressing. When we looked at their academy choices, again, they had all eight that they could choose from. The top one was biomedical by far and then business and finance as a a close second. I will say we did sneak the take a sneak peek at the data for the seventh and eighth graders and those were the top two career academies for those students as well. When we look at an example of a schedule, again, we're looking at a career class, two career classes for each student, an English, a math, a science, and a social studies. Those are the graduation requirements, their core academic classes. Again, we're talking about a total of eight classes per day

088or eight classes per year, so there would be time for other classes outside of the career academy. When you look at an example for the two cohorts that would be working within the science and aviation, you can see the different grade levels and the different career classes that would be offered and then there is a difference in the level of courses for English, math, science, and social studies. If you do notice in the cohort two, there are more AP classes gearing up for these students to be able to earn some college credit in the um career academies. This particular slide is just a indication that we are tracking the number of students that are going to be in each of the grade levels at the Career Magnet School and Cashiers to ensure that our numbers

089are working out for all of the programming that we have planned. The implementation timeline, um next year, we're going to be preparing for all of the ninth graders to attend Cashiers and finalize the Keystone preparation for students to be able to take those required courses in 2027-2028, and obviously further our development of the academy model with our community partners and the experiences we can offer our students. In 2027-2028, that's when all of the ninth graders will come to Cashiers. All of the students will begin to take Keystone exams in ninth grade and our final preparations for the academies and career tech changes in the following year will be occurring. And then in 2028-2029, we will be launching the career academies in grades 10 and 11 understanding that the 12th graders that are currently at the

090Career Magnet School will be grandfathered there, um and that the career tech students will be returning to Cashiers for their academics. And finally, 2029-2030 full implementation of the career academies and the new graduation requirements. So, the major changes that are coming up for our level are ninth grade transitioning to Cashiers. This will be a major change. In addition, the updated graduation requirements where every student will have to complete an internship, college level courses, or obtain a career certificate. What I need from the board and what I'll be asking from the board is to approve the ninth grade transition to Cashiers, also approve any teacher transfers and selection process. Um may be some transfers between Career Magnet School and Cashiers to ensure the career academy model. Also any curriculum adjust adjustments, a revision of curriculum, adjustment

091of new courses and written new courses being written for the um career classes specifically, and then obviously the new graduation requirements. And again, the reason why this is needed is that every student when they walk across that stage needs to make sure that their diploma represents the experiences that make them a very marketable candidate for whether that's the workforce, whether that's the military, or whether that's college. That that diploma must relate to the experiences they've had in their internship experience, getting the credits or the credentials for their career certificates, or those college courses. That diploma must mean something and with the career model, I do believe we can offer that opportunity for students that may be missing it right now. Are there any questions? Board members, questions? I have a question. Yeah. Um looking at

092the academies, I'm perceiving a a lack of um like where would social services or civil service, what academy or even thinking about a government job, where would that fit into? >> we actually had some conversations regarding education and maybe broadening that to the social services to include some government occupations as well. Okay. Mhm. Thank you. Yeah, um thank you very much for that presentation. I have a question about um the eight academies that were selected, Mhm. um were there any kind of some that didn't make the cut but came real close because I'm interested in how those eight were arrived at. I know you asked students, We actually looked at the data from the workforce development um and that's how we determined the eight academies. Where are the jobs projected in the next 10 years

093in this area and how can we make best meet those needs? And is there any consideration to look at it other than local input to get like some nationwide where are the jobs nationwide because not everybody's going to stay in Chambersburg. Um I would say these are career fields that that would definitely be able to be applicable outside of the Chambersburg area. And the last question I have is um since there are some things that could be happening like in for instance any white collar job say business and finance and even some computer science AI is drastically changing the future for those fields and a lot of jobs are eliminated. So, how often will you connect with what's going on and then you know So, that's where the relationship that Mr. Akers developing with our

094career partners. Um I know that we want to make sure that we have our academy teachers selected by this summer so that we can start at the beginning of next year on our Friday professional development days getting out into those partnerships having them look over what the even the career classes that we're projecting and you know assuming that these are the right classes to have in the curriculum and does it match what they are needing for employees to come to their businesses. Very good. Thank you. I assume in your planning that the state pathways that were passed tie in somehow. How does the and I don't know board member wise whether people understand the changes that occurred a few years ago or graduation requirements from a state level. I'm sure you've looked into that but

095I don't see that connect. >> Right. So, that act 158 would be fulfilled with several different things that are listed in the presentation that could be fulfilled with the Keystone exams. It could be fulfilled with their college courses um and it could also be fulfilled with their certificates that they receive the career credit credentials. My other question we have had such a large number of early graduation students. How does that um tie in with what your plans are? Is that something that we're going to see more of less of different uh students having different needs um I would anticipate with some of the changes I'm proposing in the future graduation requirements that you would see fewer early graduation applications um particularly of the junior students who are applying for early graduation but with the internship

096experience like that will require students to stay a little bit longer. Okay. So, they would be required to stay for that internship. For instance, right now it appears to me at least that with career tech students sometimes they opt out of their final um semester at career tech. Will that not be allowed in the academic model? So, when they opt out of the career tech selection they actually have already completed all of their graduation requirements. So, with this the graduation proposed graduation changes they would have to be making sure that they do a an internship and so a lot of those students have not completed their internship at the career tech center. So, they would have to make sure that they have completed that before they graduate. I was interested in the imbalance between the

097number of teachers that are interested in the education academy and the number of students that are interested in the education academy. Um is that a concern? Um I don't Uh you mean like there's a lot of teachers that are not are interested or there's not a lot of students interested? >> Right. There was 15 There was 15% of students I think it was. >> Mhm. Uh let me get the slide to Yeah, 15.48% of students it was their choice when you go back to the top faculty choices it was 46.45% You know where the recruiters are yet? Yeah. I mean am I concerned about that? No. When I actually clicked on the actual numbers of students that are selected for each of these academies it's well over the 40 target number. So, even though it

098says 15% like we're looking at you know a large group of students. My my question for Stephanie and Mike, you've been to ignite. You saw it, right? And and I know what just the two of you went. Correct? Yes. So, are you seeing some of it come to fruition but it's a little bit different like just speak to what you saw and where we are because you went and saw it. So, just give kind of an overview of where you see we're getting getting it correct and heading down a path and and what's different maybe. Cuz it's hard to imagine what the model looks like unless you've seen it. To a degree. Yeah, um there's a lot I don't know so Right. No, it's a couple days there I I >> You're on the board

099but when you saw it so it's just a matter of how informed you are. >> I like the idea of from what I saw at ignite in Kentucky that um this project oriented uh assignments was awesome I think. I like the idea of um a cohort of students going through the three or four years with the same teachers because I think Oh, absolutely. it's an opportunity to build relationships and when you know a student for more than you know a couple classes or something you really care more I think and so I I sense that. Um not to um segway into the food service discussion but it looked like the food was really really really good there. I see the food that we serve our students here. I guess it's all right um but the

100food in Kentucky was great and I asked the people that that were serving it what makes your food so special? And what they said was cuz we love these kids. Mhm. So, I think there's a relationships there that we haven't attained yet but we will if we do something like this and I can see how it's coming together. And I pre thank you for the opportunity to go there and check it out myself. Uh I think from the real world experience it's good for them to be in those cohorts because it's just like having a job. Mhm. Uh you have the same people that you're familiar with. You have the same people that you're answering to. You have a familiarity with them. Uh and it it really seemed to work in walking around with the

101students cuz the students we each had one that took us on the tour. And uh the student that I had could not speak highly enough about the relationships that were built about this teacher has seen me for this is my third year now and they know about my family and they know about my struggles and uh with this model what we saw in in Kentucky was a real um connection that the teachers and the students were able to have that allowed them not only to focus on the educational aspect but the full student uh and make those connections, you know. I know you're having a tough time at home whatever and sometimes just with the busyness and how fast everything goes through in the regular education setting some of those connections are missed. Uh so,

102I I do look forward that the the kids are going to really um benefit I think from having that familiarity being with that same group of people the whole time uh and and not having so much kind of upheaval and and back and forth. So, that was one of the things that I really liked and the students seemed to really like and and uh made point to tell me when we were getting that uh tour when we were in Kentucky. Mhm. So, my my question or comment is very similar to Mrs. Gaus and Mr. Heidings uh question and the slide that we're looking at. When I was reading through this last evening uh and I think about where are the engineers? That would be what? >> But however, I'm going to answer my own question,

103right? You know, manufacturing that would be a mechanical engineer. Agriculture, there's agriculture engineers. Natural resources, that's an environmental engineer. Biomedical, that's a biomedical engineer. Um aviation, that's an aeronautical engineer. So, so they're in there. Again, at first read I was like where the heck are the engineers? But uh one thing I'm just curious in that regard being a civil engineer that's somewhere between drafting and architecture. But and it I know it's way they still do it at the higher level i.e. the college level uh when you go into an engineering program I didn't realize it at first. I didn't even hear this analogy till after I took my engineering exam when it was my my one sponsor. He said the first two years they teach you how to think. The second two years they teach

104you how to be an engineer. And a lot of and that's the way it is in college. When you go to college as a freshman you are a engineering student. It's not until usually your third year maybe some schools in your second year where you start choosing your path. But I like this uh because it it's a prelude to what you would see and they would still when they get to college they would still learn how to think for the first two years and then learn how to be an engineer in the next two years. Um the other thing and I will go back to eventually I want to get to slide 18 but on slide 16 when I was reading last evening I got reading through this I said where's ninth grade? Where's ninth

105grade? And it showed up on really clearly on slide 16 with the freshman academy because I know we've talked about that. And I like that. I like that setup. I draw an analogy with that similar to the new grade level realignment at the 4 5 6 building, right? We're we're putting um grade levels more concentrated together. So, I like that. So, there are my comments, no real questions unless you'd like to elaborate on my engineering >> I I just want to say that we can't compete with the career tech programming and they have a pre-engineering. So. Excellent. to be very careful that we don't >> So, if we go to slide 18 just to help facilitate and and Mrs. Laffey mentioned this in her presentation. Um I can't move it. You can't move it. >>

106Next. Hey, can you get us to the end of the presentation by any chance? Slide 18, Dave, please. Am I frozen, too? I was the frozen one. Yeah. Try try it out. There you go. You're good. I'll try. Here we go. Thank you. The man behind the wall controls it. There you go. So, you know, these are these are some board action. Some are more more clear actions than others. Our first one, ninth grade tradition to transition to CASHS. Uh that would be a board vote. Uh it's very similar to what I mentioned a minute ago like similar to grade level realignment at the elementary and and middle level. So, that needs to be a board level vote. What would be the timeline on that vote? I have it scheduled for uh May, uh second

107meeting because this can't happen without that change. Teacher transfers and selections, that's going to be sort of an ongoing more HR function. We just approve personnel items. I don't see any specific board actions correct with that. Curriculum adjustments, that's there might be some presentations, but I don't know that Course development. and maps and stuff that we have to approve with that. And that's in due time. Yeah, some of the new career courses. And then the last one, the new graduation requirements, that'll require a vote on the administrative regulation. >> Can I ask a question relative to that? Um when you talk about the cert industry certifications, who would be awarding those certifications at what and would that be a a separate testing program? Call. It could be Do you want Brad to answer that? You

108can. If you Yeah. Do you want to answer that? >> Well, it depends on the certification and credentials they're seeking. Um each of these different academies are providing the structure to prepare the students. So, for instance, in science and aviation, we would be going through a uh drone certification, which is I think the uh flight 107. I think that's the the actual number, but essentially they would be providing that. We wouldn't as a district because we don't >> Who is they? Uh it would be the aviation. Um I don't know the exact term, but it would be some somewhere an organization involving the aviation world. Same thing with like the manufacturing piece, anything that we're dealing with that like OSHA 10, those would come from manufacturing association type organizations. So, these are uh credentials and

109certifications that would be recognized through the state and and as well as the federal government. >> Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Is there Is there a cost associated with those? Are they paying that? Are we paying that? How's that work? We haven't gone down that path yet. Well, that too depends because um we are working with uh developing partnerships for instance with the dairy association of the Pennsylvania Dairy Association. If students complete certain courses through our um agricultural academy, the OSHA 10 is completely free and you'll see that in your next board update. We actually have a student who's doing that right now um to pilot it for us. So. What we learned at Ignite is some internships are paid, some are not paid. Some industries are more funded and then can pay for the

110certifications, others are not. So, I don't think it's going to be a consistent feel because of the industries providing a lot more support. The Act 107, it's a Federal Aviation Administration licensure. I think there's a lot to like about this. Um I think the world is changing rapidly and we cannot ignore that. I think uh we ought to be conscious of some of the ways in which this might be changing us maybe more than we want it to. It seems to me like a lot of this is very career driven, economic output. We want to produce a product, a student that can go into the workforce and I can understand why our local businesses would want that. I think we all see value in that to some extent, but I also think that schools could

111be a place or can be a place and I think they often are. I don't want to lose sight of this that are formative in other ways, right? When we talk about character, when we talk about interacting with people, when we talk about community service, that doesn't come through in a big way here and that doesn't mean that you're ignoring it. That's not my point, but I think we just ought to be conscious of the ways in which there are possibly some drawbacks to this model so that if if we move forward, that is with those things in mind and they're heavily integrated. In other ways, um I think like um you know, art and music and drama are amazing and I I want people that are in the ag world to love music, you

112know? I want um doctors that took the time to understand ethics, you know, not just to like go through the credentials. Um I think that education ought to be a place where kids are allowed to explore, to think, to dream, to just be and I'm a little concerned I one because I know that there are lots of kids in ninth grade who have no idea what they want to do. You know, and so I think there's a lot of value in exploring, right? And so um I do think there are kids that this is amazing for. Don't don't get me wrong. Um but I would love to see all the kids being able to explore and I don't think that that's sufficiently happening at the middle levels yet because they're not old enough to do

113that in in the deep way that you can do it at the high school level. Um So, I do think there are some gaps in things that are offered. Um it's it's never going to be perfect. You're not going to you know, if you have to narrow it down to eight. Um but I think like where where are the helpers? Where are the social workers, the counselors? Uh the things that might not necessarily be high value careers like you're you're not going to make big bucks, um but sometimes kids are passionate about that kind of thing. Um and I I I just don't want ROI to drive everything. I think that um you know, there was a long era where people went to college without thinking about ROI at all, but if we if we

114flip that and that's just drives everything, that's a big problem. Um we're we're missing out on what this could be a time to to really be formed um in a deep way. So. Well, I'm glad to hear that your teachers are questioning the higher level math versus the basic math issue because um again, there is a cohort of students who are not going to be AP and both your cohorts that you gave as examples had high level courses in and there's a lot of kids who just need what used to be the general tract and they just need the basics and we've got to make sure that we are addressing those students. I had a question as far as the FCCTC students, when they have their academic semester, where do they fit in? They would

115be with the foundational studies students. So, they would be integrated in there. Okay. And along those lines, Mrs. Laffey, maybe correct me, but I I like Mr. Rayburn's uh thought, idea, and question there, but is that not what the some of the financial studies branch would be? Foundational studies. Foundational studies. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so there's still a place for those Yeah, there's still a place for those students and that's the the A If we go to If you look at slide three, that's the purple line. Yeah. Right? What I don't want is kids that end up in the academies to all of a sudden miss out on all the things that are in the foundational studies is is what I'm what I'm getting at. I I think the concept is amazing overall, right? Just

116to be clear. Um So, I did have a question. Can you clarify uh somebody made a comment, maybe it was Ed, uh about there are ways in which if career tech is doing something that we we are limited in what we can offer. Is Did Did I misunderstand? So, like engineering was the example. >> We don't want to duplicate services anywhere in the county if we can not. Okay. >> So, we wanted to pick programming that didn't follow career tech. It's different. For obvious reasons. Yeah. And that was part of the decision-making in addition to the workforce development board, the high priority occupations, the South Central PA manu- uh groups that come together and say, "Look, these are the jobs in high need that have a high return on investment or priority occupations. Here's what

117career tech offers and here's what we we do." Cuz I think some of those does overlap, but I think that's where I'm a little bit puzzled. >> So, like even they have pre-K like education, like, you know, but like we have to be more broad, like K to 12, you know, where they're like the pre-K. As I look through these academies, I I think it has utility also. I can see as I know when I was getting out of high school, I chose a field, but I didn't really have any information on it other than what I researched myself. So, to actually be within some of these fields of these academies, I think it's really going to help a high school student make a great decision and know what direction they want to go. Thank

118you. >> And they're not waiting till high school. The Zello program I don't know again whether people are familiar with what that is and I'm not sure that I know a lot about it, but I know that it is getting earlier information about careers and and so on. So, there is an earlier awareness than what was once provided. The state require Good. The state requires students to have career evidence at certain grade levels. I believe it's third grade, eighth grade, and then also 11th grade. Third grade? Mhm. So, students have to do career activities to demonstrate that they are getting exposure to different careers. Well, as a matter of fact, the career tech goes out in fifth grade with a very in-depth um exploration of career tech. Reading by third grade is really important. That's

119the Yeah, career pathway. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks for your work. That was a culmination of a lot of effort to get to this point. Thank you. Food service update, Mrs. Stein. Okay, can everyone hear me? Good evening. I'm Bobby Stein, uh director of support services. Jared Ford, unfortunately, our director of um food service was not able to be here this evening. So, I'm going to try to get through his slides and mine. Let's see here. Okay, this evening, I'm going to give you some updates. Um PASBO did uh completed a study back in the 24-25 school year. PASBO is the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. And from that study, we got recommendations, things that, you know, they thought we should take a look at that can

120improve our operations. Also, um CEP at the middle schools, specifically at the middle schools since we were added those to our grouping, some current meal standards, and then what's new in our department. All right, PASBO study updates. So, we were able to increase some of our menu um selections at the secondary level this year. We're serving about eight to 10 different selections. Um and then also, one of the recommendations was to utilize different food displays, helping with the presentation and also speed up the service lines. Another recommendation was to decrease our menu cycle. Um actually, it was down at three, but we surveyed the staff, talked to the managers, and we went um from five to four. That seems to be working pretty well. Um they PASBO also recommended looking at at district-wide CEP program

121and what the financial impact of that was. And some of you may recall we did that last year, and that's where we came with the recommendation to add the middle schools. Another major concern that came out of the PASBO was our staffing levels. We were very understaffed, and to do all these other things that they wanted us, you know, to take a look at, we needed to work on staffing. So, we have been able to remain at or below 10% in our openings, which is great. Okay, so this is some really exciting news. Um and this is um based on our meals served. We took 24-25 meals served and compared it to 25-26, and this is a district-wide outlook from August through January as a snapshot. So, as you can see, we increased in our

122combined meals, lunch and breakfast, breakfast and lunch, all of those have increased. And again, that's the meals served. So, that's some really good good news. The next slide is also some information about our meals served, and here you can see our top movers by buildings. We've had increases in Cam South, North, Marion, and Hamilton Heights, and then some decreases in these other buildings, Cashes, Ben Chambers, Grandview, and Buchanan. And some of those decreases we are looking at, I believe, are due to enrollment in those buildings. Cashes, we'll take a little deeper look at. Um I don't have any definite um reasons for those decreases yet. But we will certainly take a look at it. So, what everybody's been waiting for, North and South comparison since we've added those to the CEP uh model, these numbers

123have increased. Combined um North, it's great, plus 11,073, and then combined at Cam South, 12,806. And I'll let you take a look at the the breakfast and lunch numbers, but everything has been um meals served, numbers are up. So, that's good. It's what we want to see. So, here's a financial outlook um for the food service department. In 24-25, we had a net uh positive of $270,000. And then for 25-26, this is an estimated range, um a deficit of 275 to 350,000. And this deficit, we um included March and June from last year. So, some of the things are different. Um obviously, variances in staff expenditures, um supplies are up. Um so, again, we estimated. The good thing is we have a cash balance with food service at about $4 million, and so we can

124cover that. And the district will not have to um fund that. Next two slides, I'm just going to review quickly. This is what makes a meal. Um this is our breakfast program. The schools must offer all three of these categories um for students in the morning. Next is our National School Lunch Program, and this requires that we provide five component components, and then students must select at least three. One being a fruit or vegetable, um and this counts as a reimbursable meal, meaning that we get subsidy back for each meal that contains these components. So, next we have grants. Um and I want to recognize Katie Enterline in our department. She is one of our floating managers, and she has really helped not initiate, but participate in helping with the applications. She's gone to conferences

125to learn about these grants. So, we have Harvest of the Month, which is a mini grant that we actually applied for and did get. So, next month we'll be getting some, I think it's strawberries from a local vendor, and providing different tastings of recipes at Ben Chambers. And then additionally, um the PA Beef Council, that grant was written and received, and they're providing us with beef and also whole milk, and we're having an event at the Vo-Tech. Um and the culinary group, they're going to be um making some recipes and meals, and um I think you're all going to get an invite to that. So, more information to come on that one. And then additionally, we applied for the Farm to School grant, and we have not been awarded that yet, but that will be

126an expansion of the Harvest of the Month, and we'll expand that to all the elementary buildings. So, what's new in our department? We've been busy. Um we've increased our a la carte and our snacks. They've returned to the majority of our elementary schools. Eight out of the 13 have these programs. Hoping we to expand that um to all of them next year. We've also we have share tables and two of our buildings, Cam South and Lurgan elementary. And again, we'll work with the additional schools to try to expand that program as well. You'll see some pictures here. We had staff participate in the homecoming parade. We had a winter bash, which was more of a an appreciation to our our staff. We provide t-shirts for different holiday events and themed days in the room. And

127then also student activities. There is the national breakfast school breakfast week, which just happened recently in March. And then upcoming in May is national eat what you want day. So, this sounds I was like, "Jared, what is that?" And cuz I kind of chuckled, but so the students were surveyed. Of course, they gave them a menu that is allowable for school students and then they selected what they want. So, they're actually participating what they get to eat that day. So, it's kind of cool. Lastly, we have some new regulations coming down the pike. Some of these are are already in process, but I'll let you take a you know, a real good look at them, but some added sugar limits, sodium reduction. Want to point out that whole milk is allowed in the lunches now.

128I think that was just became effective in December. So, we haven't added that yet to our inventory, but we're looking at doing that for next year. And then the buy American updates. So, they're they're just have tightening compliance on US source foods. So, that's all I got. Any questions? Board members. Yeah, I'm interested. You mentioned the share tables at only two school schools. Is there a reason with the food insecurity that the entire community has um share tables just seem like a way to reduce waste and to provide for students who maybe are needy and so on. What's the rationale for not having them throughout? So, there are procedures in place. Um Believe it or not, they have to take temps. There's a lot of different things that have to occur with items that are

129on the tables. And this was basically we're giving the principals a choice if they wanted to have these in their buildings because it's going to be their lunch aids or someone else in their buildings that's manning the table and following these procedures and not the food service staff. So, we're going to work through them with those barriers, you know, to see if we can help alleviate some of the concerns that they have with implementing those. This was new bringing them back and you know, we hope to expand that. Yeah, I would hope so because as I say, food insecurity is such a concern for me personally. Mhm. And the waste too, like knowing that someone can Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. I asked that very question to a principal a week ago at paint night at

130an elementary school and um was interested because Mr. Ford had mentioned about the food share program. Mhm. And the answer I got was precisely what you said. Um It's very cumbersome. There's a lot of like rules and the manpower, you know, and it's like just not going to work. Mhm. And um that's kind of disappointing because I see how much food is thrown away and it blows my mind, but that's another story. Well, we'll keep working on that and hopefully find some solutions to get through those barriers. It is a long list of things you have to do though. Anything else? Are there ever opportunities for board members to come in during lunch and eat lunch? Well, as a matter of fact, there was an opportunity with the Thanksgiving Oh. >> I served at Grandview.

131Um Could we uh is it yeah, is there just a way for us cuz we're having a discussion about food sometimes and I think that not all of us have had a school lunch anytime recently. So, um I think that might be a good way for us to just have a better >> I can't think of any reason why not. I mean, I'm sure we could just set that up, you know, maybe on a special event day or something that you you know. And it could be complimented, you know, we we could serve that same day as well and then eat once the kids are >> Yeah, we I think we got a memo asking if if we would do it, you know, I didn't dream it up myself. >> No, no, no. No, I

132remember it as well. It didn't work for me. Yeah, I think I think what I'm looking for though is more of just whatever You want a lunch on a Tuesday. Just a regular Tuesday lunch. Yeah, yeah. So, Yeah, I I'm sure that we could work that out. Other questions? Mrs. Stein, just want to slide seven and I appreciate your comment looking at that um you know, 270 positive year over year to 275 to 350 deficit. And I really first I want to start I appreciate your comment cuz as got I I think in my question was going to be what are the drivers for that? And then your presentation I heard something that I love to hear when it comes to finances. That's variance. I believe that the way you do finances is variance reporting

133or variance analysis. And if I understood you correct, the primary driver of that is wages. It's it's a large factor and then our supply costs and then thirdly the subsidy, you know, what you're getting back for what you're spending. And it that went down because of the CEP a little bit. The subsidy. Subsidy went down. Yeah. Okay. But I think did I read that the reimbursement's going to go up? I just saw I was told >> not seen that yet, but that could be. >> I think it is. I just read something from And we're not in the CEP for three more years. So, we have the ability to be in the grouping that we are for three more years. Yeah. And the the data just came out for next year. They use 41 for

134the directly certified. So, we'll be taking a look at that, but it doesn't really look good. Don't like to be a Debbie Downer, but the numbers for directly certified students is dropping because of the criteria to qualify for those programs. And the other part in your when you were talk referring talking about this same slide and uh I've mentioned it often and I appreciate what you said, right? Cash is king. And what allows us to absorb this is there's $4 million cash. Uh However, if it were to continue, something that uh this board member won't have to worry about, but maybe a future board member, uh you know, 10 12 years, it it becomes a it it then starts becoming something out of the general fund budget. Right. And we know that staffing, you know,

135wages, benefits, that all goes up every year. We never see that go down. Supplies. So, that unfortunately deficit may grow next year. I mean, if we're being real. >> is is great and whether it's food service or whatever, you know, the cash is is not a bad thing. Who knows? It might take them 6 months to approve a state budget again. Cash is good. We'll take a look at it and And I think too to what Bobby's point was, you know, we have the ability if if our direct certification numbers would go up significantly, we do have the ability to regroup every year if we would want to. But we're going to stay with the four the grouping that we have right now because it does preliminarily look like the reimbursement rate would go down.

136Not sure how much at this point. Two things from my view. You don't have the um balances you have to send to collections. It's about $11,000 that we'll be saving for the middle schools. Yeah. So, that's a nice just not having to do that. I mean, if you haven't done collections, it's a lot to do collections for lunch. And the second is as we build schools, the the you want to spend down plan. The state wants you to not hold on to a whole bunch of money. So, you have to have some spend down plans so we can buy some equipment and utilize some of those funds that are in there instead of using bond money potentially. We'll just cross that bridge when we get there. Yeah. Yeah, what I >> want to spend down

137much of it if we need to keep bridging this gap. >> It's an option. Yeah, I and I think again this is our first year with the two middle schools. You know, hopefully we'll see participation continue to to increase as you know, kids are used to getting the meals free coming up from the elementary division. I think we're a little too too early on to know what it's going to look like three or four years down the road. I do think that the food service balance is healthy enough to sustain us through the four years of this grouping that we have. So, this current year and three more years. Yeah, what I what I have here is eligibility levels are adjusted annually based on the changes in the consumer price index and are tied to

138federal poverty guidelines. For instance, a family of four in the United States, the income limits reflect a 2.6 increase over last year's. So, they're actually increasing the income limits uh according to this uh I don't know what SNA stands for. With a school nutrition association Yeah, with a I'll have to take a look at that. Yeah. It just came out today. Okay. I get those emails. Yeah, I have a question. We have um nine openings right now in your department. Well, it's not yours, it's Mr. Ford's. Uh my question is how how does that impact your team? Is it crucial that we fill that? Is there a What could the board do to help fill those roles? Last I looked, um we had some people in the pipeline. So, those listings will still be there.

139Um but we've still maintained um at or below 10%, which is really good because we had a day that we were running on my 25 30%. Yeah. But we weren't able to have more menu choices. You know, we had to cut back. Cuz we had two choices. Things like that. So, I think our program is is getting better. Yeah, and I do believe a lot of those positions that are open are are part-time positions. Um and to Bobby's point, we can have people in the pipeline, but HR leaves those positions posted until we approve them on the board agenda. >> Yeah, so it's It might not be nine. It's what we're trying to say. The changes. Uh my next question was um how can we increase the the fresh options? It looks like we've done

140some grant work that's been pretty amazing. So, how do we do more of that because this is an agricultural community. I mean, we're like second in the state. So, it's It feels to me like it I I don't know how you do that. What would it take to bridge those gaps so that >> we have to continue to work on uh available grants for those um opportunities. And you know, we have guidelines with with the food that we get, but with the Buy American, you know, we can probably reach out to more vendors here locally to get fresh produce as well. So, I think Does that answer your question? It's great. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. >> you. And if Mr. Ford's listening, I

141hope you're feeling better soon. >> I told him if he was bored now. Okay. Uh consent agenda items. Um just a a brief moment here, quick board discussion. Um Previously, been going through the the method I was using was I'd ask the administration, "Hey, any items that you would like to comment on?" And then turn it over to board. Uh and then basically uh administration gets to talk about any items they want to talk about. Board members get to ask questions on any items they want to ask questions on or additional information. Or do you want to go through them one at a time? What's the board's privilege? I think the administration knows the topics that are kind of cut and dry. I think that the public as well as the board needs to hear

142at times more detail than what we were getting at some of our town meetings. Um but I think it's something that the administration should be looking more closely at topics and saying, "People need to know more in-depth information." And I don't think it's just the board that needs to hear some of that more in-depth information. It's the public that's listening to the uh live stream and so forth. So, I I can rely on the administration >> continue If I'm hear If I'm understanding you correct, Mrs. Guggler, basically we'll sort of proceed the way we have proceeded and going forward, there might be more things that administration discusses. Is that Is that what I'm hearing? Am I interpreting that correct or am I >> I would hope that the administration would bring us more detail than

143has been happening at times. Okay. Other board members, thoughts, comments? I thought the way we've been doing it was working out pretty well. Sure you can get more information, but my brain can only absorb what the dairy air can uh put up with. So, we're going to be here for a long time, great. I don't know that some of these things are all that Mhm. important for me, but if there's something important for someone else, by all means, let's hear it. Yeah. Okay. Uh then we'll proceed that route and you know, we can call an audible next month or the following month or the following month. We can we have that We have that flexibility. Uh I know one item that I would want to talk about then is going to be the big leaf

1445.01, but administration first. Well, Well, I was going to talk about 501, but I can hold off if there's other ones. No, 501 and 510 are two topics that are high priority for us to just share publicly. Yeah. Okay. So, just real quickly, you know, as you know, we presented a 3-year budget two week two weeks ago. I get my meetings mixed up. Um and as a result of that, um this evening we won't be doing the presentation, but I did want to highlight just a couple of things that have changed since uh the 3-year budget was presented. Um Good news, I don't often get to share good news, so I have to, you know, be happy about this. Uh we met with our health care consultants uh the other week, and that number has

145come down slightly. So, we were able to uh reduce the health care expense in the operating budget by $500,000. Um and of course, what you're seeing then is the deficit that we're projecting was reduced to 692 roughly 692,000. Um another change that we made, if you recall uh several months ago, we updated the resolution, the 1% resolution, to allow that money to go either into uh the capital reserve or to debt service. So, we've adjusted that in this budget as well. So, we have $3 million going into debt service versus a million going into cap reserve. And I'm rounding, Mr. Norcross. I know it'll be a little bit different than that, but we start rounding when we get into those large numbers. And then finally, um on page five and six of the uh presentation,

146those are estimated taxpayer impact. I did want to point out to the board that we're assuming the use of $1.5 million from the committed fund balance. Uh we basically used last year's homestead numbers and just forecasted out what that would look like uh for the average and the median um assessed values in our community for both those that have the homestead farmstead and those properties that do not. Board members, questions? Uh I just have a comment to make um So, we had forecasted 2.5% tax. Um Yeah. And um to my surprise in the survey results, the survey said 67% of the population who were surveyed responded said they supported increased public funding. I don't know quite what that means. Does that mean an increase in the local taxes or they're hoping to get more from

147state and federal? I don't know, but um with the big expenditure we have coming up, um it may be an opportunity to reconsider the 2.5. Um just throwing it out there for thoughts. I could support an increase as well. What I I'm just blown away every time I consider homestead how little our taxes actually change. You can see on the slide, you know, if you're looking at whether you choose median or average, really we're talking about a difference of like 10 bucks on the year. That's with the 2.5, so I don't know what the math would be, but it'd be like another dollar or two if you went up to say 3%, right? Um I look back at my own taxes even from a decade ago, and the difference is like 13 bucks is all

148that has changed. Um Now, every every home every property is going to be different, so I'm not I'm not trying to ignore that reality, but I think like the taxes have really been flat once you consider homestead for a long time. We have a ginormous building project coming up. I just want to know from the administration if you had another half percent or whatever, what would you do with that? How would you use that strategically? Because I have no interest in throwing money away. Um Are there ways that you could help us to reach our objectives? And you don't need to necessarily answer this tonight. But I think I think you ought to You know, I would love to hear. We have big goals. Uh we talked about reading by third grade, for example. Um

149We have an ambitious goal that Mr. Nelson has set. So, is there a way that if you have half a percent, what would you use that for? Or maybe money's not the real thing that needs to change, and that's okay. But we've we've had a lot of conversations where I've heard people say, "Well, that's that's a teacher. That's half a teacher." And so, it just makes me wonder if the impact of the taxpayer is is so minimal, why are we not at 3%? Or maybe it's a different number. Maybe it's 2.75, maybe it's 3.25. I don't I'm not trying to um but I think we can afford to go up. Um I appreciate administrations trying to hold the line on taxes. I personally can afford more, but I know so many people who can't. We

150wouldn't have the food insecurity, the homelessness, the if we were a wealthy community. Mhm. Yeah, I'm I'm a pretty uh firm advocate for the 2 and 1/2%. Um and just you know, we keep hearing this term adequacy. And adequacy still concerns me, and it will always concern me because eventually that will change somehow, somewhere. Whether change might be not as much of an increase or a flat line or something, but I don't know what that change may look like. I'm just worried there will be a change there, and I can't predict it. But but my point is that there is more expenditures because of the adequacy. So, just because it's a 2 and 1/2% doesn't mean the district isn't still growing programs, adding facilities, uh what not. Mhm. So, uh I mean, we We do

151have the opportunity to answer our building project taking on less debt is an option. We're we're saying no, we would actually want more debt. Uh you know, as as as one way to frame it, and I don't think that that's um I don't think that's a foolish approach to think about it considering that we're on the front end of this. If we were on the back end and we know how the project has gone, um it might be a different conversation. But uh in my own budget, if I know I have a big expense coming, I'm trying to either how do how do I get a side hustle to bring in a few more bucks, or how do I how do I pinch pennies elsewhere so that I So, I but maybe other people don't

152feel quite as strongly about. Maybe we're more comfortable with the debt. So. Other thoughts, comments? Questions for Mrs. Stelfox? Uh just a procedural comment. Um I would I would and I'll ask this with the board, but I think that should be an individual line item vote. Next >> Roll call? Uh not necessarily a roll call, but not part of a consent where we're approving a $200 $200 million budget along with 11 other items. Just make it its own action item. Forevermore. See, I don't I don't I think we will always bump it. If you put it If you put it in the consent, we'll move it. So. Yeah. Just just so you guys know, I'll just give you a little very quiet today on two topics, the CEC center and also this budget, cuz that's

153really your job when you're given options. So, I know you look to me for advice and direction, but you that's our presentation. That's where we are. It's me reading the the discussions we have and coming up with a decision, but when I'm very quiet, it's your decision. So, the more you talk and the more you agree, the easier it is for me to interpret uh two people's comments or three for the next agenda. It is challenging for me at times when only two or three people talk for me to know where to go with things. So, sometimes I'll give you the analogy, I'm throwing a dart at the dartboard, but I'm not really sure what I'm aiming at at times, but at least I hit the dartboard. And so, I think, you know, we're on

154the dartboard, we're in the right spot, but uh just just so you're know from a facilitation standpoint, when I'm quiet, it's your decision. And if you want me to engage, ask ask me direct questions to engage. Okay, now there are questions on 5.01, uh 5.10, Mr. Bigger was the other one? Yep, Mr. Woodman, Crystal, and the team did a lot of work for this one, so they want to highlight all that goes into this resource. Yeah, there was a lot of work that was uh put into this, involved a lot of our teachers, a lot of after-school into the evening nights, um and they landed on two. I did talk a little bit about how they did that, and I put it in the uh uh Friday folder. The Eureka Math and the Amplify Math.

155Eureka Math is for our K to 3, uh and 4 to 8 is Amplify Math. It is is still sitting out in the uh lobby for folks to review. Um we are currently working on our needs with the contracts, um the funding source. Uh several years ago, we put money aside for large resource pur- purchases cuz we didn't uh do resource purchases for our core subjects in quite a long time, actually prior to uh Mr. Bigger leaving uh for the first time. And uh definitely needed updated, and want to once again thank the crew. It is most likely going to be over seven-figured number, and it'll come from the assigned fund balance where we moved. We still have around 3.5 million left in the assigned fund balance that's earmarked for resources in curriculum, instruction, and

156technology. Um I don't know if you have any questions. Uh but just wanted to give you the information, and we this is basically a placeholder. We'll have the contracts uh attached uh to the hopefully within 2 weeks. If not, we'll have to pull it, but we're working on that right now with the con- uh companies. Questions for Mr. Woodman? Okay, any of the other um nine consent or 11 10 consent agenda items that board members would like to um have any additional discussions or conversations on? Okay. So, hearing none, you know, uh item 5.01 will become its own individual item at our voting meeting, and the other items will all be uh one vote in the consent agenda. 7.01, gifts, grants, and donations, Mr. Woodman, anything to add? Elaborate on? I always want to thank

157the folks. Uh we list them on the list, uh the folks that uh help support a lot of different activities in our district. Of course, this will continue to this list will continue to grow uh through up to the the meeting as they come in. I just like to comment on the first donation, the flag we love book that the uh Daughters of the American Revolution donated. Um I already sent a suggestion to Mr. Nelson, I think. I really recommend that all of our kindergarten through second grade teachers utilize this book to instill some awareness of the topic of our flag. I think that the importance of our flag has been minimized. Um I don't know for certain. I'm told that the Pledge of Allegiance is not 100% said in all classrooms at the beginning

158of the school day as it once was, and I just think that this book, having looked at it, is a very valuable resource that should not just go on a library shelf, but should have some planned use um to, as I say, instill some awareness of the importance of the flag. Um secondly, it can be here, or I can bring it up in the discussion thing, but one of my concerns is the fact that we get these limited numbers of donation information on our agenda, but there's such a huge amount of donations that are being given to students that are not addressed in our monthly um approval of gifts and grants and so forth. Um for instance, I just finally, after several years of trying to get information about the weekly food bags that are

159given to students, I finally got the names of churches, for instance, that um give food to students every week, and I know that there are civic organizations, the Scotland Community Center, uh I just became aware of going to a PTO meeting, um give bikes and summer uh incentives for reading and so forth. And as a board, I think we need to know how much is being done for our students, but more importantly, as we are going into grade reconfiguration, my concern is that the community is going to have a very different um dynamic of schools to support. And if we don't even know what all these community organizations are doing in the area of gifts, grants, and donations, how who is planning for the future um when we have nine instead of 13 schools, when

160we have a four to six versus those kids being in the elementary buildings. And so, I feel strongly that we need to be doing some type of a survey or finding somebody to get that information for us. Any other thoughts, comments, questions? Uh item 7.02, um Mr. Bigger, you have what you need for that? First question. >> Sure. Sure. Any additional board discussions? Section 8, policy and legislation, first reading policy. There's one policy there, 217.1. Administration, any comments? And then per Mrs. Luffy's side, this is going to get looked at again soon also. Um that one will go forward. Item 8.2, second reading of policies. Uh four policies there. Uh 223, 237, 354, and 611. Uh the biggie in there is a 237. Uh you can see the summary of some Yep. past discussions, presentations,

161requests, etc., etc., etc. Just so you know, that's your cell phone, bell to bell uh restriction for 9 to 12 when you vote on those tonight. They are second approval and they're final. So, that's one of the reasons we >> Two weeks when we vote. >> Or two weeks, yeah, when we vote, sorry. Two weeks when we vote. That's one of the reasons we got this survey data and started to share preliminary uh what information you have. Thoughts, comments, questions? Anyone on any of the second reading policies? >> Um I've got a question for our student representative. Uh Omar, um now that this policy of cell phone use is getting closer to some termination here, um are you getting additional feedback from the student body on, you know, I saw the survey results, but I

162was a little disappointed. I thought it might be higher. But what are you hearing on the ground level? I don't think that students that they've really like heard or processed that like phones might get banned yet. So, I think that we have to like we have to tell people about that a little bit more to really see what they think of it. Okay. Thank you. I don't know. Maybe Chris or Mrs. Luffy I I don't know if I understand that. Or maybe or maybe you that the students don't understand Well, I don't know. >> or haven't haven't absorbed this policy yet? I don't think that a lot of people have have heard about it. Or they don't think that like the the district's going to go through with it. Okay, well, there's a difference there.

163That that that that that there's a big difference there whether they don't think they're going to do it or they don't understand it. I I can tell you that >> they have a bit of a I hope they have I hope they have a understanding of what it is. Maybe they don't agree with it, but I hope they have an understanding. Well, I can tell you there are four students >> wrong information is terrible. There were four high school students at my house on Saturday to do some yard work, and they were totally clueless when their leader brought it up that I was on the board and this, you know, ban coming up and and they were like, "Wow, we didn't know that was going to happen." Uh so, I can tell you that at

164least four out of the thousands of students I had first hand Your little poll. Yeah, right. There are comments being made right now from the administration to the students like wait until the board does the approve the new policy. Like they will be banned, but there has not been a mass communication to students indicating until you approve it. And I also think Parker's comments when he did public comment, you know, no student wants it to go away. But it is more of the responsible thing to do the adults to make that decision for them. As the state moves closer to a statewide ban, it's more than logical. Um but if you've been a high school principal or you've been around, there are some things you just don't go get their input on all that much.

165And this is one of those where I don't think input's going to matter. Well, I had I just talked to someone who was in the Pittsburgh public schools within in the last 2 weeks. Um they have lockers that they walk in the school and they lock up the pockets things Yeah. Yeah, I have a picture of the lockers that they have for the cell phones. There's There's no question. I want to think out loud here for a minute. And I'm I'm a bit taken back, I guess. Not I guess, I am a bit taken back. My concern is for the board and for the district from a PR standpoint. And I I agree with Chris's comment that, you know, maybe you know, their input might not matter here. And I'm fine with that in the

166sense that but not understanding or having the opportunity to at least show up here and berate us or whatever they may want to do, uh is that best or is that is that a disaster? I.E. dress code. Uh well, if if it didn't happen in the middle school like it does now, I think it'd be a lot harder. But because the middle school has transitioned, ninth grade coming over will be easy as we said. 10 to 12 will be a little bit of change in process. You know, and they're working hard through the process. So, I again, there there are times you get input and there are times you don't get input. And this is one of those where going out and asking them I can't see students saying, "Sure, let's do this." I just

167can't see it. I mean, you do want to know your resistance levels, and I think that's why I went to the parents on the survey to know where the parents were. I think they'll have a heavier influence, and they were at 55% supportive with the 15% neutral. So, we're at close to that's, you know, decent number. So, if the neutral folks are moving towards the support, then yeah. Okay. Unless Debbie feel otherwise, and Kurt, I'll let to you on the day-to-day stuff. I don't want to speak for you, but rip the band-aid off and move on. Right. I don't know any teenager that's going to say, "Please take my cell phone." As long as I have my iPad there to replace it, I'm okay. Yeah. Okay. Uh we'll let you know in August, September how

168it goes. We'll be communicating way before that. >> Yeah. Item 10.01, members of the audience are invited to comment on agenda and non-agenda items. Uh with Dr. Long's retirement, he said he has passed the stopwatch to Mr. Woodman. So, Mr. Woodman will be our timekeeper. Um Again, um I go through the list of signed up. If you didn't sign up to make a comment, you still get an opportunity if you'd like. Uh first on the list, uh John Jordan. Mr. Jordan. Uh John Jordan, Fayetteville. I'm glad you have the public comment at the end of the meeting tonight. Um and I've been coming to these meetings for a long time, and to tell you the honest truth, this school district's has really done a wonderful job the last several years. Gone the board, the staff,

169administration, the professionals we have working on this project. We're a year and a half into the project now. And now it's coming down to the tight deadline that we have to start borrowing money and doing this and doing that. And now I hear somebody mention, the board president mentioned, we need to maybe have some workshops. Now, workshops to me mean we're going to delay things. That's the I walked out of this meeting thinking to myself, here we go again. We're going to have workshops and never meet this deadline, end up like the career magnet school. 900 people I think they were supposed to build it for. We built it for 500. And now, 10 years later, we're saying we screwed up. We should have built it for that. So, now we need to have a

170public mandatory public comment or meeting and have the people come in here. Don't worry about the summer. People aren't going to come. We need to do this and get this project moving cuz it's only going to get worse. Okay, $280 million or whatever the hell it's going to be. We're just going to have to do it. If we don't do it, we're going to end up with another thing where we didn't build what we were supposed to build and also you end up not educating these kids, which is majorly important because if we don't do a good job then they end up in jail and all kinds of stuff. They don't have any career and we pay for it 10 times more than what we have to pay in a little bit of taxes that

171we may have to If we have to pay 10 $20 a year, whatever it is, more in taxes. Yeah, there's a lot of poor people here, but everybody can afford that. So, you don't go out to breakfast one morning or you don't do this or do that. Watch a movie or whatever. So, we need to stop thinking about workshops, move on with the plan that we have set, have our mandatory public comment, not comment, but meeting and get this project moving. That's all I can say. We need to do it and we're going to end up delaying it and it'll only cost a lot more money. So, and it looks like to me, looking at the budget, we got a ton of cash right now. Let's hang on to that till the end of the

172project at the back end. Borrow more money now. It'll be in our favor as that project moves on because the cash will be more important at the end. And I guess that's all I have to say. But thank everybody for doing a good job, but please don't delay this project by starting to have workshops about I don't know what. That's all. Thank you very much. Mrs. Jordan. I didn't know what my husband was going to say. So, I'm kind of going to repeat what he said. But before that, Mrs. Gogler, if a church is giving food to a child uh and it's on church property, that's that's uh the separation of church and state. So, I don't know what you're we're we're getting at there um with the donations. You named your vision for our

173schools district schools of distinction. You voted on it, too. You laid out an excellent comprehensive plan to move forward with this plan. You studied and re-studied this plan for 2 years and it was 2 years. My husband's wrong. It's not a year and a half. You have the land. You have the plans. You have an excellent team of school administrators who have worked tirelessly for you to see these plans through. You even have plenty of cash to put down as a down payment for the children of the school district. That said, I congratulate all of you here tonight. It's time to put these plans into action as soon as possible. Work short workshops, and they were mentioned by the board president, are what you ordered of the superintendent to do. He did an excellent job

174promoting these school construction workshops, too. My husband and I attended more than one of them. Discuss the cash value you have on hand, which is 32.5 million in your mandated fund accounts. Look at your budgets. Look at them. We're rich in cash here. Move to use the this cash value at the back end of the school projects so you can continue to accrue interest on the larger part of this cash when you go out to bond in the latter part of the school construction project. Interest is very important. The school district's 2025-2026 deficit spending also sits at only 0.6% of the entire school budget. As the school district's 2026-2027 deficit spending indicates, it shows the district reducing that spending down to 0.3%. Frankly, you're in a far better position to act than our county is.

175The county's deficit sits at 5%. They drained down every bit of our cash. Every bit. I've been watching them and I've been going to their meetings and I'm angry that the cash is all gone. The cash is all gone out of this county. That's disgusting and I'm going to be going to their meeting tomorrow tomorrow morning and I'm worried about what they're doing with the AI centers here. The data centers. Thank you, Mrs. Jordan. Any other members? Parker's shaking his head, no. Okay. Well, you mom's left. Uh item 11.01 for information, district enrollment summary. Um item 12, uh new discussion, new business. And new business is something Chris has asked me to continue. I have a I have a bad habit. I've called this open mic before. He's asked me to keep it to new

176business, board actions, board policies. So, Chris, you get your wish. >> Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. >> Any new Just cuz you say it doesn't mean people do it, but it's it's a good try. >> action or new policy items? Okay. Hearing none, meeting's adjourned.