March 25, 2025 School Board Meeting

001good evening everyone welcome to this evening's meeting for the Chambersburg area school board board of directors Tuesday March 25th this is our regular meeting um the school directors met an executive session prior to uh our meeting here tonight as well as after our meeting two weeks ago uh to discuss uh Personnel matters so if you would please join me with a pledge of allegiance followed by a Moment of Silence I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you item 2.03 approval to adopt uh tonight's meeting agenda please motion and second move to approve second motion by Mr mcke second by Mrs goler questions discussion I'm going just throw one little discussion anything

002out there we're going to move item 3.03 to item 3.01 um in front of 3.01 all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose eyes have it and so move as I just stated uh we're going to do item 3.03 next uh it's good news uh it's the banners and it's a reason why the room is full and when Chris told me why the room was full it's very great news for this Old Goat Who spent 12 years up here and when the room's full it was usually for bad reasons but this is a good reason tonight so I'm happy uh Mr Whitman take it away I'll kick it off first yep I'll kick it off first thank you all for coming tonight we really appreciate you coming out as a group effort

003to represent your school and our quest to get all our schools uh in some form of schools of Distinction it's no easy task these days to Traverse public education and have everybody uh support public education in general but I want you to know this is the beginning of our support for you and recognition for those of you that remember when I worked here from 2007 to 2015 we recognized you on an annual basis with banners if you're in your school and you see writing performance or outstanding this or growth that was a time when we did recognition so really fond of this but also it's really important for everybody to understand what we value and no teacher necessarily or administrator or staff member wants to leave a place or not work for place that's successful

004and so tonight we want to begin our process of schools of Distinction with recognitions congratulations um starting with us news and World Report on short on that just on Broad brush the bare minimum is you need to be in the top 40% of school districts across the country United States Pennsylvania to qualify for a banner and there are levels of banner but for tonight you're just in the top 40% and that's no small feat and task for each school to get to that level of accomplishment so Kurt Whitman's going to take us through and Mark long through the recognition process so we're going to start with uh Hamilton Heights Elementary so if we could have the staff come up and stand by their Banner uh Mr Miller is going to be taking a photo of

005them Hamilton Heights is led by uh Mrs Michelle holtry she's the principal and this is backto back recognition for Hamilton Heights so congratulations Hamilton Heights for uh back-to-back honors for us news and World reports [Applause] our next school I know they have a lot of folks here tonight is Chambersburg Area Middle School North uh the principal at Chambersburg Middle School North is Mrs Jennifer Drake and I know at least one our assistant principles here is Dave moer tonight and Jamie vlass so and all the faculty that are here if you'd please come up for a [Applause] photo your it's great great it's good it's good to let's hear it for cams North well well done and look at at cam South wearing some matching shirts tonight so if we could have Cam South come up

006here uh Lissa cash dollar is the principal I see uh Emily solenberger assistant principal and I don't know if Scott shurger is here but he's also assistant principal so congratulations cam [Applause] South style points okay actually yeah we got you here we go all right on three big one two three let's try again three one two one more one more perfect shot right here three again one two three awesome job cam South and our last school is Guilford Hills they're definitely not not going to have that many staff members from Guilford Hills but uh Dr Sarah Herbert and any staff from Gilford Hills if you would come up be recognized [Applause] let hear it for all of our schools that were recognized this evening what that's a very incredible feat and folks you are you're

007free to go at this time teachers thank you very much for coming this evening we really appreciate it still a c we had two Mee it last year we had four this year CMS dropped off we were on it last year but not this the magnet school was on last year they dropped off whole size of room cleared up I the same thing that's all right um well I'll make my comments in my sections I'll just turn to you Chris 3.01 superintendent report yeah it seems to be that time of year with recognition so thanks everybody for participating in the US News and World Report we hope to continue to grow that performance where all schools meet that designation uh also we received uh a pens award which is through our communication uh and the

008video testimony that we've been doing to promote the school district we won an award for that which is wonderful cashes uh was an exemplary program at Shippensburg uh they were recognized I believe last week for the HERO program for positive behavior intervention um and last is more of just a hero in general our Chambersburg police really did help intervene in an issue outside of school that could have been seriously really difficult so I just want to thank for our police for saying school didn't end today it's not my job they went above and beyond the Call of Duty to help a family and and really off uh help out so um thanks to them uh last but not least Roc if you were at the p and review we got our official designation of outstanding

009in every single category again so I don't did we get the distinction yet unit of Distinction but I I saw it was outstanding for everything so couldn't be any better and more proud of RC um we do have a person this year driving our attendance um an attendance leader it's Heidi maner she's working with Trish Thomas and the social workers to improve our attendance overall but along the way we also are in the process of verifying attendance whether you live here uh whether you don't live here in attend and trying to attend school Cyber School attendance and so attendance has taken on a whole new meeting these days so I'm very proud of that team for tackling the efforts on attendance physically cyber school sending letters verifying making sure you're enrolled should be here and

010that we also appropriately pay our cyber bills for those attendance as well so I do want to thank Heidi Trish and the social workers for all of that work to date so far and last but not least we have upcoming presentations to the board that will include the teacher pipeline program uh we will have technology data which is data quality on our end and artificial intelligence we will have a CVA which is Chambersburg cyber school in uh a presentation along with how many students are in outside cyber schools we will review our placement process when students go through through admin review and what the process is and what the outcomes are during difficult admin review processes we will have our food service C program review in time potentially for next year so we'll review that

011and then last but not least continued academic updates such as the reading by third grade so we do have a busy uh a spring season ahead of us so be prepared for a few extra half hour minutes here end of report thank you Chris um just hitchike on a couple things one uh what we did here first with uh the the teacher and building recognitions like to thank the teachers and the students for achieving those results a lot of that is based on most of that is based on the results that Mr Whitman presented to us two months ago now or so three two three months ago uh so that's uh not very appreciative of our staff and the teachers but also uh a big thank you to the students who achieved it and the

012teachers who led them to that path um other part of my report what Chris mentioned there about uh cyber school and attendance uh I just I'll give you a little preview here and uh it is item 15.05 in the information session it ended up there because it's been sort of a late topic that Chris brought to my attention and then just earlier today said you know what and I'll go into more detail later um it uh it's really uh made the hair stand up on the back of my neck so I said let's talk about it in the full board and uh we'll get into it here a little bit later of it just it's really disappointing that what what Chris shared so we'll share that a little bit later um with the whole group

013so stay tuned for item 15.05 don't run off um and with that uh 4.01 audit report gentleman from Smith Elliott and curs then he can run off good evening my name is Kevin staler a member of the firm with or Smith El curs and Company typical for an audit when an auditor shows up half the room leaves so I feel right at home here this evening I'm here tonight just to go through the results from the audit so what I've tried to do is take the 100 plus pages from the audited Financial statements the management letter and the required Communications and condense it down into about a 3 to 5 minute presentation for you here this evening overall I think it'd be very pleased with the results from the audit this year uh first and

014foremost we were able to issue an unmodified audit opinion which is the best opinion that we can issue on the financial statements and essentially what that means is that we feel the financial statements are materially correct and can be relied upon it is not an opinion or results on internal controls nor does an opinion or results of a fraud investigation I know sometimes people hear the word audit they may think that we look at every transaction although it may feel like it to to dette and her staff we do not look at every transaction we perform sampling to ultimately issue the opinion that the financial statements are materially correct and again we were able to do so this year as far as the single audit is concerned in the single audits where we have to

015look at certain federal programs or program uh this year we all tested the Esser program yet again and I'm happy to report that we didn't have any compliance findings related to the Esser program so there were no findings related to the financial St statement audit and no compliance findings related to the single audit so again very positive notes financially for the year uh the general fund did have an increase of about $9.2 million after transfers of about $8 million to other funds so an increase in the fund balance meaning the revenues exceeded the expenditures and you were able to make transfers to the other funds of $8 million the total general fund revenues for the year were just under $191 million just to highlight the federal revenue piece of that's just under $15 million which

016again still includes the Esser funds during the 24 fiscal year as far as the expenditures are concerned about $175 million this year largest expenditures not surprising but our salaries and benefits and then you also had the SR expenditures during the current year again offsetting the revenue uh in the current year for the Food Service fund uh did have an increase in that position of $573,000 so a positive note that the revenues also exceeded the expenses within your food service fund so it is self- sustaining in a very positive note moving to the medical Insurance Fund finally uh they also saw an increase of about $2.4 million but that did include a transfer from the general fund to subsidize that during the current year uh because of the claims related to the medical Insurance Fund the

017other two letters that we have related to your audit are what's known as your required Communications letter had it been a significant issues in completing the audit or disagreements with Management on accounting principles we'd have to report on those I'm happy report there were no such issues or disagreements so that's why we just considered our standard Communications and then finally our management letter uh if we would have had any recommendations related to the audit uh we would have included those there didn't have any recommendations so another positive note we did go through some new standards that'll be affecting the financial statements in future periods I won't bore you with those details now but we did review those in detail uh with management and then finally we do have some graphical analysis that's both included in

018the management letter and also here attached to the rest of the presentation but won't flip through those here tonight uh but just wanted to make reference to those so again just in summary I think very positive results from the audit un modified audit opinion overall increase in fund balance for most funds and didn't have any findings related to the audit I know that was a lot of information I hope somewhat fairly quickly for you but I'm happy to answer any questions from the presentation or from the audit documents themselves good news goes quick that's right well thank you very much for your time this evening we appreciate doing a service for the district if you do have any questions after tonight uh please feel free to either contact me or filter those through management we'd

019be happy to help thank you for your time thank you Mr stalford moving on with presentations item 4.02 Communications and marketing that's Mr Miller uh good evening board members members of the public my name is Brian Miller I'm the communications and marketing director in the district and this evening what I'm going to be doing is giving you just a brief overview of some of the communications efforts that we have put um into what we've been putting out to all of you throughout this year so far some of the strategies that we've been using and how we're using data and Community feedback to form our efforts now Mr bigger told me I had 10 minutes to get through this so if I'm going quick that's why he said he's going to run me out of here

020if I go over so jumping right into it um we've been using several different forms of community engagement strategies to try to help the community better understand where we're going as a district and some of the things that are happening here the first one you'll hear about that we're have on the screen here are public forums now you'll hear me talk a lot this evening about two-way communication um it's very important that as we move forward as a district that is trying to accomplish great things that we are making sure that not only we putting out information to you that you can understand where we're going but we're also hearing your feedback and using that in our decision-making process hopefully that you've seen and maybe you've even attended some of the community forums that we've

021had we had several over the past couple months uh leading up into some of the decisions that we're making going forward um we had those recorded those were posted online for you to view we even had a Spanish language uh Forum with interpreters that were there that we had in the Chambersburg Rec Center again providing outlets for everybody to give us feedback on where we're going and hear about some of the plans that we have now moving forward you'll see that we have some informational sessions coming up um these will focus on the future academic calendar changes that are proposed uh the first one is on April 1st so that's actually next Monday that will be at camp south Auditorium so we hope to see you there Tuesday or Tuesday I'm sorry Tuesday and next

022slide please April Fool did he say April fools yes he okay we heard that Carl again talking about two-way communication one of the ways that we can understand how you feel about certain things that we're doing or some of the method methods we're using for communication or even the direction that we're taking is through surveys and we've had several throughout this past year um you can see them listed there I don't necessarily go through each one uh but what I do want to say is that all of these surveys that we've taken either give us a baseline on how we're doing in a particular area that we can use for future decision making processes or gives you feedback into where we should go as a district one of those being the CD parent Community survey

023in the spring in which we use that to in fact get our top five priorities for the district moving forward so again not only are we listening to you um we're taking that feedback and plugging it into what we are doing as a district an important one that I'm going to talk about this evening is our CSD communication survey that we took in July 2024 so I'll get into some of the details about that but just to say in this past year as I'm sitting down with Mr bigger and we're talking about what should we do to communicate with parents with the community we use some of this feedback to really highlight where we should be putting certain messages where things on the website should be because you've told us those things are important and

024so we're taking that feedback and integrating it into our strategies as we move forward and things like the CSD parent Guardian School climate survey not something we particularly did this year but it gives us a Baseline and then as we move forward and we want to do another survey with with climate we can use that as a baseline U to see how we're doing next slide please another new and exciting strategy that we've used this year are our newsletters hopefully you've seen this have everybody gotten a newsletter yes some of you most of you you should have hopefully you have if you haven't those newsletters are uh posted to our social media you can find them on our website um we email those out to parents we post them on our app there are tons

025of different ways that you can get those so those are actually created inhouse um by beev Lang who does a really great job of putting those together for us they're printed and they're mailed to Residents in Chambersburg now what's important about this strategy is that as we take a look back at all of our uh different groups that we want to reach with the messages what we're doing here in the district we have to understand that not all of them are on social media not all of them are necessarily reading the papers um they are doing their own thing right maybe they don't have kids in the district uh maybe they are just you know running a business in this area so what we want to do is provide a method to get information to

026them where they don't necessarily have to come to us and that's where uh this fits into our engagement strategies it's getting the information about the district that people might not be in fact really looking for anything but as community members important part of what we do um and they should know about the great things that we're doing here in the district uh the next slide please an important aspect uh one of the most important aspects of our community engagement strategies is our online presence um you can see we had a new website update that just happened actually uh on February 14th we've been getting great feedback from that in fact just this past week I was able to attend a parent ad advisory meeting and we heard some great feedback from that not necessarily all

027positive but things that we need to know about as we are uh continue on with that and by the way I do want to give a shout out and kudos to Christine walgamuth and her team um and Bev Lang and all of those who did a tremendous amount of work to have this changeover that happened on febru February 14th as we went to this new uh website hopefully you've seen that video is important part of our website if you go on there you see a nice little recap of all the activities that happened here in the district um what we found is that video is is providing a really great way of increasing engagement in the messages that we're trying to put out there and so Mr bigger talked about it a little bit in

028his update uh that we did in fact we were named as uh one of the I think it was four winners for from pens uh they gave an award for excellence and Communications and so we submitted some of our video testimonials that we put together at the end of last year and ours was chosen one of their highest Awards that they gave um and so that's an important part of our strategy going forward is to not just tell our stories through print uh or as we're going to talk about radio or other methods but to look into video as well because we're seeing higher engagement on those types of posts social media of course is important part of our Communications efforts you can see all of our followers that are listed there uh we have

029a great presence on Facebook you'll see some of the feedback on our social media as well when we get to um communication survey results but we have a steady growing soci social media presence and also our cesd app we're very proud of um our app and what we've been able to accomplish with that we've had 600 downloads just this year um over 5,000 total the great thing about the CD app is that it provides a way for those who Maybe not maybe won't be in our messaging systems to get all of the types of updates that parents get so if you're a grandparent and you're interested in your child your your um grandchild or granddaughter whatever it is getting updates on delays and cancellations you can download the app and you get messages um the

030video uh the uh audio and everything of the calls will go straight to your app so you can get those without even being on our call list so it's a great way again for the community to get engaged in what we're doing okay the next slide please another important aspect of our engagement strategy is our radio presence this is something that we've been really increasing our promotion of and utilization of over the past year uh the Trojan radio station uh 92.7 wmr um we have been pairing with some of the students and with Andy Barry who runs the radio program over at caches to produce a podcast series called education exchange you can see some of those listed there um I don't know about you but I'm a podcast person I love to put a

031podcast on while I'm doing something around the house you can kind of just zone out to it so again this is another way of reaching people where they're at right so again maybe you're not following us on social media you're not getting our emails you're not apparent but if you tune in you're going to hear about some of the things that are happening in the district and some of the ways that we're moving forward and some of the changes that might be coming down uh the pipeline so you can actually listen to that online right now so even if you're outside of our broadcast area if you go to our website we just added this a couple weeks ago there is a uh a link at the very top for the radio station where you

032can click it and you can play it over the Internet so you don't even have to be um listen list to it on the radio to hear the radio station so make sure to check that out uh and you can go to our website you can scan that QR code you can listen to his podcast um and hear some really interesting conversations with Mr bigger our next slide here is some of our news coverage and our strategies reaching out to local news outlets U one of the things that we're doing this year which is a little bit of a change is that we are trying to take a strategic approach to how we are getting information out to local news um we were we are trying to be much more proactive than reactive we're trying

033to tell our story rather than waiting for a particular narrative to be made um whatever it is we are trying to let them know about the great things how are they going to know what's happening in the district and all the good that happens there if we don't tell them right and so as you all have seen hopefully uh in your bi-weekly reports uh we are listing out all of the news articles that come out about the district whether they're good bad or in between so that you can see we can all get a sense of what the Community is saying about what we're doing uh and I put those together just from the beginning of the school year and you can see we've had a huge amount of press with what we're doing because

034again we're taking a proactive approach we're providing the press releases to all these Outlets um and really trying to be out in front of what we're doing here in the district so they understand they not just making up conclusions based on what's being talked about in the community um and so one of the interesting trends that we're seeing with that is that as some of the what you might call official news outlets are doing less with organizations like the public opinion you know um not necessarily covering us as much as they have in the past we are seeing an increase in local news coverage that is primarily based online you can see that through you know Tri State alert Franklin County Free Press local news one again organizations that don't have a print necessarily um

035but are getting a ton of traction on information that they're sharing that we're giving them uh and so we try two feet into that we give them as much information as we can and they're helping us out by putting that out there um and I did take a kind of a quick look at sort of over this entire year so far what the percentage is because it's not just enough we said to say that we've had a lot of news articles come out we want to know whether those things are positive right or negative um and obviously this could be a little bit sub subjective but um looking at a full listing of everything that's come out the beginning of the year uh approximately 70% of the article articles are highlighting achievements in new programs

036uh and reflecting a positive outlook on the district about 20% you could say are neutral they're just things that are announcing stuff that's happening here maybe a news article about a delay or cancellation we've had lots of those this year um and then only really 10% of news articles this entire year have been about challenging incidents or addressing threats or other things that we might say is a negative um so we're very positive about that we think that's a great Baseline again as we're continuing on uh with what we're trying to do now to look into our communication survey again trying to go as quickly as I can here um if you want to go to the next slide please uh in July of this past year we uh conducted a communication survey was actually

037part of an academic study um that included social media audit of the district and a literature review this was part of my master's program uh for strategic Communications that I went through with Shippensburg University and as a part of that what we wanted to do is to find out what people's General sense was on all the different things that we did relating to Communications right and what we found out uh there were a couple surprises there but most of it was um where people are as far as what they prefer what they don't like what we could improve on uh and you'll see some of the findings there so some of the key findings with mass messaging 54% of respondence read text messaging um as the most effective and that was the highest of all

038the types of messages that we send out calls email emails and all of that um they prefer to receive updates via email and text and we didn't even just want to ask what their preferences were for message we want to ask well what types of messages do you prefer on the types of communication that we send out again very interesting to us email was the preferred method for General updates 90% um and for academic progress notifications phone calls are preferred for emergency alerts and text messages are preferred for event reminders and so what does that mean for us well when we have a school or an organization that comes to me and says well we want to put out a phone call about this event or thing that's happening we have to look in that

039and say well that's not necessarily where our parents and Community want to see that type of or want to get that type of information right if you get a call to your phone our hope is that you would think it's a very important thing that you should answer right and so we are the filter through which all of those types of communication methods go out and we use this as a basis um for what we're doing and so on a lesser scale of importance we would say with email well we could email you because that's not as intrusive to what you're doing in your day-to-day life or maybe a text message you can just quickly look at it and move on with your day uh so again our surveys and our two-way communication is is

040informing what we're doing so you can go to the next one there again with the survey what we found was um you can see some of the statistics on uh who would how many times we have families visit the website um this is the most important to us was we wanted to find out well what are the pages that you're actually looking at what's the most important to you that would be the sapphire portal and the event calendar again we asked in kind of a different way what's the most valuable Pages the information you find most valuable on the website that again was the calendar and the sapphire portal so as we're going to launch a new website the first thing that we did is we sat down with Christine and her team we said

041well what needs to be at the top of the page or very close to the top it should be these things because you told us those are important for you um again it's a way of two-way communication between us and the community and making sure you're getting the information that you need another uh some of the other key findings were in social media Facebook was by far uh the most utilized and Preferred channel for communication with Instagram only at 20% um and so Facebook was also rated the most effective social media channel so what that tells us is really two things that most of our audien is on Facebook and also we need to take a look at our other social media channels and find out why they're not as successful or uh why they're

042not as effective and change maybe how we're utilizing those and the next slide please and to wrap up some of the trends that we're finding here just in this uh school year and going forward um traditional media remains very valuable newsletters radio uh local news outlets they continue to play a vital role in reaching and engaging Community stakeholders those who aren't necessarily engaged already in our social media channels or they're not getting our emails from our system because they don't don't have a kid in the district that is an important aspect of reaching our community so we want to lean into that and continue to provide information in those in those channels we are seeing steady growth in social media engagement video content is consistently growing in popularity and so even just in this past

043year I went and took a look our top three video po or Facebook posts this year in terms of like and engagement they were all video posts so how does that affect me when I'm doing my job well we found out that CMS had won had gotten second place I think and their qualifying round for the battle bots I don't know if you guys saw that on our social media um they came to us and said we'd love to put it on our social media on our district social media and tell people about it I thought that's great they also came and said well we have some video from the actual match I said well you could you put us put together a uh a highlight reel for us and he did we put it

044on our YouTube channel and we posted that out with the announcement so it wasn't just here's what they did hey you can actually watch it um and that's a way of kind of bringing to life the stories that we tell and then the final trend is the importance of two-way communication it really is going into everything that we're doing in the district um the community forums and surveys allow opportunities for feedback and engagement from family and staff and the survey data uh can be used as benchmarks for identifying areas for improvement in our Communications efforts so that was a ton a ton of information as fast as I could um but if you have any questions i' be happy to answer them I have one uh Mr Miller uh great presentation thank you on communication

045uh I know I ask you this question every time but I'm going to ask you again marketing um where are we at re-evaluating our marketing rates yeah we in fact we just met last week with a group of uh internal staff that we've put together for a naming rights and marketing committee and what we're doing right now is putting together a plan and I don't want to talk too much about it um for us to kind of I want say revamp but relaunch the program along with a I don't say a big ask but something that we're looking to do that we think could get a lot of potential sponsors to come in um and as a part of that plan is a re-evaluation of everything that we do and so as we will come

046hopefully to the board in fact in the next couple months to tell you about this plan and get approval for for it that will be a very important part of it that we look at everything we're doing we bring in our same uh same group Mark Street Sports Group and ask them to reevaluate so that's that is definitely something we're going to be doing great look forward to that presentation other questions for Mr Miller all right thank you thanks BRK you okay okay item 5.01 uh members of the audience are invited to comment on agenda items uh Valerie Jordan and agenda items are several so everyone else wrote no but don't worry if you would like to speak when Mrs Jordan is done with her three minutes wave your hand and we'll call you up

047and still let you speak good evening this on am I on um under the president's report um I just want to mention this quickly a board goal is to communicate openly and respectfully with all stakeholders that's something you all voted on so I want you to keep that in mind as you uh move forward Bo in your in your meetings I think my husband addressed it very nicely at the last meeting um item 902 the um sociology about 11 days ago I sent an email to all of you I hope you all read it I did further research on this and I hope you all vote for it tonight the honors program I told you my personal story on it and I meant it and um sociology is used in this County by over 10,000

048people even our Police use it they also use psychology I used it on my mother I used it on my children uh I also checked Shalom Christian Academy has a sociology program I went on their website you also voted at one time for Kurt big uh Kurt Whitman to be your curriculum development uh administrator respect him he had children in the school district he's not going to harm any child in the school district you also voted for superintendent bigger and uh I asked you to go through the policy book which you're supposed to follow and um if and it says here if he trust you you trust him back that was one of the things I bolded in my email to you you should trust him he's not here to do anybody any harm now

049I'm going to I was going to say a lot more about this because I really think tonight you are going to vote for the honors sociology it doesn't cost me a dime it does not you know I understand budgets you know I understand the bill list um my last item that I'm going to talk about is something that really bothered me I saw a teacher mention on next next door about her need for school supplies now I go to the senior center and I'll tell you if the county ever ever stops and I'll use this as an example this construction paper for me to do a craft I'm going to be upset so I'm going to be I'm going to just tell you that I want you to consider adding money to the budget for

050supplies for the teachers and the students and if I have to keep addressing that every time I come here I will thank you Mrs other members of the audience wish to speak on any of item seven consent agenda for new items um items 7.01 through 7.11 these are new items that not discussed at first ask any of those they will be voted on in a block if there are any of those items that a board member would like to separate out maybe it's just a question or if you want an item to be a specific individual vote for I just ask for 7 any other items yeah uh I'd like to have uh 70909 a comment please okay 709 and 710 any other items okay need a motion to approve item 7.01 through 7.08 and

051then 7.11 second motion by Mrs goggler second by Mr hack all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed eyes have it and so moved takes us to 7.09 let's have a motion and second and then Mr hadek you'll be next move to approve second motion by Mrs goggler second by Mr mcke Mr ha I'd like to make a comment about uh gifts grants and donations when I look at the amount of donations given and the uh diversity of the organizations and people that are giving it is totally awesome that our community gives so much to this District um and I really appreciate that so thank you public whoever you are donors and I would ask asked that if you could add a u column or a uh a total for all the

052donations at the bottom should so we could just see you know in one period of time just how much money we're getting from these donations I like that thank you yeah any other comments questions on item 7.09 okay hearing none all those in favor signified by saying I I I opposed eyes haven't so moved item 7.10 a motion and second please move to approve second motion by Mrs goggler second by Mrs gal um any board member other board members have questions comments or discussions on this um I'm not sure if it's well Dr long or Mr Whitman but uh my question is on Edgenuity um it's the second time in less than a month I've heard that or seen that word and uh in years going by and I said in my president's report earlier

053uh this old bird we used to talk about that word all the time um the first time I heard about not too long ago was when I was circulating my nominating petition and um knocked on a gentleman's door who was a former teacher and and left to go to another district and he proceeded to tell me why and he really didn't like Edgenuity but haven't heard much about it actually I thought I had heard that we weren't using it quite as much or it wasn't being used as much so where are we with Edgenuity Edgenuity is a one of the complete packages that we can purchase for the students to be able to do asynchronous learning um asynchronous says there's there's not another teacher on on the end just for checking and things like that

054um what we've been trying to do k k through a is have synchronous learning with the students as well uh once they reach the ninth grade they're often running themselves and it's very hard to pull them into a classroom um this is also probably u a medium priced not a high- priced um system some of the systems that we looked at are three times as much money um so and Edgenuity is actually what we purchased when when Co came MH um so one thing that we are looking at doing is um 6 through 12 with that genuity so for cyber school yes and so it's primarily cyber school platform okay whereas back in back in the day it was everything districtwide every grade yes all right thank you you're welcome other questions or discussions all

055those in favor signify oh I'm sorry I was going to ask is that a common complaint that there are employees that don't really like the system or is that just one person that maybe it just wasn't a good fit for them u i mean when we go to conferences and things like that we have negatives and positives on it um but it is a a very interactive program with videos and things that students can watch there's also times where they have to sit and read uh and then they have to respond and things like that so um it takes a different person to learn online completely um so it's it's difficult for some people that way and that's where the bad the bad R comes from they're just not ready for it good question other

056questions or discussions okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppos eyes have it and so move before we go to next section Mr Norcross um Mrs clever we did hire some people that are here tonight thank you so if we could recognize them um I think M doc Dr bomb's here I think Mrs Luffy way back there if you guys want to stand up say hello uh if you were hired tonight maybe just do a quick introduction of yourself that'd be great go ahead who are you tell us who you are in what position um I'm Dr bom I currently teach fifth grade at Stevens Elementary and I was hired as the six gr math content specialist thank [Applause] you exced Chambers School schri serving School District andun thank you okay

057items 8.01 through 8.12 um same ask as the group seven any any individual items that need a board member wishes to have separated to discuss or comment on individually all right hearing none a motion and a second to approve items 8.01 through 8.1 two please motion to approve second motion by Mr haek second by Miss Harbaugh all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose eyes have it and so move all right section nine education and services um item 9.01 uh this was an item that was tabled at our last meeting um if it doesn't come off the table then it'll go back into the for a later discussion if someone wanted to bring it back up so board's wishes on taking item 9.01 off the table uh if it doesn't come off

058the table we would skip to 9.03 tonight corre I'll move to have it off the table I'll second okay motion by Mrs Harbaugh Miss Harbaugh second by Mr R rer um questions discussions guess we don't discuss taking it off the table my bad no all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed I hav't so moved item 9.02 um curriculum map for Honor Society honors sociology my goodness I need more caffeine tonight folks a motion and second please what's the motion for I'm sorry discuss to to vote on item 9.02 which this is the item that we put on the table a month ago we just took it off the table so now we I move to approve it I'll second motion by Mr Walker second by Miss Harbaugh um okay um board discussions

059comments I have a few comments come on at the tender age of 74 I have been called many things but at our last board meeting I believe it was inferred that I was a reductionist I had an idea what that meant but I looked it up yes that's a fair assessment what I attempted to do I attempted to take a complicated subject and reduce it to something a little simpler in that regard I like to say that I think it's simple to start with the definition about what we are debating so I pulled out online Miriam D Webster's Dictionary and said what is the definition of sociology accordingly it said sociology is the science of society social institutions and social relationships specifically the systematic study of the development structure interaction and Collective behavior of organized

060groups of human beings since there is a scientific basis to the study that gives me Comfort that should this advanced placement course be adopted that the science serves as guard rails to prevent the teacher from sending this course in some misguided way personally I would vote to approve this course I have no problem with its content however I will be voting no to approve this course tonight because of the following I've looked far and wide to see how AP and IB courses are adopted maintained and retired I found no information readily available on the District web page and I could not find any policy that addresses the process I'm requesting that before any of these types of courses be approved that this board and the public be given a presentation that explains how this works

061by the person most responsible for these courses questions I expect to be answered are who's in charge of the process what criteria are established that guide when a course is considered how many students requesting the course does it take to get the ball rolling is there a minimum number what does it cost the district to establish a course and to main maintain the course on the roster of approved courses and what does it take to retire a course are they there in perpetuity there's probably a lot more questions I would ask if I would hear the presentation but that's where I am on that issue thank you very much I think those are great questions can the administration respond to some of those now without a presentation or do do we need to set up

062a separate time for that or the I'll pause let the administration answer I I can give some of the answers there uh generally in charge of the process when are looking at their course requests and their Pathways uh would be the high school but they work with our supervisor in curriculum instruction Crystal loton slogger so to uh work on first the curriculum map and then um you know presenting that as uh following our policy where it would be present it out out into the public for over 30 days for anyone to come see and comment or take a look at it uh and then we would go through the the approval of the map and then we' provide resources for that uh in this I mean in this case it was um because of doing

063college and high school with an agreement with uh Robert Morris University um creating the guide courses I I believe in the last Friday folder uh Mr AER uh did provide uh their their course guides in there so the the kind of the course guide question we did provide that um how many students to start a course um we don't we're on a course without 15 students that's generally been our guide post uh we do believe we'd probably have about two sections at the most of this course if we would uh move forward with this course um what does it take to retire a course uh generally that's a great question we've we've had you know we just don't run a course right uh lack of participation last lack of participation being under that 15 number

064we don't run a course but have we officially retired a course I'd have to look into that that's a great question Mr ad so is there also I know there's an option for student to take the course to not test out there any consideration credit advancement testing out good yeah it could be like an AP course um some of our students have taken this this course at um uh do enrollment where they actually go to the college and take this course so I I personally would like to thank uh Mr AER and whomever provided the information to the board related to the vast opportunities that are available to students who have the academic ability to achieve the deeper learning that fulfills the challenges of the advanced placement honors and International balarat Studies I hopeful that

065this information will be uh available to the public at some time in the near future I will be voting no for the honor sociology course until the newly hired director for 9 to 12 grades has had an opportunity to evaluate the needs of our high school students and recommend a pathway to correct any recognized deficiencies for the entire student body the current sociology course provides students an opportunity to learn about Society and social behaviors so all students have this opportunity already there's about 50 Advanced courses plus dual enrollment opportunities where students attend college classes as Mr um Whitman mentioned at a higher education facility and so all students um have available electives and opportunities for college credits under our present system and so until we have a clear need for this or other Advanced uh

066electos I will be voting no um for those who might question as I have been questioned at times about any personal motivation um to limit Advanced learning for high school students my grandchildren are currently in advanced math courses at cam South and on track to be among those students who will enroll in advanced courses in the not too distant future I have advocated for uh stem expansion in our curriculum I have supported significantly our teachers through um messages to them congratulating them thanking them Etc and so I am by no means opposed to advancement of uh courses Andor um the programs of study here and I uh just think that we need to wait until we have more information and I would especially hope that the public would have that wide range of information that

067was provided for the board um on Friday thank you I'm curious to know Mr ha did you feel like you got good answers to your most important questions or do you still have outstanding questions I got answers to my most important questions I think there's some things that are dangling but I got enough information now to um inform my vote I'm curious to know from Mrs goggler um yeah when you think about this uh like you're you're looking for a 912 uh analysis of everything that we're offering and and trying to understand like is there really a need for this I think 100 50 kids in the in the standard sociology and two whole classes that are interested in possibly taking this to me that demonstrates that there is high interest like kids would sign

068up for it we have 50 courses or so 48 I believe um college credit options there's 12 Sciences there's six history courses there's six World languages we don't have any sociologies right and so to me I'm like it seems like it is a missing piece now are there other things could could we do some big analysis of that yeah I'm I'm fine with doing that but I don't object to this being in the mix it seems like a very reasonable addition um if we're going to have 12 Sciences but zero sociologies in our college credit uh options that's that's kind of where I land on that so how yeah do you feel like two classes full is still not enough or yeah I was interested in the fact in my research that there are no

069AP exams for sociology there are no AP uh courses I also researched multiple school districts in south central Pennsylvania including Cumberland Valley uh Central Dolphin um Central Bucks um which is not south central Pennsylvania but multiple multiple and I could not find a single school that had an honors and there is no AP sociology even available through the college boards that administer the exams for AP courses sure and so that leads me to believe that we're kind of an outlier uhuh and until we evaluate the needs of all students when we know that there is such a vast amount of opportunity for our high-end students I feel that we need to give M lffy the opportunity for a because once once we approve something Mr Whitman kind of admitted it's never going to go away

070you know well it does in well practically because it's not actually being offered Mr W oh sorry you go ahead go ahead no yes please uh there is a cost to the student for this correct through Robert Morris or like any dual dual enrollment course or whatever it's about $250 to then get the uh assign the credit to it from Robert Mor okay thank you but you don't have to take it you don't have to pay and take it corre you can still take it as an honors without the enr right or college and high school okay is it sorry is it transferable to other schools or is it specific to Robert Morris the credit that they would get if they paid I didn't mean to put you on the spot I just came up

071when he asked the question that's kind of a depend question let take that so um every University is unique in that and unfortunately when you have a local control State like we do um it's a little bit of a free game out there for what universities will accept if you were go to like a Maryland the community college courses all inter miix and they all say it's okay but here we don't everybody protects their own turf so that would be a case by case school by school issue by issue okay thank so there are courses though that you can take that are transferable in the pashy schools or all the Penn State Shippensburg that all the um um Pennsylvania what we call py schools so it is a very challenging game to now if you're

072a parent to say does this course count or not the same thing with ap um if you pass with a 345 not everybody accepts it so unfortunately we have a we have a um an unstructured State highed system disconnected from publicated 12 but it still counts toward their graduation requirement it would yes and to some universities yes thank you I I agree with Miss goler the information we got this week was fantastic I would love to see that go out to the public um if we're going to do a large scale like analysis of all of this I feel like answering that question should be included in all that analysis parents should know hey if you sign up for these 10 courses you can go to Shippensburg and it's good and if you sign up

073for these eight it's worth nothing right right potentially right so if we're going to take the time to do that and I think it's a it's a fair request that's please include that and so I am correct if they take a dual en enrollment sociology course at Shippensburg University they will indeed get a credit for yes transfer to another Pennsylvania that's correct College that's correct same thing with Wilson that's correct Etc Wilson's private so not always everything private to public doesn't always transfer okay public to public is usually a greater chance there's a transfer I think the transfer portal is the wrong word that's for nil but there is a transfer course portal you can go in and put in a course and say does this course count at ship does this course count but

074you cannot guarantee that it's accurate it is just to get you some information you basically have to call the department chair at the University and find out from that Dean does this count or not and and this is my point of and I challenge Miss Luffy to come back with yes she did door to us with uh something that we stop a smorgas board smattering of courses that parents have no idea how to guide their students in a pathway you've heard me mention before the Bloomsburg Lazar County Community College program where students at Bloomsburg high school graduate with an Associate Degree I don't know that we have that potential here but I also have spoken several years ago with a gentleman from Shippensburg University who I don't know if he still is in the capacity

075that he was at that time that there was an interest then this was in 2022 in developing more uh bonding so to speak with our education yes he wants to respond to that one because we're on that one so uh now that we have Mrs Luffy here uh I just want to go back to the presentation that we gave on our pillars uh the College and Career pathway uh the number one ask from our blueprint committee that we we had was a clearly defined pathway so uh you know some of your points and and Ben's points uh are very valid that we the one thing that our committee wants is is a clearly defined Pathways for our students so that's something that we have to work on so I I'd like to make one final

076comment um with respect to M Go's comment stretch it out um he said maybe we're an outlier by uh offering this course if ever we needed a opportunity to study how we're behaving as organized human beings it's today and maybe we're a trend Setter not an outlier maybe we're leading the way in this to improve how we get along as a community as a nation so uh um that's all I have to say um other Mr rocker I have one um yeah so looking at the climate for what's going on right now we're talking about sociology which it's piggy backed off of History um I went on the White House's uh website and they've got uh and I think this is is very pertinent to what we're dealing with today ending ending uh radical uh

077indoctrination in K12 uh K2 schooling you can go on go on the site and pull this up I didn't have time to run run a bunch of copies off of it this is January uh 29th 2025 um and in it it mentions about um having patriotic education uh t uh patriotic education means presentation of the history of America grounded in an accurate honest unifying inspiring and ennobling characterization of America's founding and foundational principles um and later on it goes on to mention um uh about reestablishing the presidency's uh advisory commission for 1776 commission uh and promoting patriotic education uh and it goes on a upon request advising executive departments and agencies regarding their efforts to ensure Patriot product education is appropriately provided to the public at National Parks battlefields monuments museums installations land landmarks cemeteries

078and other places important to the American founding and American history as appropriate and consistent with applicable laws what I have a problem with with this in the direction that we're going in is we're saying teaching patriotic history and and I think the last time we we we spoke on this I I I told you what my um experience was coming up going from Junior High um grade school into junior high and we had history and then we had black history one was required one was an elective um and this is still tied to Sociology so soci you know socially how we were interacting with one another not that long ago well this is required that's important this one you can take it or leave it and so so whenever I when I when I see

079the pushing and moving of okay we're teaching patriotic history at the end of the day I really don't care about patriotic history personally I want the truth to be told and I think there's a lot of truth that needs to be told for the spaces that we're in right now if we're talking about sociology what's what's shaped our culture what's shaped what how we do and move with one another socially um and I'm just going to give you an example Le socially what goes on I I I perceive myself maybe the only to be only africanamerican in the room I could be wrong on that so forgive me if there is someone of of that uh uh Heritage but an African American community and you may have heard this when someone says oh he's got

080good hair my son who happens to be mixed raced they would say oh he has good hair well that's a social construct in as much is the way his hair grows out of his head it's got a nice wavy pattern to it and everything else so that's good hair but my hair the way it would grow out of is is not so much and that comes from a social construct of where our standards of beauty came from so this is the black community African-American Community dealing with these things these social constructs and so to me it's vitally important that I don't even personally I would rather not this be taught as a as a a a a higher one I think it needs to be taught across the board that's my stance on that uh

081because at this point in high school they need to know it now we're a global community and there are all sorts of things that have been swept under the carpet I think that we we don't deal with haven't dealt with um and it's coming back to bite us and they're hard they're hard topics they're very hard topics you know that stuff is r is a hard topic the misogynistic things that our nation has done you know women sociology wise 1972 couldn't get a a credit card without their husband signing for it 72 this is socially what we what what's has has taken place in our country is that stuff taught do we know about that and if we don't are we going down these Pathways and I'm afraid that if we don't get taught these

082things if we don't know the history if we don't know the sociological things that we're in the middle of I feel that we're going to continue to go down these Pathways and we won't get to the root of it we'll just cut the head of the Dand line off and it'll be popped right back up again cut the Dandy line off and pop right back up again until we get to the root of these things so I'm I'm I'm 100% on board with this curriculum being added and I wish it wasn't just hey you know you can opt out of it I think we all need to know this history and that's the great thing about having the general sociology course that is established and utilized yes I agree other board other board members who

083haven't spoken do you have any other any comments I think I misspoke I'm sorry good I want to correct myself a little bit because I think I was sharing a little bit earlier about we need to know which colleges offer what and then I said well if they don't offer it well then it's of no value that's I think that that's I probably shouldn't have said it that way right I think there's a lot of value in learning whether you get a degree on the wall or not whether you get credits or not there's a lot of value in learning and so I think I misspoke just for understanding at what I was getting at I think I still want to know do you get college credit or not um so to miss SC um

084is the sociology course that's offered now a requirement no I don't think so so that removes a lot of um history or historical science being honestly and accurately taught if it's not a requirement um and what percentage of students take this current Sociology class but I think I remember something like 150 that that's the number yes currently so till students graduate what percentage of them would have had that course well we have about 2,300 in the high school about 150 students are taking it per year so yeah okay so we have and we have 50 that would sign up for an an honors program if we had it that's what was initially told to us that at the most we would have two two sections okay i' just like to say that um I really

085appreciate the public reaching out on this topic uh there were people that stood here and spoke there were people that approached me personally through email text message whatever the case might be um that's very important uh in my decision-making process and I only speak for myself because I don't make it a habit to speak on behalf of others um regardless of how this vote goes down tonight I encourage you as we move forward with the many different uh heavy lifts as it is or whatever the topics are going to be don't let whatever this may or may not be as far as the vote comes down tonight discourage you from continuing to come here and tell us and email us or I won't say us email me call me um we may not always see

086eye to eye on every subject but I can assure you that the public comments and the reaching out and your voice is being considered when decisions are being made um on my part and I appreciate that and I encourage you to not get um upset or frustrated as we move forward with this or anything else if things don't go the way maybe you had hoped that they would um because those public comments as Mr Miller pointed out during the communication are very important and they do they do weigh on us you know and and we do take those into consideration um and and I appreciate that to those people that had the courage to stand here I know public speaking isn't made for everyone um but I know that some people stood in in support

087I know some people contacted me personally both for and against um but I just want to encourage everyone as we move forward to please continue reaching out with your concerns regardless of what the subject is um because that's very important to me and that does weigh into my consideration thank you so much I can Cur okay other board members um I'll go my my comment on this item um qu sort of hitchhikes off Mr Hauck and M M Mrs goggler comment uh for many years we've had uh discussions uh on voting items when it comes to classes and class sizes um and we talk about it a lot uh but I'm not sure that we've ever really sat down and evaluated or I shouldn't say evaluated maybe the administration probably has but as a presentation

088to the board and I know it's something that for many years now has come up on and off uh often so you know I think I my thought is at this point I mean here we are again we're at now it's an honor sociology course uh I know I know one time many years ago it was either honors or an AP geography course um or geometry honors or AP geometry course many years ago but uh my my point is uh my vote tonight isn't necessarily based on isn't based on this course it's this larger concept of you know what courses options I am a fan of options I say it in my personal life I say it in my business life and I'll sit here and say it in my public life options are great

089for everyone uh however I also go back to the presentation of of scores that we re recently had and the high school scores are not as good as the rest of our district I think that's a fair assessment right so and there are limited resources to us buildings classroom spaces and we all know teachers so in the in the not necessarily and I don't think of my vote as just honor sociology here think about all all 18 honors classes plus however many AP plus however many IB classes as Mr hadek said and so do these honors classes my suspicion is my hypothesis is the students who are taking this class are not the ones that are impacting those test results and scores in high school so should we be using resources on more uh bread

090and butter classes you know to help students get all the scores up not just more classes for the advanced Learners more classes more options for all Learners regardless where you are in in your class ranking can I can I ask a question point of clarity does this uh course require more resources than the other course that we have six of I mean instead of it will require a uh textbook okay but it wouldn't require more it would just require a different textbook uh am I understanding correctly or well the text right this is the curriculum map that that is up for approval the text would be next uh that uh your rmu uses they would want us to use the same one okay I think the way uh if I want interpret a little bit

091of framing resources is teacher time as well every time you add another course or another section that's a teacher teaching that course that could be teaching maybe something else and I think to to to Ed's point or to others it's it's when you add and add and add courses you dilute the ability for a teacher to teach other courses that may be a keystone course or a high high stakes test course or remediation course like for an example in that if I can hitch on Chris so maybe there's a math course that fits somewhere between Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 maybe there's a math course of algebra 1.5 or something like that you know I I don't know but something where to to help to help you know maybe I misunderstood though with 150 kids

092we have six sections and so if we offered this we would have four sections of the regular and two sections of the honors so as I understood it it wasn't an increase for this particular course you would just have less kids taking the regular and maybe yeah maybe I mean you don't know entirely how it will shake out until you do it but your best educated guest is that it's not actually going to pull anyone away you're you're just going to have more sections of your regular sociology that all depends on the course request I think that's tough to answer it can vary from year to year too it could and a change in schedule up at the high school this coming year will have an impact on course requests yeah any other comments discussions

093before we all vote here yeah I may may I say this sociology I agree with Mr Walker it starts Way Beyond taking this course here in the junior senior sophomore year it starts way down low uh being an element educated as an elementary teacher uh I mean first of all I'm a big believer starts at home no matter what uh that that's where it all starts uh and but then from there you know I think it's permeated and I think through some of the things that we talked about is building positive behavior the courses we have in the elementary and just emphasizing that and all that uh you know will make a greater difference than offering this one course you know which students can take at other colleges what whatever may be uh in that

094but because agree everything's about relationships I don't care what and we all have different viewpoints whatever but uh I am just a big believer that it all starts at the home and and and even with the learning of the students it starts at home I mean and I appreciate so much the emphasis Mr bigger is making toward that parents you know be behind us in what we're doing here uh in that it'll make a tremendous difference but I think think you know sociology is taught just sometimes informally uh you know just on a day-to-day basis by teachers in the classroom whatever may be I you know it just it's just hard for me just to vote just for this one course uh you know I believe about relationships and learning how to get along whatever

095may be but it starts a lot younger than this okay Mrs stalford roll call please Miss goggler no Miss Gus no Miss Harbaugh no Mr Hauck no Mr mcke no Mr Norcross no Mr raber yes Mr Walker yes motion fails six to2 okay um when we get down to item 12 for the board um I want to come back to this just briefly when we get down to item 12 um please 9.03 Chromebook lease and use of assigned fund balance motion and second please so moved motion by Mrs galus and a second [Music] by Mr hack thank you questions or discussions all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppos eyes have it and so moov item 11.01 second reading of policy 204 attendance motion and second please move to approve second motion

096by Mrs goggler second by Mr mcke questions or discussions all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed eyes have it and so moov second reading of policy 239 foreign exchange students motion and second again please move to approve second motion by Mr McGee mcke mcke sorry that's okay second by Mr Walker I've been called worse questions or discussions what's that mean all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed eyes have it and so mooved first reading of policy 8.15 85.2 Mr mcke I hope you give a motion here so I can get your name move to approve second motion by Mr mcke second by Mrs goggler questions or discussions all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed eyes have it and so boov uh item 12

097new business I'll go first here and then if any other members from our previous discussion on 9.02 uh one of the takeaways and notes I wrote down is probably a topic at a future Committee of the whole to have a presentation not just so much on not just on this particular course that we voted on this evening but the whole offering of AP I apib and honors classes so let that up to Mr bigger and his team to establish a timeline for that uh in my opinion I'm more interested in quality and accuracy versus timeliness on this topic so um I think my take away from that is this this uh broader discussion needs to be a a cow Topic in the future to your comment I'd like to add that I agree and at

098the conclusion of that presentation I'd like to see the sociology AP course be resurfaced to have another consideration to include it in the new whatever the new program looks like yep and I would hope that all of the agreements that we have with various colleges for for dual enrollment for college and the high school that type of thing would be included in that uh session yep all great comments and I'm sure any other board members if there's specific information or items that you would like to be included in that cow uh let Mr bigger know and I'm sure you know the more advanced notice we give him the the better he and uh the rest of the team can be prepared to give us a informative presentation any other board members have new business items

099they would like to bring up and discuss this evening these items here they're both information right kind of the same thing yeah do it before we adjourn okay oh I was going to do okay I was going to do it under information but Chris uh corrected me here two items for new business um we do have a regular board meeting scheduled for May 20th which is primary election day um so this building room is tied up um the the question is Fay Chris and I spoke about this today uh late today um two suggestions options we would move our voting meeting to May 13th that would be similar to uh two months ago when we did uh cow and voting meeting all in one day one night which could be a long night just throw

100that out there or we move it back a week to May 27th um uh I asked Chris when we were talking about it as long as it didn't impact any of the five six budget votes we make and it wouldn't so so we could we don't need it for one of our five budget votes it's not as many now not as many now four so what's the wish what are the wishes of the board I preer the 13th because I'll be away the 27th and I prefer the 27th because I'll be away on the 13th which Stephy wins out I either way I can always I think I have the ability to call in if I need to um if that's what comes to if you don't have that same availability well the other the

101other consideration is that that's the week of two graduations uh that board members will be participating if they're available in so I think that the you don't want to see us three times in a week well I thought that was just yeah I mean it's just a consideration I AGC will meet that week also then won't they possibly four times then yeah so but the other option is you can we can do a combined meeting on the six I don't think there's anything wrong with a combined meeting on the sixth we can just make sure there's no heavy cow okay sure are there sure are there any all the easy ones are on the six yeah right pick pick a short presentation so since we have some conflicts on the 13th and the 27th would

102a combined meeting on the 6th work then we just have one meeting that month right right and two graduations and we do have an early June meeting um which is another consideration is for I I kind of prefer the sixth because okay we'll have just extra caffeine we'll have B get that out public if it's coming it's not the 20th and add that we'll have Bev get that out in the public uh canceling the 20th meeting and read advertising the six we'll be here good okay other item in new business uh the board communication Workshop um the poll that went out from Bev um it's looking favorable for Monday this coming Monday from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. uh here Monday so um you know it's hard to so it's hard to get everyone together when

103we have these special Workshop sessions but uh I think as we've talked about in exe in our executive session it's a Well need it's a needed Communications Workshop that we'd like to do so um might not get everyone there but Monday the 31st is that uh there's five people right now and one tenative okay okay yep so we have five Mr Walker we can look at um a date I I just think we need to get on it um but we can look at dates in April send out another survey um we we have the forums that are happening uh on Tuesday so I think that Mondays open up and I apologize for that um there was an unforeseen extension uh so my Monday kind of froze up on me there but Monday is moving

104forward after this month are good okay I might be able to make it I got to check my book at home no I think I think we've pretty much ruled out the 31st Monday an April Monday we'll go back back to the drawing board and send out another poll I just think it's important for the majority for all board members to be there right okay with that uh our meeting is adjourned uh but we already have a little bit of an information discussion here uh tonight um the one item that I mentioned in my president's report happens to be item 15.0 five Cyber School attendance give you a little bit of recent background on this uh Chris had made a comment to me and about some in some of the processes that uh our attendance

105folks have been going through and maybe he thought I didn't hear it but I did hear it and I thought about it and to be quite honest with you the more I thought about it the angrier the angrier I get about it uh to the point where it really had me fired up today um when when I talked to him again so um this Cyber School attendance I'm going to give a little bit of a preview I'm going to turn it over to Chris we can kick it around a little bit more and then I might elaborate I probably will elaborate some more but this isn't necessarily about uh when Jane Doe and when her little brother Johnny do log in for their required hours or time okay this is more about where they log

106in from uh and the issue is that it's highly likely we have chamberburg school district is paying cyber tuition for students who no longer live in this District they may not even be living in this state but the Cyber the Cyber folks still send us a bill because when they went to cyber school they were a student and a resident at Chambersburg uh what has the hair standing up on the back of my neck is I mean we could discuss here all night you know the um variances between public school and cyber school and all that other stuff and you know petitions and everything else you know the Cyber schools have gotten where they are the oldfashioned way uh the pockets of politicians uh in my opinion but one thing that has me bothered is

107it just really bothers me that this would fall on the footsteps of taxpayers of Chambers School District when the student may not even live in this District anymore or even in this state um that's what got us to this point I'll pause now Chris you can elaborate yeah without getting um people too worked up more than you uh uh um we did task our attendance team to look at attendance throughout the district physical and cyber and I'm going to look to mark for a little bit of help I do believe when we did communicate with the 500 plus students outside of our cyber school we did have quite a few return envelopes and so that began the question okay where do they live did they move to another address within the district somewhere else so

108we've started peeling away at that slow but sure so do you want to add to the number or also where you are in the process Bobby can also jump in here because she's dealing with it but um we sent out just about to everyone so it was over 500 letters um we did have 22 or 23 that came back to us that the address no one was there at that address so we're looking at um them right now through Bobby and her secretary um they're sending letters to the Cyber schools to try to get some information back from them on these students but we did find two students that lived in Virginia or West Virginia Virginia so and it's it's an ongoing process um Trish is out at CMS she's Gathering the envelopes every day

109that they come in so so I think it's our commitment to to try to rectify this from our view I did receive communication from CCA that it's their responsibility to do it um and they'll tell you that that it's their job and not our job to communicate with directly with parents but certainly we're going to continue to double check and verify attendance for anybody again physical and or virtual um it is expensive if you don't know it's over 11 or 122,000 per child for um a regular ed student and push in 30,000 Plus for special education students so CCA has 24,000 students enrolled they're almost 30% special education um and so it's a lot of students and that's just one of the Cyber schools so there is a dollar figure tied to it and we're

110certainly going to do our part to try to make sure we're cleaned up or following the law for attendance across the board it also is when you're not U participating in school so how long we don't know some of the answers to this how long do you let someone not participate so if you're an older student 10 days after 10 days drop you from the roles so are there policies in place for the older students what about the younger students so if you're not we do truy so we do our approaches for the physical students who are here and our own cyber students we do that for but we can't control what the other schools do and how aggressive or assertive they are following their policies which creates this really difficult um conversation we're having

111um so there is a lot of information out about cyber schools right now um a lot of advocacy at the state level to uh make some changes in the Cyber Law but you know to use the words of um uh maybe unjustice or fraud or abuse there definitely is some we just have to find out where it is and that's been our task so far this year and I do commend the folks that are they're jumping in aside from a home visit we've sent anybody to the houses yet it's not like we sent it on okay so that's the next step I will say there are a few schools not to mention their who they are that do hire people full-time just to go make sure they're living there because if you think about the

112dollars behind that you know paying someone x amount of dollars and if they find five students that don't live there and are not on our bill that's certainly saving us money but there are schools that that have gotten to that point and I'm not saying we're at that point yet but um we're certainly reviewing our policies and practices I hope that was enough uh to satisfy you yeah my temperature is going down a little bit since this afternoon all right if any other board members comments I mean thoughts discussion um Can this go in the field of of like us being build is that fraudulent I don't know yeah I I don't I that's we don't know so I think you know we're finding out and we correct it when we find it and we

113can go to the we can appeal bills and talk a little bit about that when we do find something the challenge well I'm I'm going again Bobby's the expert her and Suzanne in my office do a a phenomenal job of um you know when kids are moving in and out of the Cyber Charters they're trying to get residency verification but to Mr bigger's point there sometimes that push back from the Cyber saying you know um they don't have to um or it's not it's not their it's not our job to do that um there is a a um an appeal process but that's mostly for the Cyber Charters whenever they feel that we've not played them appropriately they can appeal it and what happens is the state takes the money out of our subsidy and

114then it's up to us to prove that they were wrong so it's it's a really kind of strange process uh that that goes on so it's it's kind of slanted in the One Direction send the build to Virginia the the good news the good news and refreshing news is we're working the the team is working on it yeah um the bad news is we are paying for it uh fighting against a stack deck I think the the intentions are nobody's doing it intentionally it's just how how much effort do you put into finding people so you know the intentions of folks of are you making the effort to find out where they live or not and and what's the motive and incentive the Inc for C AB absolutely [Applause] all right thank you everyone