001Everyone ready? Go ahead and call this evening's meeting to order for Tuesday, May 6, 2025. Regular meeting for the Chber Area School District Board of Directors. Please rise and join me for a pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of 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 Monday of last week, the board had a uh workshop session uh uh facilitated uh on the basis of communications. Um and then prior to this evening's meeting, uh board met in executive session, uh discuss to discuss personnel and legal matters. Um item 2.03, uh motion and second to adopt this evening's agenda, [Applause] please. Move to approve. Second. Motion by Mr. McKe, second by Dr. Diller.
002Questions, discussions, amendments. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it. And so move. Superintendent report. Mr. Bigger. Y. Thank you, Mr. Norcross. Uh, this week's staff appreciation week. So, if you see a staff member, all staff members with a badge, um, say thank you and just appreciate the work they do for serving public education. I did attend a um a workshop in state college on teacher retention, the state budget, and cyber school reform last week. Um I'm proud to say because I attended I'd never win, but we won a $500 scholarship for a student and I get to pick the student. So that was pretty cool. Random drawing. So um worked with Buck Brindle and we've identified a student to get a $500 scholarship. So every once in a
003while you get lucky at a at a at a location. Um I would say for some of the teacher retention u topics that were the researchers shared we are on the right path with strong support for your new teachers um whether it's a specialist a mentor and time are all important to new teachers. Most importantly though is a positive climate in the building and surprisingly one that was not um surprising to me to hear in the research is getting new staff connected to the community. Taking them to a sporting event having a mentor or someone say hey let's go to the basketball game. let's go experience color day in the high school even though you're an elementary teacher. Uh goes a long way with getting them connected to the community. So, I thought that was
004nice to hear. Uh the state budget uh most likely not on time and then the next presenter come up and said, "Well, it's going to be on time." So, take that for what it's worth between two presenters. I don't believe it'll be on time. Um but we'll see what what ends uh with that component on getting the state budget on time. However, I do want to report there's continued strong support for the adequacy gap funding for those and I'll say this regularly and continually until legislators hear it and you repeat it as well. Thank them for the ad adequacy gap funding. That is one of the major reasons we can consider great configuration in schools of distinction. As of now, that is continued um for one year. If they pass this year's budget, it's another
005year of adequacy money. And again, for us, it was 8.2 million, I believe. and proposed this year 5 million. The original plan was a seven-year adequacy gap funding. So, we're in year two if we are to get it. And again, it is life-changing for education, updating our facilities, and certainly minimizing tax increases on our local taxpayers. Um, the next one, lots of movement on cyber school. Cyber school reform has been talked about for my entire administrative career with very little to no action. If it doesn't happen this year, I'm never bringing it up again in a public meeting that cyber school reform may happen. This is the year, if it's going to happen, will be this year. So stay tuned. We are hearing um good conversations around flatlining the cost of cyber school to a
006certain amount and then more comparable rules between public schools and cyber schools. And you'll have a presentation tonight to dive into cyber school a little bit more. Uh Heidi is here to go over um some of those comparisons. I don't want to make it about a political conversation, our cyber school versus theirs, but certainly in the state budget, there is some movement that can help us financially fairly significantly. Um, last two items, uh, in the policy sections that Fay and Mike are working on in the zeros, if you remember, Parker, who I told a story last time, his interest in being a student board rep in one of those policies, it does identify the ability to have a student board rep here. So, that'll be up to the board to decide if we want to
007have one or two. and if we want a student sitting at the end of either either end or both ends in the future. So that would be the opportunity for you to decide um if we do that or not. Uh and before I end my report, I am going to kick it over to Kurt and Mark only because we have a lot of end ofear activities just to highlight a few things on what's going on in the district. Okay. For the uh elementary division, not as much as the secondary a couple dates. Uh the all elementary band concert is this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Cashes. That's where all the elementaryaries get together. And then the orchestra concerts May 13th at 7:00 p.m. On the same night as Night of the Stars is the all
008elementary spelling bee. So the kids that wined it win at each individual school will be competing at Scotland Elementary this year. Last year was at New Franklin. Uh that's May 19th at 6:00. And then happening right now is a safety night that is a host to four schools. Stevens, uh, Buchanan and Hamilton Heights, and Ben Chambers. Uh, we have a want to thank a lot of local entities that are there from the community, uh, supporting our kids and at those four buildings. And, uh, looks like the weather held off. I was down there a little bit earlier. Drew was down there a little bit earlier and, um, a lot of kids were starting to come in. So, thanks for uh Brent and Gary Carter for organizing that night for tonight. So, at the board seats,
009you will have a chart of cashes events and CMS events. Um, I do want to point out 59 is a special Olympics in the stadium for the board members if they would like to come. 519 is night of the stars. 521 is decision day and national honor society at the high school and that's during this school day. Uh and then graduations of 29th and the 30th for CMS and Cashes. Then I would also like to um present this young lady that's on the screen. Um I reached out to her and it's not her picture. It's just a little blurp, but I have a little bit more to the story. But we want to share an achievement that this student did that more students could receive during our future plans for the schools of distinction by
0102030. Um this story takes place under the dual enrollment program in which um our district is partnered with many colleges and universities. Dual enrollment is where students leave our schools to go to the university or college and take classes there during the school day and also those credits that they receive go towards their graduation requirements. The story is about Autumn McNe, a senior at the high school. She began discussing with her um counselor in 10th grade about how she could receive college credits and get ahead instead of just waiting until um high school was over to start. Uh Autumn found criminal justice to be something that she really enjoyed and wanted to look into. So through the end enrollment program, Autumn uh took classes through the junior year and senior year along with taking classes
011during the summer um at through both of these years. We just want to congratulate Autumn because she is graduating right now from Harrisburg Area Community College with an associates degree in criminal justice. and then on the 30th she will be graduating from the senior high school with a diploma from our high school. So this young lady has seted herself up really well for her future. So congratulations to [Applause] Autumn and report. Okay, any questions on the reports? board members. Can we multiply that by about 10 to 20 for the first year and then we want to go up to 50 or 100 then? Yes. I was just going to say I love the calendar. This is excellent. Thank you for I don't know who put it together but it's very helpful. Yeah, Chris, maybe this
012will be part of 4.01. one. But you mentioned cyber charters. You know, a while back I went on a mini event one night about attendance and paying for students who no longer live in the district. Is there any traction on any type of checks and balances or accountability on uh paying bills for students who may not even live in our district? Your event and my response did get a lot of news. At the conference I was at, we were highlighted as a school district that's talking about it. So, not I didn't know that was going to happen, but then they pointed me out and asked how we did that and why we did that. I will say yes, since we've talked about it, we have seen a response from uh local cyber schools wanting to
013partner to verify and make sure we don't continue to have issues. So, there's movement on their part to partner. H however, I will say there needs to be legislation and rules. Otherwise, the incentive is only as good as the person wanting to partner. So, but we are doing our due diligence and I I didn't thank Mrs. Crider and Bobby Stein last time and some people in the office in business office who spend a lot of time on this topic in addition to Heidi and Trish and the attendance team. So, there's a whole team of people verifying residencies. So, I want to thank everybody for their due diligence. Uh, but they did uh the newspaper did identify some of the students that were out of state that upset people the most. That's what got the most
014traffic. the students I believe in West Virginia. I'm looking Indiana. Yes. So that got the most traction. So but yes, I think there's an all out movement for some state changes. So your vent was uh heard, my response was heard, and perhaps there'll be some action this this legislative season. Don't encourage me to vent more, but I mean I don't know how much more right legislation we need. Fraud is a crime, right? We don't need We don't need another law. Amber South, if you're listening, please don't print another article. A Amber, you have my phone number. Give me a call, please. Okay. Any other questions for the superintendent? Um, President's report, and I didn't mention this, tonight's meeting is going to look a little different because we are having one meeting this month. Uh we're
015flexing some of our time from last week when we had uh a workshop and we have graduation and lots of other things. So we're flexing our ourh school director time this month. We're only going to have one one meeting. So what that's going to mean is as we go through tonight's meeting, it's going to look a little different. uh even to board members. Uh I could potentially see a little probably the biggest difference maybe in the consent agenda items because historically these are items we talk about in the cow before we vote. So when we get to that section, please section five, don't be don't hesitate if you want to pull an item out and discuss it. I mean, you can do that anytime, but especially tonight since we're actually voting on these and if
016you want more information or maybe we need to table something also. Um, yeah. And that concludes my report for tonight. Uh, item Oh, no, it doesn't. I forgot my big item. I did mention this last week and I want to continue to talk about this. Uh last week I mentioned uh our schools of distinction by 2030 program and talking about the bricks and mortar component of that and the corresponding dollars. I just want to keep it in front uh full transparent make sure everyone is understands what the administration is working on some of the items that the board will have to continue to work on and you'll see this in upcoming votes and decisions whereas a lot of focus has been on the past two months with the presentations that you've seen here uh not
017so Chris's presentations in the forums he's covered all of it but a lot of Most of the board discussion here and presentations has been around have been around uh the 456 building and the 78 grade levels and how we restructure those levels. uh one thing that and uh consolidation of elementary but what one component of that is a new elementary building and you know the $200 million number that we all looked at as part of the presentation by uh Mr. fry. Um, you know, it's actually close to 230 240 million because we have to add the one new elementary building in there. So, I just mentioned that. Don't want to scare anyone but it is it is reality and it's all part of our discussions uh presentations and soon to be some votes on on
018how we uh how we go about the implementation of this vision and sometime we'll have our catchy logo to yes talk about too branding is coming branding there you go okay uh moving on to presentation Item 4.01, CVA overview. Are you going to kick us off, Dr. Long? Yes, I am. Thank you. Take it away, my friend. I'd like to introduce the two ladies that are going to present tonight. Um, Mrs. Bobby Stein, she's the director of support services. She will be speaking about the outside cyers. And then Mrs. Heidi Miner, she will be speaking about she's the principal of the CVA, sorry. And, uh, she will be speaking about our own um, online program, which is Chambersburg Virtual Academy. So, Bobby, thank you. I'm going to give you some information on our cyber. You
019might have to hold it, Bobby. I'm not sure. Maybe I can move it around here a little bit. How's that? Everybody hear me? Yeah. Okay. So, as Mark said, I'm going to provide you with a little bit of information on our outside cyber schools and then Heidi is going to uh give you some information on our CVA program. So, uh currently we have about 550 students um enrolled in 12 different cyber schools in Pennsylvania. Um to get our tuition rates, we complete a PD uh 363 form. Each district does that and it uses our budgeted expenditures from the prior year and our ADMs um and you fill out the form and they uh deduct some of our federal um expenses or budgeted expense expenditures um to get our rates. These rates are different for all
020the schools because all of our budgets, you know, are different. Um, there is a form or a link here that you can go out to on your own if you would like to and see the big differences in all of those districts. I think the highest one was about 139,000 for a special ed student and the lowest was about 18. So very very different um really different um cyber enrollment history. You can see here this chart our history from 1819 through 2425. Um there's an increase every year. Um unfortunately um special ed students that increased from 2018 to this year uh 217% increase and then our regular ed was 83%. Um history of our tuition rates you can see the chart here. regular a regular ed and special ed. Our rates in regular ed have
021increased about 39% over the last 10 years and 73% for our special ed rates. Here's a historical outlook of our annual costs. Um and you can see uh 3.6 million up to 7.3 for 2324. Um we don't have the final for this year, but it's going to be over 8 million unfortunately. um an increase of 101% from 2018 to 2324. So a cyber audit was done and I think Chris has um talked about this a little bit before um the cyber audit was to verify residency of all the cyber students that are enrolled in the outside cyber programs. So a letter was uh letter um was sent out. We also did email and phone calls to all of those families. The results that we have to date, we've had 88 um families provide us with
022um acceptable documentation stating that they do live here. Um we've had letters returned. 20 25 all of those have been sent to the cyers. Um Susanna, my office does that. Sends it to them. Lets them know, hey, we got this letter back and they're trying to verify Um whether those people live here or not, it's a slow process. They're not real fast at getting that done. Um but we have verified four students um have been living outside the district and a savings of a little bit over $52,000. So that's good. Um and that's all I have. Turn it over to Heidi. if I may. So suggesting though from all the letters and emails and everything you sent there is over 400 plus that have not even responded whatsoever. That's correct. Yep. So we're we're looking
023at next steps. I think Mark um has reached out to some of the cyers to see if we can work together um and get parents to get back to us on that. And is there any opportunity to go to the state? Do they have any data that might inform? Not that I'm aware of. Thank you. Just just of a strategy, there are school districts that hire people full-time just to go do this because they are catching and people don't reside here, whether it's a retired SRO or someone that did collections. That's a strategy. Um, so yeah, there are opportunities for us if we need to moving forward that we're considering if we don't get better responses or legislative change. for saving 52 grand off of that. I think that might be worth it. Yeah. You
024used to have a homeschool visitor type of thing that, you know, that's more of the social worker side than it is the um uh the big bad wolf showing up. You know, it's more of a security, but we do have a social worker, but they don't do too many home visits. And I think Heidi might be able to respond to that a little bit. Right. Bobby will reach out to us or reach out to us and do home visits just to verify if students are living. Yeah, they just did one today. Um, unfortunately wasn't the result that we wanted, but we had heard a family was moving out of the state and so we went and checked on it. So, I know I live in a simple world sometimes, but you know, if I get
025an invoice for something that I didn't think I bought I don't pay. Is it simply? Is it that simple? And it probably isn't. I'm sure it's not that simple. I'm sure it's not that simple. It's really not that simple. If if Cyber Charter, whoever can't verify that one of those 400 uh students didn't acknowledge where they live, well, you prove and then we'll pay the bill, right? Why? They should be the one. You know, I I dispute bills all the time and you know, sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong. When I'm wrong, I pay the bill. The the challenge we're in legally is I did receive from one of the cyber schools a somewhat direct legal letter that says we have no right to verify residency. Um it's not our job, but you know,
026we're going down the path gently anyway. Um, so there is, again, this is back to the legislative laws and rules because technically they're to do verify their own residencies and we have no business doing it. But when we pay the bill, we we believe we have a little status that we're allowed to do it. So, we're walking a finance or a legal dance a little bit as we go down this path. I don't know if it is a dance, right? We're they can verify it. We just won't pay the bill until they verify it. They take it out. They take it out a subsidy. We don't even get a chance to send the check. They take it if we don't pay it. It's just Yeah. So there's no I'm in the wrong business. There's no
027teeth at all in this at all. Correct. Just just exactly what we've all been saying for 20 years. And that's why we need to be contacting our legislature uh representatives to get it changed. All right. So, good evening. I'm Heidi Maner. I'm the principal of Chambersburg Virtual Academy, which is also known as CBA, formerly known as CAVE. Uh, it is our in district cyber option that we offer our our students uh to keep students in the district rather than losing them to these outside cyber programs. We've had a cyber option in our district for several years. uh since COVID we have or even before COVID um but over the last four years we've really um built up this program. We've our enrollment has increased significantly since pre pre-COVID times and we do now have a
028full-time staff as well. So our full-time staff consists of myself, we have a secretary, our elementary program, we have two full-time teachers. Uh this is currently we have two full-time teachers. We have three part-time itinerant teachers. Those teachers are current elementary teachers who have one day in their rotation where they focus on their CBA students and they might cover high school electives. They might be covering middle school related arts courses or they might be doing the specials in elementary school. So we do have that at the elementary level as well. We have 10 full-time teachers in our secondary program and we have 10 part-time teachers. Those would be maybe a cash's teacher who has a free period in their schedule. So then they're they're covering a CVA course for us. We we don't have a
029full-time science teacher on our staff right now. So we use a couple science teachers from CMS and a couple science teachers from the high school and we also use some teachers to cover our elect some of our elective courses. We do have one full-time special education teacher on staff and we have one teacher who's our middle school math teacher who uh she did add her ESL ESL certification and so now she is the teacher of record for all of our EL students which we currently have about 30 ELS in our program. Our current enrollment, we have 23 elementary students this year or we're ending the year with 23 elementary students. We have and that number has decreased since co. Uh we have 57 middle school students. That number has remained pretty stable over the last
030couple of years and this year we have 293 high school students. That number has definitely increased each year. You can see our enrollment trend here is as the student gets older, that's more likely for them to switch to a cyber school or an online program. And our senior class is by far our largest class of all this year. We have aboutund I think it's 146 students that we're going to end the year with who are seniors. And that's just our full-time virtual seniors that we're talking about. And that's probably an increase from 50 or by 50 from last school year. So we have uh in our totals we have 331 regular ed students and we have 40 special ed students. So given the numbers that Bobby was talking about earlier for our district that's about
031$5 million that we're keeping in our district by having a program like CBA. In addition to our full-time virtual students, we also have 170 students taking CVA courses that are considered hybrid students. Uh there might be a cashes student or a CMS student who needs an extra credit to graduate or they might be trying to get ahead on credits for early graduation. So they might take a course through our program. We have we do serve as the teachers of record for many of the non-traditional type classrooms that we have in the in the pro the programs that we have in the district. For example, these programs that just started this year that River Rock is running. We do provide the academics for those programs. So flexible study is one example. That's a program where students
032who are working can either attend in the morning or in the afternoon. They have teacher support during the day in the classroom, but then they also can uh they but our teachers then they can then go out for their their jobs in the morning or the afternoon. So it's a very flexible schedule for them and they take online courses. We serve as the teachers teachers of record for some of the uh courses at Children's Aid Society. those th there are two full-time CASD teachers there and there's a a regular ed and a special ed teacher located there who are Chambersburg teachers but they don't have certifications in every content area so our teachers then serve as the highly qualified teachers to provide the academics we have two behavior support classrooms that CBA supports we have
033CABS one that's over at the high school and we have CABS 2 that's over here with Ripper Rock those programs are those students take online courses and our teachers do check in with those students regularly. So, it's great to have the full-time staff who have the the flexibility during their school day to visit those classrooms and make sure they connect with those students as well. And then we have the social emotional classrooms at CMS. There's the case classroom and at the two middle schools we have two um connections classrooms. Those are both social emotional and again we're providing the highly qualified teachers of record for those those classes. In addition to the full-time virtual and the hybrid students, we also have credit recovery that we're facilitating. We offer about 20 credit recovery courses. There's about
034600 course enrollments for this school year in credit recovery and that would be approximately 250 students who are taking at least one credit recovery. Some of them are taking more than one credit recovery course. So that number has remained pretty consistent since COVID times with credit recover the need for credit recovery. It may have decreased by about 50 students, but we're still trying to play the catch-up game to get students where they need to be creditwise for graduation. So, if you look at our total enrollment and compare it to the trends here for the last couple of years, you can see our full-time CVA has remained fairly consistent. We're at the high uh 370s. Then when you add the hybrid students, we're in the mid 500s as far as student numbers. And then once you
035add the credit recovery, we're almost to 800 students that we're servicing through Chambers the virtual academy. So, we're not only a full-time virtual program, but we're also providing all these academic opportunities for these non-traditional classrooms and for students who need additional credit. We do use several different online learning platforms. Our teachers do a great job at customizing their courses to meet the needs of different learning styles. So, we don't focus on just one learning platform. The teachers do have Google classrooms that they use some of the resources that have been purchased by the district over the last few years with curriculum resources and they're trying to implement those into their classes as well. So we're not just stuck on one learning platform. We do have many different ones that we are using. We do have
036a student center that's located at cashes stu our virtual students can stop in there during the regular school day. That's where our teachers are located and they can come in for tutoring. They can come in for additional support if they need help with a project or they can just work in a quiet space. Sometimes they just need a quiet space. Their home might be too busy and they have they need just somewhere to focus. So we do have that opportunity at the high school and we do have a few students every day who pop in and that's always nice to see those students because we don't in the virtual world we don't get to see them face to face too often. So that's really nice that we do have that location for them. As far
037as 2526, uh we do have a few changes coming for virtual. We have decided to discontinue our elementary virtual program. As I showed you earlier, our numbers have decreased down to 23 students. So, it's very low enrollment at this time. And one of our district initiatives is to see that students are reading by the end of grade three. And we feel that the way that that's going to happen to reach that goal, students need to be in person with a live teacher every day. And so we are discontinuing that elementary program. We are offering new electives for middle and high school. Every year we're looking at our electives. Um we have over 200 electives that we can offer through e dynamic learning. So we we just don't have teachers to cover all those. So based
038on how many teachers we have, that determines what electives we can offer the following year. We are adding a learning coach role next year. One of my teachers approached me and she has a social work background and she said, "Can I do some use my social work background a little bit in addition to my teaching responsibilities?" And I thought that was a great idea because we have those disengaged students that we don't know what they're doing in our program as well as the outside cyber programs. but we do have those students who aren't engaged with us. So, she'll have some time in her schedule to reach out to those students, do some home visits, check in, help them get started with the program if they need it. And then Christine and her team worked very
039hard at getting us new Chromebooks for next school year. So, that's happening across the um district for elementary and middle school. And all of CVA students you use Chromebooks. So, anybody who's in our full-time program, even if they're a high school student, they get a Chromebook. It just works better with our online learning platforms. So, I appreciate the support with, you know, funding that project for next school year that we have the updated technology because we are in desperate need of it moving forward. But overall, as you can see, CVA does provide in addition provides many opportunities for students across the district. We have our full-time virtual students, but then we have our our hybrid group. And this time of year is particularly exciting because we get to see our seniors. Uh, you know, some
040of them probably wouldn't make it to graduation if they didn't have that opportunity to have a flexible learning environment. So, I'm very thankful for your support and I appreciate it moving forward. Any questions? Mr. Yes. Uh thank you Heidi. I appreciate all that information. I've just got a couple questions. One is with respect to uh say River Rock and the flexible study that you mentioned. I'm assuming that there are resident teachers at River and then a student may be inclined to take a course via CVA and can do so. So the way that that works is there is a special education teacher, there's a regular education teacher that River Rock provides, plus they also provide a behavior coach, a counselor, maybe it's two behavior coaches and a counselor. So those teachers are the ones who
041are in the classroom with the students each day. But all of the academics, all of the courses are taken through CBA. So, if they're taking English nine, they are in the classroom with a a regular teacher or a special education teacher who is part of River Rock staff, but they're teacher of record and and for their academics, they're connected with CBA teachers. So, there's no content specific teachers at River like an English teacher or a math teacher. It's just a coach or support teacher. Thank you. And um with respect to the part-time teachers that are here at CVA Mhm. Um you mentioned the student center. That's where the teachers are located. But if a part-time teacher is going to pop in for a class, can they do that remotely or they have to be in
042physically? They can. They all teachers are required to have live sessions every week. So there is a time that during that one period of the day they'll have their virtual office hours or they'll have their live session where they're covering content, reviewing for tests, quizzes, whatever is coming up in their class. So uh the part-time teachers unfortunately don't have the flexibility like our full-time ones do, but they still have that opportunity during the school day to connect with students. And one last question is you mentioned discontinuing the elementary CVA. Is that because of a dwindling um participation or just progress is really not there? So we have seen the decline in the enrollment plus we have the district initiative and and we just really believe as a district that we want these kids to be
043in person at that level, right? Um bu building those foundational skills is very difficult. We have awesome teachers in our elementary program. They've been great. but um they're not the students still don't have the full experience that our in-person students are getting. I think personally that's the right decision. Thank you. Um uh I have some questions. Can you what makes a student want to go to your program and it sounds very wellrun and I can't believe you're doing this amazing work but why why enroll in this program? So there's there's lots of different reasons. There's ever since COVID, we've had an increase in mental health issues. So students, you know, we we do see that a lot where students just can't handle being at school, so they choose the virtual option. We have a lot
044of seniors this year because um they were no longer able to do senior privilege and many of them are working jobs and many of them were doing dual enrollment and so they're taking this opportunity to take their courses online so they can meet these for their goals when they graduate. So some of them have jobs already for after they graduate because they've been working and and been experienced in those over the year. How are your graduation rates? our graduation rates. We have 146 seniors this year and I'm pretty confident that a hund about 120 of them will definitely graduate. Um we do have some students who started the year very credit deficient. So we knew that they weren't going to graduate this year and then we have some students, you know, who got disengaged throughout
045the year and we we saw them fall off a little bit. But hopefully, you know, we can get them back on track even if they return next school year. The state the statewide average on on uh cyber schools is around 50 to 60% graduation rates. Wow. So, we we actually have a pretty good success rate with our seniors. Okay. I just want to tell you, thank you for your presentation and and I I was adding up the numbers as you were going through it and I'm just impressed with the different avenues that you are helping kids with and you know in an alternative situation instead of being in school and so I appreciate all that work that you're doing. Thank you. Um this question may be for you or maybe someone else also. Um what
046are we currently paying for students in building for regular and special ed? like ballpark. Does anybody know? Um, so our elementary tuition is a little over 10,000 and secondary is a little over 11,000 and those figures are based on our AFR that is submitted um and utilizing our ADMs and the special ed students. that's kind of a different ballpark because we pay for speech or if a student has a PCA. So, it's not really a flat, you know, special ed rate like the cyers are. So, in that estimation, are we paying more for some students to go to cyber and some in building? Does it vary or is it I would say that we're paying more for cyber students. um because probably some of them would not or maybe I shouldn't make this assumption but
047I wouldn't think that all kids would be successful in the cyber program based on their needs. Um I don't know what they all are. They don't tell us. Um you know sometimes they enroll there and they were special ed here and they become um or they were regular ed here and they become special ed there. But so it would be really nice if we had a flat rate and then we were charged for base, you know, whatever their services were that they received in cyber school. And so there's basically what I'm hearing and understanding and please correct me if I'm wrong is that we as a school district really have absolutely no way to verify, justify, identify a lot of the things that go on in these cyber charter schools. And so we are handcuffed.
048They send us a bill and whether it's happening or not, they take it or we pay it. I mean, that's a very broad brush to paint it with, but I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that there's really not a lot of accountability. There's really not a lot of, you know, because I know if we find out that a kid is coming to us that lives in Greencastle, see you. You know, that we understand that that happens. So, the fact that that's not happening at the cyber level is a little unfair, for lack of a better term. So, I just want to make sure I was grasping that correctly. The other question that I have, um, if they do the legislation to cap this, what, if any, changes would we see here with
049CVA specifically or with some of those outside charters besides, you know, the money obviously would be would be one of those things. But would it change what you're doing at CVA potentially? I guess ultimately it could. That would be a question for Mr. Bigger maybe. But um I do think that our program is providing lots of different opportunities even for in-person students. So I would hope that the program would continue moving forward. If if I know she looked at me because we her and I've talked about in the future she would love to have one of the vacated buildings to maybe build a little cyber school where kids physically come maybe two days a week, three days a week and do a legitimate hybrid. like that would be her dream I think where she would
050have space not just a room where you you just create a different environment what the kids are seeking so we certainly can't deliver on that now but if you're asking her as a true CVA cyber person and you see schools cyber schools doing that now there's now brick and mortar up in Shippensburg they're they're heading to the same place which is half in school and and half online so I think that's where we would head if we could certainly muster up and want to continue down this path and unfortunately virtual education has gotten a bad reputation since COVID. Um, that was a scramble. But what we do with our students, I feel like we are building those relationships. We're connecting with them. They're not just left on their own as maybe they would be at
051a outside cyber. Like our teachers are I I have a great team of teachers. They they do a great job. I think it that's with anything is that people start it with the best of intentions and then people without the best of intentions get their hands on it or see it potentially as a money grab and then it kind of goes off the rails which that would be each individual program being evaluated and it seems like you guys have it in hand and you really have the students first as your mentality and I appreciate that. I really appreciate the presentation and and allowing me to understand. Bobby, I did have one more question. Sorry. um what you said that it's based on because I looked I went out to the little um the link and
052those numbers even I saw fan metal is paying more than we are for regular education but the same is special education which I just think is fascinating within the same county and then like you said you have from 18,000 in special ed to 63,000 and then that one outlier was like 139 but what are ADMs you use that acronym and I don't average daily membership Okay, thank you. That's all. Appreciate it. All right. Go ahead. Go ahead, L. I have just uh one question on the special ed rates of increase 73% over the what what is just curious. What why why would that increase 73%. That's a huge jump. It is. It is a huge jump. And it it's all based on those numbers that we we put into the the form. Go to the
053chart. Yeah, I I can answer that one, Bobby. It's it's really based on our budget. Um, and because we've seen our special education budget increasing significantly over the period of time, that's why we're seeing an increase going to the cyber charter schools. That makes sense. In addition, that sometimes they go in as a regular ed student and then the cyber school uh puts an IEP with the child and then we are paying a lot more. Yeah. And to the point that Bobby made, our special education fees per student vary. It depends on the severity of the child's need. And so it's really an unfair formula when you're taking that considering that we've got some really high cost needs children and you're assuming that a child that maybe needs speech is costing the same amount which
054is what's happening when we pay tuition to the cyber charters. There's no difference. And there's been a high APS that have been I guess probably since CO I'm guessing maybe a little bit before that. Yeah. Yeah, the state average is uh 20% in brick and mortar schools, but the average for cyber charters is around 30% for students attending with IEPs. Mr. Yeah, one more question for Heidi if I may. So, I saw that for instance in the uh ESL you said we had a teacher just received a certification can now be prepared to do that modality. in is it true that cybermies outside of the district there's no requirement for them to have certified cert you know teachers with certifications so is that I'll take no they have to have certified teachers they do and
055I will say anecdotally um they have 50 to 60 applicants for every job we're competing with cyber school that has no problem getting teachers we've lost teachers to cyber schools it's more attractive for a whole host of reasons Um, there was a board meeting that one of the cyber schools had and this was presented at the conference I was at. They're getting 50 to 60 applicants per job. They have no problem filling their jobs for teachers and we're competing with that and we have 12 positions I believe right now that are not certified teachers we're working on, but it's a it's a really challenging landscape. Another reason legislatively something needs to happen. And the salaries comparable at the at the cyber charters as well. They have the same retirement system that we have as public
056school educators. So, do they have a more flexible schedule then? Because you said there's just inerson time x amount of days a week. So, they're not having to be at a certain place at a certain time other than maybe I think each one runs a little bit differently and I can't speak to how each one of them operates, but um I I would say that there are some that allow their their staff to work from home. Okay. And so that's enticing for Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Although it's very different. I have experience with online learning from 25 plus years ago whenever I did my bachelor's and more my masters because I'm my bachelor's was um not online. But um there are some students that even at a college level are not cut out to be
057online learners. And you know I had fellow nurses who entered the same program that I w was in and were not successful because they couldn't commit to the to online learning. And so I know that many of these students probably are like those people. They just aren't cut out to do it. And that's one thing I do appreciate about our program is when we see that students are not successful, we will ask them to return in person. Unfortunately, that's how we lose some of our students then because they know they can go to an outside cyber and they're not going to have those same requirements. I think a message I want to end with on the cyber for me is we don't object to school choice as long as the choice is quality, right? And
058the rules of the game are the same. Again, so I I I if the rules of the game are the same and the quality is there, sign us up, you know. Um, so I don't want to overly bash cyber schools too much. If the quality is there, I'm for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 4.02 Placement of Students Outside CSD. Dr. Long and Kurt Thank you. Dr. Long just handed out a document. We're not going to be displaying it tonight. I'm going to explain a little bit uh why um Mr. Bigger surveyed the board a couple months ago about some things you wanted to hear more about. And this topic was one of the the items that some of the board members wanted to hear. So, what you have this evening in front of
059you is all about our district placements. Um, some of it I'm going to go over, some of it I'm not because when it gets down to, uh, like students placed in numbers, when it gets down to one or two students, that could be kind of identifiable. So, uh, I did give you all the information. There's no student names in here for the public. Um, when it the last page, it's district placements. uh we have a description a program description of each place. You approve a lot of contracts throughout the year and this helps you with those uh types of placements. Like tonight we have um a contract that deals with education at two of these places through the CIU, the Capital Area Intermediate Union. So I'm going to start at the top. Like I said,
060I'm going to do generics in the end. If you have specific questions, if you would email me those specific ones, then I can put it in the board folder and and uh email it out so you can see what the questions were. Um if you have generic questions, I'll be glad to take those at the end of the night. So um we have an administrative review pro process. If a student gets in trouble or let's say we'll we'll go a couple different routes. I'm going to give you example. One, a student might get in a couple different fights. If it starts to become habit forming then they do a building level review. If it continues then the principal may ask for a administrator review that's done over here with the superintendent, a school psychologist, the
061principal from the sending school and the counselor and we go over all the student information, the behaviors that are bringing them to that. Um if that is if it's a 10-day suspension or less, they do that building level review. There are some things that automatically trigger an administrator review and that is violation of policies. If they bring a weapon, if they're selling maybe drugs in school, uh, or something like a terroristic threat, that'll automatically bring them over for administrative review, which takes us down to the next box that if approved, then they have to provide us all the information and we have a formal meeting with the parents and the student and the folks that I mentioned. The administrative review can result in numerous outcomes. One, the student can with some more supports go back
062to their school like normal in the same classes, but it could be more supports. It could be that the student goes back to the same school, might enter our behavior classroom at cashes or or at uh CMS and have more supports. It could be that they enter our DAO program here at the end of the hallway. Um, on the back of the first page, I have that outlined. So, this year, we've had 54 administrative reviews that have come across the street uh that Dr. Long and myself have conducted along with Becca Petershine. And I do want to thank Becca because she put together most of this document. And some of the data also came from uh Bobby here behind me. Um, so we had 54 admin reviews this year. It I give you a breakdown
063of the student demographics there. I'm not going to go into specifics. You can read that about the students. So how many were middle school, high school, special ed, elellls, and etc. Out of the 54, seven were expelled for violating policies. Uh they did sign the parents and student agreed to sign a a waiver. Now, if they didn't and they wanted to have a formal hearing, that is where you would come in where we'd have a judiciary review. That involves three school board members. Uh some of our school board members that have been here a little bit longer have been through some of those. Um but that's when we have three school board members represent the board. Uh we bring in a court stenographer and we have a very formal meeting. Uh where it's basically like,
064you know, just think about maybe being in court. Uh and then there's a recommendation made by the three board members. Um then it comes to a board vote, but with the waiver, the parents sign a waiver that they agree with the expulsion and that they wave it, but the board still has to approve that and you've done that uh seven times this year through board meetings. So our outcomes, I was talking a little bit about the outcomes um and the numbers there. Several have returned to the building with just additional supports, but they're in their normal schedule. Several have returned. I'm not going to say the number, but several have returned and they've gone to a different classroom within the school, whether it's connections, whether it's the social emotional classroom or the behavior classroom. Uh,
065five we have put down here at the the DAO. Um, several have gone to the virtual academy that Heidi just spoke about as a choice. One of those has been one of our students that was uh expelled. It was the right fit for that student. We've talked a little bit about the River Rock uh Academy that is in Carlile and that is the Aedy program which stands for the alternative ed program for disruptive youth. We have to apply to the state to place a student there. Uh we have a contract with them that you approve for a certain amount of seats each year. the rest of the the ones that I have, they're in different colors. Um, under the district placements, the only other one that we have a seat aotment is yellow brereeaches where
066we have a seat seat aotment there for some of our special ed students. The rest of them are singletons and you approve each one of those uh because they are very generally very unique with what the child needs. And I won't get into too much more detail there because I there's a program desri description. Many of those are special ed. And when you look at our district placements, many of those placements, most of the students are special ed that go there and have very unique or really individualized uh needs. So, um, 14 did result this year because of policy violations that we actually do a no trespass letter that we say that, you know, this child cannot be on any school district property. Uh, they may attend the high school, but we'll say you can't
067even be on an elementary. If you live close to elementary school, you can't be on the playground there or things like that. So, um, that's an overview. I don't know if you have any generic questions tonight. If you have any very specific, you know, once again, I'd say please email me and I'll get them back to the to the board. Generic question. On the last page, I see that it says five are in jail. So, how do we educate the ones who are incarcerated? Uh, it depends where there are. Uh, generally the the IU uh takes care of that for us. Okay. Um and the one thing I did forget to say we have not included so in in this how many students that we have placed the total number 71 currently that we place
068there's 59 that we are financially responsible for their education throughout the state and for a variety of reasons. Um those are the ones that you just brought up. Uh it could be students that are in a mental health facility. There's several across the state. Could be a treatment facility. There's many that are getting medical needs whether it's in Pittsburgh, Hershey Medical Center, the the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Uh so wherever they're located, uh we get a bill from that IU. So, there's several every year that we get from the uh from the students that are at the CHOP in Philadelphia uh because of medical needs, but we have a total currently 59 that uh Bobby told me this week that's that are out there right now. Uh I have one generic too. Uh Kirk, so
069if a student qualified to be a special ed student and they're determined to best be served, if they go to say the Hoffman Academy or one that's like kind of specialized or unique, their special ed condition is not such that they would need to go to like the Franklin Learning Center. It's just something less severe but more of a behavioral condition. That's a great question. you know, each we take in consideration each student and their individual needs. Um, you know, I'll I'll talk about a place that we have down in Haggartown as a great example. A student that has very high emotional needs that may be special ed may go to Brook Lane. Um, a student that has some mental health and maybe some behavioral challenges could go to a Hoffman homes. uh a student
070that is special ed but also could be on probation may go to Diaon Center point. So we have a team that gets gets together that's part of the decision-m it's also an IEP meeting when we have an IEP student. If we have a student that violates a policy we have to do a manifestation of determination. So, it's actually a separate meeting that has to happen first before it comes to the admin review or or even the judicial review. And we have to answer a couple questions whether are their behaviors a manifestation of their disability. Um, you I know Dr. Diller would be very aware was probably been part of many of those meetings, but all of our ones that are special ed that we're looking at placements, we generally have another meeting like that. That's
071generally done without the decision makers in the room like Dr. Long or myself would not be part of that. That'd be a school psychologist. That would be a principal, a counselor, and their special ed teacher of record and one of our directors uh supervisors special ed would be in there and they would conduct that meeting, the manifestation determination meeting. having heard that and that's just one area that when I sat out there as a community member listening and if I ever thought anything was simple in the school district, boy was I ever wrong. Thank you. These these meetings take a lot of preparation um and a lot of time and they're they're very unique. It's generally a different scenario every time that comes to you. So, thank you. You're welcome. Other questions? Okay, no questions.
072Just thank you. This is really, really helpful. Well done. Appreciate all that together. 4.03 food [Music] service. Bobby, Jared, who's on first. And we we will need guidance on this one. Correct. At some point on this one. So, this is more thanformational. Turn this, right? Okay. Not tonight, but yeah, we're going to let Jared kick this off. All right. Good evening. Uh, thank you for your time here this evening, uh, as we go over the C or community eligible program. Uh, I'll start off by saying we did something very similar to this presentation a couple years ago. Uh, so we obviously have some updates, but uh, as far as the educational side of what the program is and stuff, I apologize for the repetitiveness, but want to make sure everybody understands what it is. Okay,
073so C, community eligible, uh, allows for free breakfast and lunch in qualifying locations. Uh, and this started with the healthy, hungry, free kids act back in 2010. uh Chambersburg school district started participating in 1415. Uh and the buildings are considered eligible based on the percentage of directly certified students. So a directly certified student was be somebody that automatically qualifies under a government program such as uh SNAP, TANF and uh Medicaid Medicare. uh buildings currently qualify at 25%. Okay, there's the quick calculations on how that all works. ISP or identified student percentage um and how you get that and then there's a sample underneath there. Okay. All the calculations are done building specific. Um but there currently is allowed grouping of schools where the schools would then anybody involved in the group could be compiled together
074total their enrollment total their direct certifications and that gives you your ISP. Okay. reimbursements under C uh is the ISP is that percentage is multiplied by a factor of 1.6 and that 1.6 is set by the USDA. Okay. Um then we have some samples of what that looks like uh under those reimbursements with certain ISPs. 40% is where it used to be a couple years ago as a qualifying uh ISP percentage. uh but in October of 23 they lowered it to 25%. Our district currently has an ISP of uh 58.88 with a reimbursement rate of 94.21%. As you can see there, there's the the list of current C schools. Um, all of our elementaryaries and the FLC all currently participate in the C program. Uh, so a little background here on how uh the program
075works a little bit before we get into this option. I wanted to talk about the fact that when you're figuring out who's going to be in a C program, uh, and you're doing your grouping, uh, you have to regroup every four years. Um, but you are allowed to, um, regroup every year that you feel like it benefits the district more. So when we started this, every time we've updated it, uh it's to benefit the program, benefit the district as far as the reimbursement. Uh so this year we are currently in uh year one of a new cycle. Uh so we would be we would have to um do this over again in three more years um unless we regroup at some point prior to that. So under option one you can see there um revenue.
076So revenue is our reimbursement and cash together. um expenses. You'll notice in all of the options I'm presenting here this evening, excuse me, that the uh which I'm going to throw in a little thank you all very much for helping support our department with increases this for this past school year seen a significant increase in staffing. Um and I think that's going really well. So, thank you board for supporting us on that. But you'll see, like I said, the expenses stay the same in all three. Again, just based on current participation rates, current pricing, and all that kind of thing. All right. So, all of the schools that we have, like I said, the all the elementaryaries and FLC are are in our current option. So, if we would remain there for next year, you're
077able to see where we would be looking at. uh do want to point out that the cost to the district would be potential student debt which is total estimation based on um you know where we've been and and how this year is looking and everything like that. So that's option one. Again, if we would stay with this, next year would be year two of that cycle. Option two, adding the middle schools. So, you'll notice revenue drops a little bit because we're no longer getting the cash because we would have to put in this year's ISP percentage. It would drop uh dropping our reimbursement rate. So, we wouldn't get as much reimbursement and then we'd lose the cash. Like I said there, we would still have some potential debt um at the high school levels. Uh
078so uh based on all this, food service would have a net loss of about 174,000 and the total a total cost to the district uh totaling the potential student debt and the food service net position would be about 209,000. And again, I know I'm saying it over and over again, but with option two and then you'll see here again in option three, that would be the first year of a four-year cycle. So we would have to stick with those or we could stick with those for four years or if we found our numbers would improve, we could regroup. Option three, uh creating a new group that would have all schools participate in the C program. Again, you see the revenue drop even more. Uh ISP drops, reimbursement rate drops. Uh the one positive with this
079would be that would eliminate all student debt based on current district policies. Um so the food service net position would lose about 605,000 and the total total cost to the district because they would not have to pay for student debt anymore would be down to 541,000. I'm going to let Bobby take over from here. Thank you, Jared. Um, so just to talk about the sustainability of these options that we've presented. Um, currently the food service fund has approximately 400 $4 million. Um, and so we've laid out what option two and option three would look like. Um, the program cost for option two would be slightly over $800,000. We've estimated equipment replacement um at about 200,000 per year. Our equipment is aging. Um a lot of it is over 20 years. Um and and Jared has
080been fixing and replacing things and we feel that the need in that is probably going to grow. Um so under option two um we'd have an ending balance of a little bit over $2.3 million. Under option three, um the program cost would be a little over $2 million to the district. The equipment replacement the same $800,000 and again that's an estimate um with a ending balance of about a million a million dollars. And I want to say um in the past, Jared said this as well, but staffing was always an issue um when we presented before because we didn't feel that we had enough staff, you know, to increase our participation in these programs, but um our staffing is in a great place now. So, thank you. Um we owe that to you in approving
081the food service agreement. So, some potential impacts. Um, there's some current legislation out there that we've been following. Um, there is talk about increasing the ISP percentage to 60%. That would be detrimental to this program. We would only have about three schools that qualify currently. Um, the other thing is removing the option to group like we do now. So, you're grouping all those numbers together, you know, to get an ISP. Um, if we remove that option and we have 60%, we would probably only be able to have three three schools and that's at our current configuration of our buildings. Um, so with the grade reconfigurations, um, there's concern there in the future just not knowing what that's going to look like. We have no way of knowing after a four-year cycle, you know, what the
082numbers will look like. Um, also rising equipment costs, increases in food and supplies, um, potential replacement of our warehouse equipment. Um, one good thing is we do see um that we may have a increase in our alle cart. students that are paying for their lunches would not have to pay then therefore having money for alle cart. So our recommendations um we gave you three different options one um to maintain what we have two adding the middle schools and three districtwide. Um to be conservative we're recommending option two. um we feel this is a lesser of the financial impacts um between two and three um and also the unknown or uncertainties of um the legislative changes which again would be detrimental. So our next um next step would be um to go to the board meeting
083at June 3rd and present an option for you to vote on. Are there any questions about anything that we've provided tonight? Yes, if I may. Um, I just like to know specifically, you mentioned the legislative issues that may be on the table. Mhm. So, you suggesting perhaps at the federal level that may eliminate certain programs or reduce funding that that may impact who qualifies now and that how it affects the ISP that work. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. I actually have a couple questions if you don't mind. Um, I looked at the slide and I did send some things along. I think Chris forwarded it along to you because I try not to catch people off guard because I don't appreciate that. Yeah. Just so you kind of know where I'm coming from, what
084I'm looking at. We already get nervous. So, appreciate that. Exactly. So, that way you have a heads up so you have something. Yeah. Exactly. Um, my first one was like for the option one, if we could go back to that slide. I just want to make sure I'm understanding what I'm seeing. Mhm. Um and any of those I guess would do. So for option one, if we left it just where it is now with the elementary schools, then the only real cost to the district would be the $50,000 in student debt. Correct. And so then in option two, when it moves down, you see the student debt decrease, but the cost of the district increases because your revenue is coming down. Yes. Okay. So the student debt would go down because we would be taking
085the middle schools out and removing the student debt in that program. You're also losing some revenue from our paid students. Okay. As well as reimbursement. Okay. Yeah. And I saw the reimbursement rate come down pretty significantly. Um are there students currently that are being refused meals because of not having monies? Never. That's not happening. students can get a a meal. Okay. So then in this case for me, why would you prefer option two over option one? Because if all the kids are still getting meals, the cost to the district is significantly more in two and three where you would just be dealing with the debt in option one. So we were trying to be conservative in giving the opportunity of free meals to more students. Um, also with the legislative changes, um, students K through
086eight we could still keep in this group. Um, and they they would still have this option unless the legislative changes, you know, come down the pike. So, we were just trying to add more kids and still be conservative. Um, we can offset our cost with our food service fund. Less impact, but still offering more to kids. And so is this only offered I know you said about the four-year cycle, but I remember and I even said in 2023 you guys committed and presented and um we're talking about how that was going to go then. So here we are in 2025 having this same conversation. My concern about and maybe you kind of answered it is that if we would agree to let's say option two which is your recommendation um can we re-evaluate that every
087year? Yes. we're not stuck to it because once we do the grade reconfiguration, if you have all these elementary schools that are currently eligible, we pull two grades out of there for the grade reconfiguration, are they then going to change and what's that going to do? Um, so but we would be able to each year you guys could say, "Okay, we now see this trend coming and then you could maybe regroup or and some of it sounds like the legislation." Um along those same lines, at that same board meeting in 2023, um you had mentioned, I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that there was potential for the universal program to do the 100% funding. I'm assuming that since you just mentioned this new legislation that that is probably no longer on the
088table because my understanding at that meeting was one of the reasons you didn't want to jump full boore into expanding it at the time was because if you went for the 60% and then they came through with the universal you'd have to stay at the 60% you weren't eligible. Is that correct at the time? So, excuse me. So, again, there there's always legislation out there. Um, things can always change. Uh, so two years ago when we started the conversation, it actually changed slightly in the fall. Uh, dropping it down to 25%. In my opinion, it honestly was very misleading, implying that, oh, now more schools qualify. Yes, more schools qualify, but the amount of reimbursement didn't change. So it would drop significantly. Um and so there is uh currently in the school food code or
089school code in Pennsylvania that all students eat breakfast for free at every grade level throughout the state of Pennsylvania. That is part of school code. That would have to change in order for that to ever change in the future. Whether we're C or not, every student qualifies for uh free breakfast. At the state level, there is always, I don't want to say always, I would say over the last quite a few years, there's been discussion of can the state handle the difference in reimbursement and offer universal free to all students in Pennsylvania at every or at every meal at breakfast and at lunch. Um, that hasn't gone through yet. So, that was a discussion. Then uh at the federal level it's look the there's potential well the legislation's again out there but um the answer
090is quite simply we have no idea um when we've talked to people we have no idea what's going to happen when it's going to happen but there's legislation out there that's going to make it a lot more difficult to qualify. um we have no answers because when we reach out to those that know, they don't know either. So, we're just we want to make sure everybody's aware of what those potential um possibilities are out there. So, and maybe this is not a question for you, but as you've said things, and this was not on the list that I did send, but it just kicked something off in my brain. Um because I know we I know. Don't you love how that works? I was like, "Oh, that makes me think about this." So I know
091we have how many are at or below poverty in the district roundabout number that would qualify? It was 61% free and reduced last year I think. Okay. So we're down to the 50s this year. Of those 61% can do you know or have a way of knowing how many of them are actually utilizing the the free and reduced lunch portion? Uh I could get you that. I don't have it with me. I'm just curious because I'm wondering if if we do if we do this even with the middle school, is there a group of people out there that aren't aware that they have this eligibility and how can we let them know if we're going to offer this? Hey, you're now eligible for this too because I think maybe people don't you don't know what
092you don't know and so if that's something we're going to do and it's about getting that out there. I'm curious as to how many people currently that have the ability to apply for that or whatever the case might be know that they actually are eligible for that and if we could find that out and then figure out a way to maybe you know and maybe that's beyond the scope of what we're doing but if we're going to do something to offer it to other people to make sure that they know it's being offered because otherwise what's the point in offering it if no one's going to utilize you know I just want to clarify so free and reduced application is different than directly certified, which is what qualifies um for this program. Um so students
093and families that qualify for SNAP, Medicaid, those government agency um funding, they have to fill out an application and go through that process and that is what qualifies the for C. Okay. So free and reduced applications are families fill that out on their own. It's income based. Um, and we have heard that those applications, well, Jared sees them. Um, they are tough for some families to fill out. Um, we've actually, on a side note, been working with some people to to get some community support and helping families, okay, fill those out. But those two things are kind of separate. Well, that's good to know. I did not know that. And then we do do advertising. Well, we'll say marketing, um, you know, and let people know who's C. We try to do that um, in
094the beginning of the year. uh Brian Miller who's here helps us out with that and signs and things like that. And so then are you told who qualifies like based on who's on the SNAP and stuff like that? That's not a number that you have to gather. Yes. So directly certified students we get it's basically automatically shipped to us. Okay. Um obviously over software. Okay. Um but we're told that when we get that information um and obviously first week of July our secretary Jennifer is under the gun. She's got hundreds of things to take care of at literally thousands of directly certified students that we now notify. Um most of the time we're notifying uh both with regular mail and with email letting the families know you've been automatically directly certified. you'll be receiving free
095meals, free or free breakfast, free lunch, uh throughout the year. Um yeah, so thank you. I appreciate that clarification. I did not know that those were two separate entities. So, thank you so much for the presentation. I appreciate it. Other questions? I I have one. I think um the reserve balance. So, congratulations that you have a reserve balance. Not all school districts run into the positive. Are there limitations on what you can spend the reserve balance on and what are those limitations? Yes. Okay. So, uh, food service money can only be sent spent on food service equipment, um, supplies, staffing, all of those kind of things. Um, so you you we're just talking about all the the reconfiguration and everything like that. food service couldn't sponsor the building of a new um you know a
096new building or something like that. Could we buy the new equipment for in the kitchen? Yes, we could help with that. Um but even uh e even cafeteria like where the students eat, if that's at all used for any other purpose, food service can't spons I'm I'm a part of a whole bunch of different groups. uh our Pittsburgh regional food service director buying group, South Central area food service directors. And so we're always talking about this and uh a couple of districts have done some renovations and start putting in, oh, we want to buy the the new cafeteria tables. Nope, can't do it. Immediately denied because unless you can prove that it's only for food service, which it never is. You know, there's sometimes there's classes in there, sometimes there's other stuff. So, and the
097followup to that is, is there a maximum amount you can have on reserve? So, yeah, basically I've been getting a slap in the wrist the last couple years because we've been so high, but my answer to them has always been until basically this year. I'm I'm trying to put together the funds to be able to tear down and rebuild a whole new uh walk-in fridge and freezer uh for the food service department. Well, that's not going to happen right now. So, you know, we're trying to figure that out. So, I need to have some other answers. Pizza for everybody. I have I have two things. First of all, periodically on our agenda, there are community entities that donate money towards student debt. And I'd just like to thank those people, organizations, whatever. um because that
098is really really a very wonderful thing that organizations do that. Um secondly, everybody who's been on the board very long knows how passionate I am about C and food insecurity. Um food insecurity is not limited to children who are directly certified under these federal programs. Food insecurity occurs even in middle class families whose parents choose to use their money for things that are not food related and I know that from personal experiences that I won't go into. Uh adding the middle school students to the universal free breakfast lunch program will help with that food insecurity for the most vulnerable students. Likewise, I see the potential for improved attendance. Research shows, even in the juvenile justice system, that recidivism in juvenile facilities is often due to basic needs like food and housing not being provided to
099students. And it's better to be in a facility than to be wherever you live or are supposed to be living. And so I think that by adding the middle schools, first of all, middle school is such a pivotal time as I see it and I am just thrilled that we are considering adding the middle schools. Certainly, I would love to see the state of Pennsylvania have universal uh meals. I would love for us to be able to afford to have high school as well as middle school, but if we can add middle school and especially if my theory that having a free meal at school may get a few students coming to school who are not coming to school. Attendance issues is another passion of mine and you can't learn if you're not in school.
100Yeah. And so I would encourage the board to give serious consideration to option two. Would I like to see option three? Yes. But it's not realistic in my opinion. And so, um, I would hope that maybe the costbenefit ratio can be looked at in another year or two. Maybe our situation as far as legislation will change positive instead of negative. Who knows the future? I've been around long enough to know that what I think's going to happen often isn't what actually happens. It's the reason I don't lose any sleep over very many things because what I worry about never happens and what I didn't worry about is what happens. And so I just want to say thank you for at least considering adding the middle school students. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah,
101I don't I don't have a question, but I just want to say thank you to Fay for what she just shared. I I agree wholeheartedly. I I really like option two. Give it a year or two and see what happens and then depending on where the numbers work out and if there's funds for it, let's let's look at option three then in a year's time and we may need to pull back. I'm not saying it could go the other way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But why not go to option two for next year? Yeah. And this is all out of This is not any line item, right? It's spending down you not get your hand slapped, right? It's spending down the money that he's in trouble for having. Okay. Uh board the consent agenda items. Um,
102I think before I ask Chris and your No, we'll do the normal thing. Chris and your team, uh, any items that you want to elaborate on specifically, please. I only have a comment on 522. Thanks to Brian for working on the sponsorships and agreements. So, I appreciate that, Brian. Uh, it was a nice one to see this week. So, more to come hopefully. Other than that, I do not I don't know if anyone else has any they want to comment on at this time. Okay. So, we're going to go to the board. Uh we're going to vote on all these tonight. So if there's any item that a board member would like to separate out for maybe some questions you have of the administration or you foresee it maybe wanting a separate action from the
103bulk of the items. Um I would like to pull 5.04 the um tax assessment appeal for Mahaven to get more information about it. 5.04 4. Any other items? I'd like to pull 507. I've got a couple minor comments or questions. Okay, please. 507. Others, please. I'm going to have a question on 522. going once. Okay. Uh need would like a motion to approve um with all the items with the exception of 507 and 5.22. Motion to approve. Second motion by Mr. Hadock. Second by Mrs. Gaus. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it and so moved. We'll go down through these in order. Uh 5.04. Um let's have a motion and then a second and then we can begin our discussions or questions. move on. Or if we don't
104have anything, then it just stays there. Okay. All right. 504. We wanted that pull to have discussion on that. Is that right? And that's what that's where we are. So before we discuss it, we would need a motion and second then we Yeah, I'll make a motion. Okay. Okay. I'll second. Motion by Mr. Rabber, second by Miss Harbaugh. Okay. Questions, discussions, comments. Mrs. Goggler, you may go first. Your item. Um, I think that that we need to have clarification on the Menah Haven status considering that they have had some significant uh changes in their operations as far as the buildings that they are using now for various uh purposes. Um I I'm not saying that we would not be approving it, but I think we just need clarification um and a better understanding of what
105the uh pilot agreement is there with um Manah Haven. Mr. Bigger, could we get a map like a visual? Yeah. Yeah. For that at some point that would help. I believe so. But we could do a Google map. You want a map of all the parcels or Yeah. Just so we have an understanding of the topographical map. I think for the if someone could open the attachment for the Yeah. The parcels I believe are in there. The identified parcels. The parcels are listed, right? But not where they are. The request is maybe a map of the parcels is Mr. Rabers's request, I think. And Mrs. scholar I think is you know what have the uses of any of these parcels changed or assessed value or improvements or anything? So, if uh the board would like
106more time to get some more information, we would need a motion to table. Please make a motion to table. Second. Okay. Motion by Dr. Diller, second by Mrs. Goggler. Uh questions, comments? All those in favor to table item 5.04 signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed? Eyes have it. Item is tabled. Uh we will move that to our June meeting. Uh because we do have a timeline uh for this by the end of June, I believe. Correct. Okay. Item 5.07. Uh, a motion and second, please. And then Mr. Haydock, you can ask your question. Move to approve. Second. Motion by Mrs. Goggler, second by Mr. McKe. Um, my question is, um, are we anticipating the buses will be delivered and in service prior to the next school year? Yes, we we are. And uh do
107we have any confirmation at this point or will we soon to know uh if the buses are currently in the inventory of the company we're purchasing them from or we're waiting on any kind of manufacturing or anything? No, these are all used buses that are part of the fleet that they currently exist and they rotate them in and out. So that's what they're being bid on. All right. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, I I would love to love for us when as we think about buses to continue to keep our eyes on Fay knows what I'm going to say. There's going to be uh um I I my understanding is that there was uh I think the last time we had this discussion I talked about electric buses and I know
108the the cost on the front end is quite pricey but I'm curious to know like at what you know if we did analysis on this at what price point if we had a grant for x amount of dollars then it would be worth it for us to pursue that and I think right now at this point like we don't know where that number is, you know, if it's a $25,000 grant, well, that doesn't do anything. I mean, it it does something, but, you know, we're not going to pursue that, right? But there is a there is a number where if it got to this level, and so I would just love to see some costbenefit analysis over the life of a bus to know what is that number for us, you know, if there's a
109grant out there because I think the last time that we had this discussion, there were some grants, but we missed not that we necessarily would have applied anyways, right? Um, but I would like us to be in better position if it were to make sense for us to move that direction. Um, while uh the upfront cost is high, your ongoing cost is much lower, the maintenance is lower, the gas costs are lower. Um, I mean, there's no gas cost, but there's electric and and then there's costs to our well-being like pollution. I think for the board just to help me as we do uh requests for what you want to hear presentations on this is a good example of again the majority board wants to hear a presentation on this topic we do our study
110we we really spend time internally we bring you you know what the latest research is so keep that as part of the process yeah that's what I would ask the research about districts have been using them what's the effectiveness of them all that and then the cost compared I think that's excellent Mr. bigger. Appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, we're thinking big picture right now about all of our facilities and so if that's not in the discussion at some point, well, then we just won't even So, so I think it's a it's time to at least entertain the idea and and maybe we say it doesn't really make sense after all. I think if if you remember the the process we used, I put a bunch of topics out for you guys to pick from. I
111don't know. Add this to the I would do that the next go around. I think we did this in the fall and then we work on Yep. that's why uh the presentations you have tonight. So, we'll we'll continue that process, but again, we want the input from everybody to help inform what presentations and uh information you want. It's great. Thanks. I'm supportive of this current purchase. Just to be clear. Okay. Any other questions or comments? All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Eyes have it. So move. 5.22. A motion and second, please. Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Mr. Haydock. Second by Mr. Walker. Okay. Uh my question, Mr. Miller, probably a simple one. You might be able to guess it. Uh sponsorship proposal, old rates or new rates? these this is
112the old rate. Um however, I will say that we I have reached out to Market Street Sports Group. Uh and we are in talks right now to do a full assessment of our current offerings. Um and speaking with Mr. Biggers, we're trying to assess our program overall. We are looking at a timeline where we may also bring them in to assess and do an evaluation of our new buildings that are coming. And so as we're trying to figure out the timeline for having them come in and look at everything we have, we don't want to just limit it to what we have now. With these new buildings coming down the pipeline, if we get to a place where we know what some of these facilities can handle as far as spectators for our sports, we
113want to engage them for those as well. So, we're trying to figure out the exact timeline for that. Um, but I will say right now it's looking at around the fall, this coming fall, um, before the school new school year starts. So any discussions to um have language that if we know we're going to uh couple things. This is one of the marquee spots I believe. Uh you know top top of the school board scoreboard in the stadium, excuse me. Uh and these rates are eight nine years old. uh and nothing has stayed the same in two years, yet alone in eight or nine years. But uh do we want to lock in for another term this long on rates that are eight or nine years old? Is there a shorter duration if we know
114we're going to be re-evaluating rates within the year since Patriot is a longtime sponsor with us as we're looking at some of our future plans and again I don't want to get ahead of myself and some of our plans for the future. Um, but looking at adjusting even maybe some of our signage in uh the stadium as we go forward and and adjusting what we do there, what even the the scoreboard might look like in a year. What we're trying to do is time this agreement such that we can go back to them potentially in a year and say, "Hey, we're looking at adjusting maybe what this signage looks like um in a couple different ways." And again, until we have a fully formed plan, I don't want to speak to what exactly that is.
115Uh but just to put it out there that this is a sponsor that we've worked with for many years now and I think if we are adjusting what that sponsorship location looks like, we can then reevaluate reevaluate what that cost is. And that's a part of the plan here is that we do this in May so that next May we can go back to them potentially with a new pricing structure and say this is what your sign might change, might not look this way, but we would have some additional things that we would add to this. Um but we did want to get them in because their agreement is now lapsed and so we want to make sure we we would have at least a year of those funds coming in. Yeah. Short of me
116reading through the whole contract, I guess uh maybe the legal part of that would be an opt out. So there is a way for us to opt out after one year or revise it or I mean if I can't say for certain based on going to be some potent the potential for some changes. We might change the landscape. I I believe there is we just enter into a one-year agreement being upfront with them that you know we're making some changes here. That's certainly an option. Again, we had gone, this was just a reup of the three years. They've done now two three-year agreements with us. And so that's basically the in my talks with them, that's what they're comfortable with. And so we'd like to go with that again so that we can maybe finish
117those final two years out with a new agreement. We could terminate them if they would agree to that um after that year. But if some of these plans don't come together, we would like to have them locked into that position based on our long-standing relationship with them. They're already in cashes as well. Um, and so we would like to continue that relationship going even if our plans don't work out and we still have that same board up there, we would like to have them locked into that. I have a question, Brian. Do we um are all the spots now covered on the school board? Do we have sponsors? I know there's two to the right and then across the bottom. Do we have all of them filled now? They are all filled. However, we are
118working with Ortown Bank that's on the top right. Okay. Um they have not given us the full yes that they would like to renew. They're in fact looking at maybe some other locations rather than that spot. I haven't gotten a solid yes or no from them. So that position might that spot might actually be open here in the next month. And then the two on the bottom. Is there two on the bottom? Yes. And those are taken up by WellSpan. Okay. Wellspan took those. Okay. Thank you. What um what's how long have we had the uh relationship with Patriot as far as them being in the school and and um is anybody aware of that? That's a good question. About 10 shortly after we open the building. Is that right, Kurt? Yeah. Very right. Yeah.
119I'd always think there's something to be said for stability with a long-term relationship. That's important. There's value in that. Although certainly we're looking at costs everywhere we look. We're trying to save money and gain more revenue. So, uh, they're all worthy of discussions, but I think loyalty and a long-term relationship is of value. That's why I want to know how long they've been in the school. And I was reading through here and it does say that the school district can terminate the contract without cause. So, let's say in a year we say, "Hey, we'd like you to do this." And they say, "Pound sand." and we say, "Okay, terminate." Not that that would happen, but I'm saying there is that we're not locked in at that three years if they would not want to then
120go with whatever proposition might come up. We do have within this right here. Should the school district uh hold on, I'm reading it right now. I'm not I'm listening to you, Miss Har. Further, the school district reserves the right to terminate this sponsorship without cause if its board of school directors determines that terminating the contract is in the best interest of the school district. So that pretty pretty much says, "Hey, if we come to you and say, hey, instead of seven grand, we need eight or nine or 10 or whatever." And they say, "We don't think we're going to do that." We can say, "Okay, well, sorry. We know we've had this relationship." Not that that would happen. Patriot, if you're listening, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying I'm just putting it out
121there that there is some, you know, wiggle room on our end if whatever they would come up with at that time, uh, you know, maybe it could be discussed whatever there that there's a little room for both parties to have a conversation if that, you know what I mean? So, now that I've read that, I would be okay with the three years and not trying to, you know, because then you're still cultivating that relationship in hopes that in good faith, they know what you're trying to do and they've already invested. So, it all just comes together and and they know you're not trying to, you know, put your kid through college on whatever you're, you know, asking them to do. So, yeah, we can talk a lot about this. Um, you know, but you want
122to talk about cultivating a relationship or ruining a relationship, just wait after one year and then pull the rug out from under them. Tell me how that's cultivating a relationship. We've been kicking this can down the road too long on this these this, you know, these rates that are almost a decade old. So, we'll just keep kicking the can down the road until whenever we get it. So, uh, any other questions or comments? Let me just I have one more comment about this. Truth be told, I do my banking at Patriot. So, if it comes to a vote and I need to recuse myself, I'm happy to do so. Oh my god. So, Brian, maybe I missed this because I was reading that. I assume that you I shouldn't assume that. I What is your
123plan to you're not just going to in a year say, "Hey, this is what we're doing. Maybe conversations will be leading up to that to like put them in the frame of mind so it wouldn't be just like, hey, we're here and we're in year one, whatever, and now whatever." You know what I mean? Absolutely. And of course, those those plans will all be presented to you as well uh as we get along here in the next couple months. Um it will be public knowledge of what we're planning to do over the year uh as we get down that process. So, they'll be aware of it. We'll be talking to them and our other sponsors who are on the board as well as we go back to them and say, "Okay, this might be changing."
124Um and when their contracts come up, we would have to potentially renegotiate those as well. So yes, that there will be plenty of uh discussion on that again beginning in this fall that's coming up. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Okay. All those in fig in favor signify by saying I. I. I. And I will oppose. Motion carries 8 to 9. 8 to one. Item six, members of the audience are invited to comment on agenda items. Uh we do have one who signed in, but if you didn't sign in, that's quite all right. Uh Miss Athetherton Hi, I'm Erin Athetherton. Um, since Miss Mure was speaking about CVA, my son actually does CVA freshman year. Um, and it's been quite good for him. Um, he'll be going to CMS next year, but it's worked well
125for him for his freshman year. Let him do appointments and things like that with the flexibility and the teachers are quite great. Um, that wasn't what I wanted to say, but it worked with what you were talking about. Um, one concern that one of my children does have though that something that was brought up to us over the weekend, um, and he wanted me to ask, and I'm not sure if it's an admin question or a board question, um, but it came to our attention that students at the high school that the teachers aren't allowed to ask them what pronouns they prefer to use. They are not allowed in a Google form or something at the beginning of the year to ask them what pronouns they prefer to use. they've been told they cannot ask
126them that. And I think as we were talking about um like their mental health and things like that, I think these they should be allowed to ask them in a private setting how they'd like to be addressed. If they want to offer that up to their teachers, they can. But the teachers are being told that they're not allowed to do that. from what I've been told from somebody who would not use the pronouns that it appears that they would use from how they look. Um, so I'm not sure if that's an admin directive that went to teachers or a board directive that went down to teachers, but teachers aren't allowed to ask the students what pronouns they would prefer to use. And I don't think that's right. Thank you. Any other members of the audience?
127Uh any items you'd like to address in public comment? Privilege of the floor. Okay. Uh finance and facilities item 9.01 grade configuration facility update. Uh who's going first? Mrs. Stafford. Actually, Dr. Long's going first. I'll kick it off while you're handing out a Mr. Bigger is going first. Your name's not listed on your agenda. I'm not. Tammy stands up. Yeah, she's got a handout. So, we're going to fill your time so you don't uh lose any here. Um, so a couple weeks ago, we felt the need to put together um just kind of where we are where we are overall and it's a short brief. Can we afford it? Can we fund it? And what are some of the potential strategic decisions we have to make? So, while tonight is not necessarily decision time, it
128does inform how we move forward in the district. So, Mark's going to go through some of the work he's been doing. Tammy's going to highlight some of the work she's been working with PFM, and then I'm going to end with somewhat like the C program, which is our options moving forward because there are some strategic decisions we do have to make in the short term. So, with that, Mark, why don't you go first? and and it's a handout tonight mainly because this was put together very quickly and it's our first uh draft at this information. So, as a focus um when we meet with the architects, Matt and I meet with them and then there's another team that meets with them as well. We always look at the schools of distinction by 2030 and the
129grade configuration and also um the plan to uh consolidate within the middle school and then the focus on the seven and eight. So with that um the data it was requested as from a draw schedule from both architects and this is what you're going to be looking at right now on your handouts. So on that there were dates for a start and end and I just wanted to review that um the the new middle school grades seven and 8 would begin around July 1st 2025 and finish May 1st 2029. Uh the new intermediate school, grades four to six, would begin May 2025 and then finish November 1, 2028. Uh if we did Grand View, that would follow the same timeline as the intermediate school. We also met as a group um to review different things
130that could be cost savings. Um naturally, the the first thing that we looked at was staffing. um through consolidation you you will save in in staffing. Um so we we looked at all kinds of different scenarios um but we also looked at elementary and middle schools as far as the savings and we looked at every employee group uh that has anything to do with the schools. So with that the additional uh staff savings range from 1.3 to $2.8 million. We're not specifically knowing right now what the number would be based off of enrollment or based off of the school layout and things like that yet. So that's why that range uh onetime revenue from possible sale of the buildings uh and those buildings would be Luren, Guilford Hills, the Koch building and North are 4.6
131to $6.25 million. Um, we're hoping that if we do that at some point, um, that some people that want to put some properties on our properties would be great because then we could get tax revenue back in from that. Um, then the operational savings, um, this was estimated by Matt Varnner uh, at around $500,000 for those buildings as well. We're also looking at other other areas that we can save in, but we do not have estimates there on those items as of yet. So, um, a total estimated range of savings to date would be 6.2 to $9.55 million. So, at this point, um, that's where I I end and Mrs. Staler begins with her finances. May I ask a question then before Mr. stop and gets going. Um so on the staff savings or even
132the operational savings, not the one-time savings, I understand that, but um those savings will acrew over a long period of time. So every year you'll get savings, savings, savings. And so is there some finite say over the life of something you're going to say we can amass a lot more than just what these numbers show? I'm sure there is. I didn't do that part of it, but um Okay. Yeah, I would think fair enough. I I think the term when you when you do attritional savings or reoccurring, you're really just deferring your future costs out further because eventually you're going to catch up to the same staff staff and salary you are now. Yeah. So, it's really hard, but yeah, you're deferring your cost improvements. Okay. Or your cost increases. Yeah. Just is falling spring
133off the list now? I thought that was or that just happened to be an ex. It was one that we didn't decide to sell. Okay. Okay. And just be clear, these are all discussions. There's no definitive. Sure. Sure. Thank you. At one point I was thinking that the completion date for 46 was earlier. Am I mistaken? Am I just not remembering correctly or did that get pushed back at some point? It did get pushed back. Um Okay. It just it's it's a ballpark date right now. Okay. Um until we go out to bid and find out from the civil engineer and others what they can do together as far as working together and what they can't do according to rules. I think I think what I presented at the forums I said the earliest would
134be opening the fall of 28. Okay. For some reason I was thinking 27 but earliest was fall 28. 28. So now we're beyond that most likely, but we really don't know. I know there's increased costs if you rush a project too much because you make mistakes and you don't think through things like you would like to. On the other side though, there's increased costs with waiting too. So that's a concern I have. Um so I was also um for the future if we could have maybe a bulleted list. I know it won't be all inclusive on the one-time savings. What what areas exactly are you looking at? And and also for the additional staff savings. Now, you'll have a traditional staff savings. You have that every year with people who retire and so forth. So,
135we want to make sure that's not included because that's usually used in your budget for the following year. So, you don't want to include that. But if we're going down numbers of staff members because of of consolidating, then that's that's a I believe that is what Mark and Kurt worked on was an estimate of the number of staffing positions that could be reduced based on this realignment. Yeah. Good. But if we could have some bulleted eventually. Yes, sure. For sure. I'm good. Okay. Um so on page two of the document that you have um based on the information that Dr. Long um and Matt Barner worked with our architects on uh they were able to provide a uh preliminary draw schedule. Uh so what I did was asked uh John Fry who you all remember
136is our PFM uh financial advisor uh to give us an estimate of being able to finance both the 78 project and the 46 project. So the intermediate school estimate was around 113,900,000 and the um middle school was $117 million. So we are looking at uh funding uh $230,900,000 for those two projects. And in the first box on on your handout, you'll see um that this has a couple of assumptions. Uh we do currently have the 20 2023 bond that we took out uh in anticipation of doing some infrastructure work at both Cam South and CAMS North. Uh we've used a little bit of that bond on some capital projects, but we would use the 8.4 million um that is sitting in that bond to offset um these two projects. This also assumes um interest would
137be earned on the money that we are we are borrowing and not using right away of about $4.6 million. And in order to be able to afford this $230 million almost $231 million project, we would need to build our debt service fund up by over um overfunding it each year so that we create a surplus in the debt service fund. this year going into the 2526 school year, uh I have in the existing budget the proposed final or well actually it will be the final has 7.5 million of excess debt service money. That's above and beyond the existing debt service. And again, that's just getting us to the point where we can ramp up to um what becomes almost $28 million of debt in the 2930 uh fiscal year. And then again to do this,
138we would need to make a commitment of overfunding the outy years by another $2 million each year. That will get us close to the 28 million in the time frame that we need. So that's the uh first two buildings. Uh for Grand View, we would be proposing uh looking at a cash option for this. Uh the goal would be to have $39 million. I believe that's about where Graan View came in. And again, the assumption is that we are able to overfund the debt service in order to ramp up a cash basis. By doing that, and again, putting the 7.5 in for 2526 and then 2 million each year thereafter, we would have a one-time cash basis in the debt service fund of just under $22 million that could be used to offset the cost
139of Graan View. Our need then would be um to fund about 17 million either through additional hopefully cash reserves or we would possibly be looking at another bond in the outer years. With that, I'm going to unless there's questions, I'll turn it over to Mr. Bigger. Everybody good with that? I'll just uh not necessarily necessarily question, but a comment. Um I would just uh ask board members and this is for the public to go back and look through the PFM document from our u meeting uh in early April. And keep in mind that was a document u Mr. Fry put together. I know different do people like documents differently or people like different documents. I think this is a great document. Uh but it's what I've been mentioning the past two meetings in my president's
140report. The document that Mr. Fry gave us in beginning of April was 200 million in borrowing. And as you see tonight, we're at a minimum of 21 30 million to be borrowed. 219 217. Yeah. Yeah. 217 to be borrowed. So that has gone up. I think what is really what I really like about Mr. Fry's document, it's in his it's on this page four of eight. Uh so it's in column four, which is step four is where you can really see this. Uh currently with our existing debt, our annual debt service is 11.7 million. uh with a $200 million borrowing scale. By 2031, our debt service goes up to 26.6 million annually. Uh an increase of almost 15 million a year. Darn, my numbers are pretty close. Um so in the next five years, that
141annual debt service is going up an additional 15 million. So that's and that was based on 200 million. So now it's probably higher which I think is probably the 2 million uh 2 million for the two buildings and another 2 million for the elementary building to to bridge that gap because the other thing just for comparison if when you get a chance to do some good late night reading uh if you go to sheet five of eight on Mr. Fry's document that's where based on he showed this incremental increase and you know in future years now what this doesn't show is the 1% we talked about a month ago so hopefully sometime we can see this updated with that but where he's showing the 1.63 to 1.42% 42% in subsequent years. But even with that,
142uh there is there are two years where it's a still bit of a deficit. Now this 7.5 million will will help that would cover that deficit. So um I think there's a lot of good information out there for both the public and for the board. Um I live, eat, and sleep this stuff. So the other thing I like and it's a good question also. It's on Good just point of reference for board members. It's on sheet five of eight. One mil is $882,000. But keep in mind when we say 1% 1% isn't one mil. 1% is 1.33 mills something like that. So just some numbers. Yep. Mr. Bigger, more numbers. So So part of our analysis really was to say, is this affordable? Can we accomplish it? And then what pace? And I've said from
143day one, I think the plan's good. The reconfiguration is makes sense. It's just how fast or slow we have to move forward. So based on this analysis, just current time and place at the 217 utilizing existing bond that we have and then the interest. There are four options that that resurface and I want to walk you through the last page and the four options. So again, lots of variables, lots of unknowns, adequacy money, uh earned income tax, all the things that can worry you are certainly a part of the equation when you're doing strategic planning. So I just wanted to put that up front. We tried to put the best numbers down we can now. Um but certainly this will be fluid throughout the next um three or four years. If we were to move
144forward with option one, which is a new intermediate, a new 78 middle school and gr a new Grand View, the implication is we would need to find 18 more million dollars over the next window of time. So, I keep bringing up the adequacy gap money is a possible window to not use local tax dollars. And if we continue to get that, there's a potential for that, but that's a risk. So, but as of today, we don't have that $18 million. Can we get that overtime? That's a maybe. So that lends itself that if we cannot afford that or fund that, we would go to potentially option two, which essentially does the middle school and intermediate, both new, but pushes Grand View out an additional year andor two depending. Option three, same concept. You build the
145four to six in Grand View and push out the middle school further. And then option four, which was on the table way in the beginning, we could afford that existing borrowing if we renovated north as the 78 location. So I'm not saying we're going back to that. This is just tying the options to the existing money. The big component for for me moving forward is um not necessarily um the dollar figures at this point is we're starting the design process. So we're designing a new middle school. Are we looking back to the 78 at at uh camps north? That's a big decision because Mark needs the direction to say, "Hey, RLPS, let's get going with uh the 78 build. It's a new and we as a board are saying yes, it's a new build. Whether
146we build it in 29 or 30 or 31 is the question." So that's the real big input that I need um as for us to move forward if this makes sense to you. So just get some clarity for me. Does it make sense that we have options moving forward and time is our our problem? Not necessarily uh the plan and do you have preferred options? I don't want to call you out on the spot, but are there preferred uh in the room based on what you heard or at least start narrowing this list down? Yeah, we need to start we need to start getting this list down to right the preferred option. thoughts or comments for North is the only one that's mentioned and is a four option four. Yeah, that one was a um
147more um an 85 to90 million renovation addition combined with the Grand View and 4 to6 was affordable in the existing um structure that Tammy's provided. That's not new build. That's renovate. Renovate and add on. Correct. That That's correct. I think option three is my least favorite of the four because I feel like we've been kicking the can on the middle schools for quite a few years and that would mean yeah just it just feels like a long ways away. Yeah. Um I think your challenge Go ahead. You guys talk for a little bit. Yeah, that's that's my least favorite of the four. Strategically, I think we need to consider um what from the students moving from one place to another is going to be most effective from an educational standpoint and so on. I really
148think that option three has a lot more potential to get that grade reconfiguration happening in an effective way in the primary um intermediate level. And we have although they may need some improvements, but we have functional buildings at both north and south that having seven, eight either split between those two buildings or having seventh grade at the south location and eighth grade at the north location for just a couple years. might allow for the time needed for the financing. Personally, I I would like to see a as soon as possible for the new build at South, but I also understand financially there might be some concerns the efficiency of building both buildings at the same time at the one location I think I understand has some financial benefit and so I really think that we
149need a little more information from those people who are more expert in the construction and the educational processes of moving students from our current configuration to a reconfiguration rather than at this point just saying we like this one or that one. I don't think we have quite enough information as to the pros and the cons, the risks and the benefits of the options between um two and three or between any of them. I think there's a couple that I would particularly four I would like to if you want to narrow it down. I think four is not the way to go. Well, eventually we need to get to one. Absolutely. Well, if we can if we can narrow it from four to three, we're moving in a positive direction. You want to go four to
150two. Options two and three are a minimal to me. That's that's a big stretch for me because you're doing all things at the same time. Four, at this point, renovating, it just doesn't make any sense to me up there. That that's me. So, I mean, options two and three, I'm very interested in hearing uh pros and cons of that as a, you know, which should which should wait, Grand View or the middle school. Um, but that's just where I'm at. So, I'd be interested to hear where everybody else is at, too. So if you're if you want to split it in half, go from four to two. I'm amendable to two and three. Yeah, I I would agree. Two and three are the best. I think on in my opinion, four to renovate is just
151I think would be foolish, you know, alto together. And again, one is a uh as my uh the chair of the board said, it's a heavy lift. You know, it's a heavy lift. Don't you say it? I know. As for me, I'll cut to the chase. I like number two. That's my option. I'm at two as well. I already I mean I'm hearing some people say two or three and I already said three is my least favorite. So I'm at two. Hold on. Dr. Yeah, I'm Lance. I'm at two. I'm at two or three. Two and three if we're taking it down to two. But the other thing and I know you guys will probably say you're you're off base here. You're going somewhere else, but what are we doing about it says down here
152Career Magnet School Ignite, you know, I know you want expansion at the at those levels. Are you looking at something you're going to do there, additional funding that's going to be needed or what's that? What's that look like? All of those could be potential funding needs. So, the learning center was looking to do, I think, eight or nine million dollars to just improve the learning center. I don't know who who sits on that board. So, I don't know where that is. I know we put a hold on that, but that's a liability to us. I just want to identify there there's more to our liabilities financially than just the four options. Well, I think that impacts things. It does. Um, it means don't spend all your money on these. Well, for you know, we just
153hired we just hired a director for the high school that we want to have more certifications for kids. uh we can't get everyone in the uh to the career center or we can't get everybody right. So if we're looking for money even beyond this that's correct what are we going to what's that look like I can't make a decision on two and three what I don't kind of know what do we want to do with that they're they're in feasibility study mode right now CMS 2.0 Ignite and career tech are all in feasibility mode. So they're studying with an architect. So sits on the career tech board. Grab your robot. Grab your robos working through that process that we already went through. Okay. But for us though, even though they're going through that study, we
154want more kids being able to uh we want a a center more, you know, a career magnet. So what's that look like? Is that does that mean one of the existing schools that we have now becomes uh that center or are we going to be coming back and have more money that we need and struggling? Yeah, let me answer that on the short term too. Go ahead. Let me try that just want we want to hear from Stephanie Lance before we get too far here. I'm sorry. I think the takeaway from this and it's they're great points Dr. Joe but I think the takeaway right our work is never over. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with that. So, so you know, the past month and a half I've been saying, "Oh, it's three buildings, not
155two." Well, guess what? It's three buildings plus now these other things. So, our work is never over. Uh, so we need to keep our, you know, we need to keep that in front of us, but it's it's a couple rows back versus the first three. But it's definitely something and I appreciate Chris you putting it on here again just to keep everything transparent that uh and I have a comment or thought on those but I want to hear from options one through four Mrs. Gaus and Mr. Walker first and then we'll go back to you. Option two is my favorite after serious consideration immediately excluding option number four. Yeah, I'm looking at two and three myself. Um yeah, all the other stuff seems the first one. I think that's obviously that's going to have us
156way out over our skis. I think one of my colleagues said over there um and for Yeah. North. Building on to that. That's obviously not How old is North anyway? What is how 52? It opened in 1959. 59. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So ground was bought in 1956. Okay. So yeah. So obviously that's that's yeah not going to be a good look. So two and three I guess are are I mean I guess we need to narrow it down out of that. But obviously seems like the majority of us are on a on a um on a um two deal here. Anyway, so can I just add that and and and I haven't sat here and thought about the logistics totally, but does there have to be a certain order because we're going to be
157moving kids out of a certain building and where are they going to be housed? That was my point. Where are they where are they going to be housed uh while we're under construction at the other site? So, will some of that impact that? I mean, absolutely. So, so that may determine the order you do things in in some ways. Okay, Miss I specifically like I'm looking at it and from my background with manufacturing and knowing how we do things. Um, the reason that I'm even entertaining option three is because there has to be in my mind a cost savings when you are building on the same piece of property, two buildings at the same time because you can get material in bulk you can do. And so Matt, could you justify that thought in my
158brain um that that there would be and could we see what potentially those cost savings would be if we were doing it all on that piece of property at once? Yeah, I I don't know if we could quantify that number. What I will say is is there would be value in doing a combined bid and doing um two buildings on one site. However, the caveat to that is construction inflation is about 3 to 4% a year. And you figure construction inflation on a hund00 million building versus construction inflation on a $39 $39 million building. And there is no savings by option three is is what I'm is I mean just to answer your question, we we need to get the the middle schools built sooner rather than later. Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to
159influence your decisions here tonight. It's obviously something you guys need to stew over, ponder over, but just remember remember how we got to here, right? We got to here because we were looking at two significant projects at our 78 level, CAMS North and CAM South. We were looking at, you know, failing infrastructure at costs of 40 to $45 million a piece just to keep the buildings operational. So, just keep that in mind as we talk about, you know, pushing those seven, eight buildings on down the road. um there could be significant dollars that we need to throw at those capital um to keep the operationals uh going. So great great point. And so even though number one looks like the really heavy lift, it might in the end be the best option is what I
160think I hear you say. That's that's interesting. Yeah. you well the one thing you you have you can't project forward because you're not used to doing this work all the time is you you long as you design it you don't have to build it so you design the grand view design the middle school that's the biggest decision we needed tonight is that we're doing the new on the middle school and then you go to bid day and you do alternates and you say okay we can't afford it because blop and then you just push it down later those are the choices you're going to have come down the road and when will that date be those bid days are actually on the draw schedule I'm going to look to Mark I I don't know if
161you have in front of you, but they did lay out bid schedule time frames. I want to say uh 2026 um because we'll know whether we get adequacy money. Correct. For at least another year or maybe even two years, right? May of May of 26 for which build? and Grand View, right? Yeah. So May of 26 a year. Yeah. A year from now this time next year. So a couple couple I'll start with just some takeaways I think from the discussion. Um one take what I did mention earlier right our work is never done came up with these other items that Dr. Diller brought up. And to me that might be a reason not to spend all our cash on building buildings. Uh possibly uh second take away I think I'm hearing is we can
162take number four off the table right the third takeaway is not a board takeway it's going to be Ed Norris's take away and the sky is not falling and yes Mr. This we've said this started with like two $40 million projects total right and however eventually those buildings are going to be grass they're going to be rough. So we're not looking for to get 20 more years out of those buildings. But the point, the bigger point to me on this is again we started ramping up three years ago assuming a total borrowing of 80 million. Now we have a total borrowing of 217 million estimated can't stress estimated enough Mrs. point. So you know there's two 100 million $180 million project 30 million. So if you can stretch out that bill it gives us more
163time to ramp up. Again the old data from Mr. Fry uh in three or four years we were still upside down not upside down we were negative on new debt service versus what we built up. So yes, there may be cost increase or not will be cost increase waiting, but we're also not taking on what was the number at South the renovation. No, the latest number it was Oh, yes. 117, I believe. Yeah. So, we're not Yes. that will grow, but we're not assuming the debt burden of 17 as quickly because we need more time to ramp up. Um, and to Mrs. point and I said earlier estimated and I want to stress that, right? Uh, in a perfect world, right, we start opening bids and, uh, we have $20 million left. That's that makes
164a lot of these other right decisions, discussions, it makes it easier. However, it could be $20 million more. Let's hope not. Let's hope our professionals were very conservative for us. So, and PENDOT does this all the time. Army Corp of Engineers, you build roads and bridges. These public entities, they build plans and they sit in the shelf for literally years. I mean, they've been building South Bridge in 81. in Harrisburg for 20 years now and wide 81 for 30 years. No plans on this ar point is you can you can put together you we could go forward with the design and we agree on all three design concepts and then if we have a bid date of May of 2026 one year from now we have a lot more clarity of okay how much more
165do we need you know did we save some on the other two buildings You know, it looks better to start, but you can design everything now. Best case, this is what I would be in favor of. Get every get the design moving on all three buildings. Don't be counting on any cash right now. Sandbag or cash. Go to bid on the two out in Green Village. In a year, we'll have a good number. And if we want if we have if we feel good with our financial position, as soon as we get those bids, we cut loose the bid process on new south building and you can probably have that project bid the drawings already done. You can probably have it turned around, four months. That that would be what I would be my thought.
166And option option one would be great. I think we would all love that in a perfect world, but you know, I'm driving a new pickup truck. My new pickup truck is five years old. We live within our budgeted resources. That's right. So, Chris, maybe you can put a educational logistics twist on this. I will just for note of the time frame on the draw or the bid day that uh hopefully we'll stick to with with Mark the first borrow would be March of 26. So just note that on the existing plan that was in front of you. That's the first time we would come to you or I'm sorry September of 25 would be the first borrow of 9 million to continue the design and pay for all that. And then the first large borrow
167is right around the same time frame right before bid day. So we can play with those dates and months as well. So don't feel that those are static. Those are flexible. They are not static. Yeah. Right. Or yeah, they're they're flexible. Sorry. The last topic um to Mrs. Diller's really good question on CMS 2.0 Ignite. We do want to analyze the impact potential of some of our decisions. If you remember, aligning the block schedule of caches to CMS to crew tech will potentially increase opportunities for more students to go to CMS. We're we're talking about having maybe the crew tech students go from caches to CMS or to career tech from caches instead of CMS. There you go. And that could automatically increase a bunch of students to CMS to fulfill the need. So um
168uh we have to analyze what the return on those numbers ask the students. So, a little more time on that one might help and say, "Hey, if we get 125 to 150 more students to CMS just because of the schedule change, we might not need to do as much facility improvements out there or expansion." Good point. So, so that's part one. The learning center is the career tech or the uh superintendent together with the IU. So, uh that one will be uh in feasibility study here real soon. We did put a hold on that one. that was on the fast track and we did slow that one down because we don't know the long-term implications of the Franklin Learning Center. And also as we build our schools, it will matter what special ed classrooms we
169build. So, and we're talking about programmatically making some adjustments to bring some of our students back if we build the right classrooms in our schools, which could significantly increase maybe our need for as many students at the learning center. So, so some of those are that's why they're on the study still, not on the exact just yet. And there could be cost savings as you bring them back. There there could be. Yes. Yes. So, end of end of big report for me. Back to board members. Questions, comments. I appreciate your u experience in the construction world and I like the idea of developing the plans and having them on the you know in hand so then we can make decisions then with respect to finances and where we want to go next but I think
170that's a good approach. I also like what uh Mr. Barner had to say as far as obviously he's in charge of taking care a lot of these buildings and whatever is going on. And I think that there's a lot of value to his opinion also when it comes to to uh whether you know building new or whatever it is that we're doing. So thank you for that input. There's also eventually here as there'll be some some funding that uh north is a valuable property that you know eventually if if we're not renovating that that's that's going to be helpful too options. Good point. So I don't think tonight Chris we need to give you a definitive on option two or three but I do think we need to have a definitive answer on we're looking
171for a year from now we need to cut loose I think by ruling out option four you've given us permission to get on the design of all three it's a matter of yes I agree I agree And each site is a little different on time frame. So I can't force them to all go at the same time. Don't ask me to do that. You can do it. No, we really appreciate the option for being removed. That does gives me everything I need to do to go full steam. Mark, uh Matt, same thing. Yeah, I'm just I'm just asking question. Do we need authority from the board to move forward with design or was that given here tonight? Um I'm we'll circle back to both architects to confirm if they need anything official action. Should we
172vote now? Um I mean we're here have to be on 24 hours in advance. Let me verify that. Good point. Um, I think at some point they're going to want something formalized. I I don't know. I'm going to go back to one of my rules of thumb. It's not Do we do we have to I think we should whether we have to or not. I mean, it's millions. It's not But you have enough direction that that can be that could wait till June anyways. So, correct. Yes. Yes. Okay. Anything else on this item this evening? and policy and legislation. I apologize. That was my change. Um, we're going to list them as first and second read and then they're batched within the document rather than doing each one. So, it makes it easier. You can
173do the same process pulling one out if you want it separate, but it would make the agenda read certainly a lot longer. This was just more efficient way to post it. Makes sense. three together. That's up to you. Sure, President. All three policies or all three? All three items are separate. That's that's up to you. This is the zero zero policies that Mike and Stephanie and I work together to. So, let's do it the way it's listed here. Item 10.01 is the first reading for a bunch of policies. As Mrs. was just saying, it's the first reading of policy 001 policy 003 policy 0046 and 626. So we need a motion and second to approve. Move to approve by second questions or discussions. All those in favor signify by saying I item 10.02 will be
174the retirement of policy 004.1 Motion and second move to approve second motion by Mrs. by Dr. Questions or discussions. All those in favor item 10.03 approving policies with no changes. We have to approve policies with no changes. Yes. So there's a review date on it. Oh, okay. Uh that is they are policy 02 and 07. Motion and second, please. So moved. Second. Motion by M second by Mr. Questions or discussions. All those in favor signify by saying. I I just want to thank Bev Lang. Those descriptions you get really will be helpful for you and analyzing before you spend a lot of time reading through something you don't need. She gets right to the point on what the change is and is not excellent way of presenting them. Thank you. I just have one comment
175on my cheat sheet, my short version. Just list the policy there and then I don't have to switch backing. And this is just the first read. So these will come back again, right? Yeah. The go the goal is to have a review or revise date that is within 10 years. That makes sense or or less, right? Okay. Item 11, new business discussion only. Yes. Go ahead, M. With respect to our being schools of distinction by 2030, I'd like to think that we're trying to set an example of being good stewards for the environment. And every couple of weeks when I get in a meeting with the school board and get inundated with papers that I eventually either take home and throw away or throw away here or plastic water bottles that we have a water
176machine there that gives filtered water and I dare say everybody has at least 10 or 12 water bottles at home that's sitting around somewhere that we need to demonstrate to our students that We're doing all we can to cut down on waste. Not only what we do with printing and paper, but then what do we do when we dispose of it. I agree with Mr. Rabber that we should consider what we're going to do in the future with electric buses. But I think we need to show the environmental club, the students in the environmental club, that we're serious and we support their effort and I'd like to see them involved as well. So, I'd like to have a presentation in the future about how we can cut cost and how we can conserve all the
177resources that are dwindling in our life. Thank you. Um, may I add to that? Um, certainly. It bothers me that in this building that there's no place to recycle our water bottles or that the food is con that comes packaged in plastic. Um, And some of us take stuff home with us, some of us bring our own water bottles. But I agree with um Mr. Haydock that um we need to be setting an example in all things when it comes to the environment and the climate that we live in. I'd like to hear what we're doing as a district. I I'll just throw one thing out uh and sort of with Mr. comment over at career tech. Um they do provide the option you know uh some people prefer paper some people prefer their computer
178screen. So a career tech you know a board member has the option to use either or and sometimes both. I think it'd be great if we put the option out there for everybody. I I like to have my paper because I take a lot of notes and and I review them and it's very helpful. I'm okay with bringing my own water bottle, but I prefer to have paper. Well, and I recognize that different board members have different time schedules as far as the ability to have reviewed the agenda and read carefully the information in advance of the meeting. And so I think that sometimes the paper allows that person who maybe hasn't had time to um look at the online information as thoroughly to have something in front of them in a much more readily
179readable fashion than scrolling through their their computer. Okay. Other thoughts, discussions, comments? This is our open table. I prefer coffee. Cream or sugar? Black. Are you going to talk about the trip to Dallas? Thank you. You're welcome. Yes, I am. Perfect setup. Um, well, you are now. Yes. takes a village. Uh, so the admin is planning a team or planning a trip to Dallas Town to look at the building because building 46 because maybe there's things that we they want to see in that building that they think will work in Chambersburg. Um, so if there's just want to throw it out there, uh, if there are any board members interested, uh, Chris can provide that date or dates whenever they are. It's going to be just in a minute and then I would say just
180get back to you want to get back to Mark when we get back get back to Chris and then you know he can plan transportation accordingly. you know it. And um it's open to any board member. If all nine of us want to go, you just have to get another bus. That's all. You guys can drive yourselves. We're taking the bus. Okay. Yeah. Or drive yourself. Right now it'll be the week of the 9th. I just I'm sorry. What month? June. June 9th. Well, I was trying for June 2nd, but he's still in school, so he said, "Can we go to the next week?" And that's I have to get back with him. So, thank you, Miss Harbo. See what happens when I don't write notes on my paper. I forget. Any other items for
181discussion this evening? Okay. Okay. I think the take away from that maybe that's one of the options for a future um you know the the future cow as far as the options if board members want to hear other presentations. Okay. There's nothing else. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.