March 12, 2024 Committee Of The Whole Meeting

001e thank you go ahead and call this evening's meeting to order for the uh Chambersburg Area School District committee the whole if you please rise for pledge allegiance and follow by a Moment of Silence Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you okay getting into our agenda uh first off we did have an executive session prior to this this tonight tonight's meeting for legal matters and real estate um so moving on item 3.01 superintendence report Mr bigger yep thanks Mr Norcross um we will not be making up the three weather related days um for students um on uh the first week in June uh we do have enough hours in elementary middle

002school and high school that we don't need to make up those days for students we have 995 hours in elementary and we only need 900 we have um 1,40 at CMS and 1,4 at cashes and the middle school is run at 1,46 so with those hours we can convert those three days for students into teacher and service days at the end of our school year so students that are here congratulations that you don't have to make up three days staff that are here congratulations you get to spend three days on inservice on June actually four days uh June 3rd was already an inservice day and we will add the fourth fifth and six for three more in service days graduation will remain the same at CMS on May 30th at 6:30 and cashes on the

00331st of May at 6:30 pending no major storms that last a long period of time this spring um I do want to highlight a video I did post uh last week and I think it's near and dear to a lot of people's hearts but we don't talk about it too much in keeping our children off social media um after rounds and rounds of interviews with administrators and stud student or in staff in general we're we're continually saying that social media is a problem and we're going to ask you as parents to help us keep kids off social media especially in the Middle Middle grades it's pretty good in elementary we don't see a lot of it but when Middle School comes around we see a lot of social media coming into the school and we

004end up playing police officers for social media and so when it happens outside of school and it shows up first period second period third period it's consuming a lot of our day so we're asking parents to just help us out turn it off in the evening things keep it out the the the cell phones in a different room you know not where everybody sleeps don't use it as an alarm just just anything you can do as a parent to help us and to the students here uh for yourself you know try to self-regulate limit yourself on social media it's just becoming something that's almost um to the point where we're ready to say we need your help and we're going to do something more if we don't get more help so whether that's not having

005cell phones we're not sure we don't want to go down that path just yet but we just need your help so I appreciate that and that concludes my report at this time okay thank you Mr bger item 3.02 president's report first I'd like to thank my uh colleague and partner Mrs goggler for filling in last meeting uh in my absence I had a uh professional commitment with my day job and uh that's where I was last last meeting so thank you Mrs goggler and I hear it went a very was a very smooth meeting uh couple other things just real quick uh as we're getting close to graduation this is a repeat uh comment of mine I apologize but uh you know one of the one of the few rewards we get for being on

006the school board personally I believe is the ability to attend graduation so I encourage each and every board member to make sure you get that on your calendar and and you know try everything you can to attend graduation uh it's it's a very enjoyable time and to that point uh I also serve as president of the Joc at Career Tech and they did the uh licensed practical nursing program graduation there a week and a half ago or so um it was a great great evening another great ceremony small class but it was a great class I think it was the 65th year 65 years and there's been [Music] 120 graduating classes in her 65 years uh that's that's a pretty good history uh of putting healthc care workers and providers in our community and uh

007I know she would never uh acknowledge it herself but uh again my esteemed partner here in colleague uh provides a generous uh scholarship or reward not a scholarship a reward to to a graduating student who uh overcomes you know the a lot of the challenges that they do and uh Fay does it in honor of her mother uh who dreamed of being a nurse and Fay lived that dream out for her mother so uh there's once again this year there's uh another lucky recipient of the Fay goggler scholarship from the practical nursing program so thank you Fay okay item [Music] 3.03 presentations thank you and um I look forward to this next 30 minutes of violating all my rules I tell administrators to not present for more than 20 minutes so I do have a

008lot to share tonight um for about the last two and a half three months I've worked hard to try to self-study the school district there is a very long version of the presentation I'm going to do tonight it's about 40 pages and that'll go out later this week fully to the public um for criticism and and also acknowledgements because I know I'll get both no matter what um necessarily I present uh I want you to think about this presentation um as a school board member about what you can do to help and what's important to you in the presentation and ask clarifying questions at the end of things maybe I don't clearly state or that you don't understand for the public I ask you you know in time to affirm what you see or disagree

009with as well um to educate me on something I may have missed it is a self-study state of the district this is not a collective 40 people sat in a room and fed me this um my goal with this presentation is to tell you what I'm seeing objectively coming back to the district from afar I am not emotionally connected to some of the data and information you're going to see because I'm coming back to the district so it's an observation I don't make many inferences uh in this presentation but it the data is the data um and I hope it establishes common ground common understanding so that we can take a step forward and agreeing as much as we can to solve struggles that we see but more importantly recognize successes when you see them

010it's very easy easy in public education to be the target of criticism every day but rarely does someone say hey I like this and that the school does and by the way here are the other things I don't like we don't ever get that we always get what you don't like so I ask you to balance what you see as positive and understand as good in the district along with concerns and areas for improvement so for the last two and a half months self-study so state of the schools and school district um I covered a lot of areas and my focus of this study was to compare Chambersburg to the state of Pennsylvania and also to 10 peer school districts Like Us in poverty and size so that's the framework of comparisons it's hard in

011Franklin County to compare us to Franklin County Schools we don't compare totally we have similar students but our size and demographics doesn't make it equal for comparisons so if you're going to do comparisons you want to go to the state and also schools that are like you so that's the premise of the study next slide please so I looked at uh five primary areas uh demographics and enrollment would be the first area what's the makeup of our student and how many do we have over time finances would be a second area to look at third would be the perceptions of the school district uh fourth educational performance and fifth a brief step into Staffing and safety and then towards the end I'm going to highlight moving forward as well how we can move forward around

012a blue blueprint for our future and create schools of Distinction for Chambersburg by 2030 and then some next steps on what the work is in front of us next slide please so what I did not study uh Athletics uh we are looking at a process and a feasibility study for facilities so I didn't spend much time in facilities support staff and our ability to hire and retain and develop our support staff technology and then electives and specials courses are all important topics for our future study but not the premise of this one so enrollment and demographics I've asked the question at the public forum and if you've been coming to the public forums it's some of the same information so if you at the first one the public perception data is in here if you

013were at the second one the academic data is in here and if you were here tonight when we talked a little bit about finances a lot of that information is in here as well so we're trying to share in the public forum for a Q&A but also at the board meetings on what we're finding so here are the 10 school districts including us we are at 9,300 students approximately and this was 2022 data at 51% free and reduced if you look at our 23 data we're at around 65% free and reduced on that list go back please one slide it's all right you're click happy back there uh so you can see uh mil Creek has the smallest enrollment in our comparison at 6,400 students and they are also the lowest in free and reduced

014at 41% and you can go to the top at Bethlehem Area School District at 13,000 students at 54% free and reduced and the school district with the highest uh free and reduced status is Hazelton School District um and they also have about 12,000 students and I spent eight days in Hazelton so I can speak eloquently about Hazelton and Chambersburg with comparable problems and concerns and worries and successes next slide please so enrollment in the district if you ask anyone on the street walking around everyone says we're increasing in enrollment because of all the Housing Development you see it's not necessarily true but I'll show you where it is true and where it's not true since 1993 we were at 8,000 students that we served inside the walls of the school not the ones outside the

015walls of the school they're the students that physically walk into the building in 2023 that's about 9200 students um so we are seeing steady increase over time of a very small percent there hasn't been any drastic enrollment increases and there was the minor blip there with the pandemic that we saw some decreases we've had three Pennsylvania economy League studies five years of Pennsylvania Department of Education enrollment studies and then our Architects crab tree rball uh studied our enrollment as well and they've concluded the same thing slow and steady we that Turtle just that slow and steady race small increases here's the key key though the overall enrollment of students inside the schools the 17 schools that we serve our students has increased from 2011 to 2017 however at stopped in 2018 we've been flat at

016around the 9200 from 2018 to 2020 23 so the question is where are the students going and what school are they selecting next slide this one was fascinating to me um school choice in Chambersburg School choice in in all schools in Pennsylvania have these choices and I selected cyber schools uh the ones that are for profit and also run by the state the one we run and homeschool students so if you look on the left-and column in 2014 we had 649 total students selecting a choice now this does not include the parochial schools like your shalom's and some of those so I just focused on the ones that were changing drastically a lot of your parochial schools or private schools are pretty steady overall so we had 649 students um in those programs fast forward

01710 years that's 1373 students in cyber school or home school that's a double that's a a 100% increase in those programs over a 10-year period and the ultimate question that we have to ask if we want to start getting ahead of the game in education what will it be in 2034 is it another 100% increase and if the answer to that is yes we got to get on our educational gain we got to get ahead of this and we have to provide programming that that people are saying they want and so the the second part of this in and this is a powerful Slide the second part is our CMS students in our Franklin County Career and Technical School students uh about 500 students apply so every year between the two schools and about 300

018get accepted that means 200 students don't get what they want where do you think they go some go back to the high school some choose cyber school some go to home school some make it but they're telling us what they're looking for this slide is so important to our future that if we don't get programming right and we don't have students that that match our programming this will continue in the next 10 years in the 10 years in the 10 years and so I can't emphasize this slide enough this is what's changing right in front of us I'm just showing you the data that's saying that next slide please um our demographics in 2015 we're at 52% free and reduced in the circle on the left there and 11% special education by population and 5%

019English language Learners if you move to the right hand SL side in 2023 you can see that changes to 65% which is our latest number of frame reduced 16% special ed which is not unique to Chambersburg and then 14% Ells which is not unique to peer School District but is unique to Chambersburg so approximately a thousand more students who are furthest away from Educational Opportunity they're the ones that struggle the most it's a thousand more so what does that mean for our educational programming when you have a thousand more struggling students or students who are struggling to access education next slide please and so how are we different we can look at our demographics so in 2015 we were 68% white and 32% diverse fast forward to 2023 three it's 58% white and 42% diverse

020with the Hispanic po population being the single greatest growth overall in the school district next slide please uh within our diverse population r or English learner population has gone up 154% over a 10-year period And I can say this because I left the district right around 2015 so uh there were 500 students in elll land I come back we're over 1,400 now this slide was from October where the data was created so that's 154 per increase in English Learners and our programming is is falling behind for what they need so big numbers here those are not small numbers go ahe next slide please so finances I have one slide for all of you that love finances I have one slide so this is great so go ahead it's a lot of clicks so I looked

021at uh Chambersburg and you can click that that about three or four more times di thank you how do we compare to our peer school districts where does our money go how do we spend it keep going click it about four or five more times let's get all the data up there so I looked at Revenue I looked at expenses I looked at our taxes which is complicated one but I'll try to do my best explaining that new number debt and fund balance so on the right hand side you have the peer school districts on the left hand side you have Chambersburg and so our peers spend about $4,000 more per student than we do um and you can go down the list there at $7,500 in expenses I'm sorry revenue is $4,000 different expenses

022are about $1,300 different and let me get to the tax one so this is called local effort and capacity it's a new metric that we're figuring out and I look at Tammy we're figuring out what this means it's an attempt to say are you over taxing or under taxing your local residents the closer to 1.0 you are the better you're taxing or appropriately taxing the more above the 1.0 you are the more you're taxing your local residents above their capacity and so they use this number based on uh income real estate values and about 10 other factors in Formula that I don't understand yet but we're going to get to this um but so in comparison to peer districts we're certainly taxing less and and we have to find out what the 0.1 means so

023if we're 1.1 which is above the 1.0 Target how much does that mean we are slightly over taxing and what's that number mean so I'm just showing you that number because it's part of the new formula and I say this about the Educational Funding formula because this is how it's being distributed so the new formula which we're starting to see needs to change the state supreme court has said it's wrong how we're doing it the state is and the legislators are now assigned an approach to fix it and so they're using this number to help redistribute dollars from the state to schools the hope for Chambersburg would be because we're spending less and we're taxing appropriately that we would see more money now I can tell you in my previous District we ran the numbers

024in Littest toown we would lose money and it's a different demographic it's a different background and so there will be school districts that lose money or don't gain as much and others will gain more so this formula we're figuring out but for the point of tonight's presentation we're appropriately taxing at the 1.1 in comparison uh to the peer districts who are taxing a little bit more now you look at total debt debt is typically your buildings and your facilities and how you keep them updated with air conditioning and improvements and so on so on the left-and side it's 6% of total expenses for Chambersburg and on the right hand side our comparison districts are around 9% and that's about the state average I believe if you look at all districts are around that 9 10%

025and then our fund balance is the one where comp comparable at $3,200 per student we have the comparable fund balances to peer districts next slide please so public perceptions when people um don't have kids in school and aren't connected how do they get information they use public websites and they draw their own conclusions if they're shopping for a house and they're moving to this area they compare schools they don't call the school and say are you the best school every school is going to say they're the best school so they find data sources that are different than necessarily calling a school so I scoured them for you and put them up here so let's go through public perceptions so Niche is the first one and sorry D you're gonna have to do some click happiness

026back there all right just stop there so Niche R ranks Chambersburg overall as a B minus with a 3.5 rating out of five with a strength with a strength in diversity and Athletics that's what they tell that's what they say about us now we don't provide them data they they go Harvest their own data so go to the next one us news and World Report one more click is a very popular one we do have the career magnet school that qualifies for a badge ranking which means they are in the top 40% of schools and they ranked 294th out of 665 school districts that are ranked so congratulations CMS and I think CMS is here some of you next one so Elementary has a similar rating system and we do have a school that made

027the US News and World Report and that's Hamilton Heights they're number one in Chambersburg with this data set and they rank 579th out of 4 1452 schools and they qualify for a badge because they're in the top 40% next one this one's schooldigger.com they give a school district ranking at 381 out of 606 and the last one is greatschools.org they give Chambersburg in 2002 was their last update five schools were below average nine were average and three schools were above average with Cam's North cam South and Guilford Hills scoring above average all of them use similar metrics but they wait them differently to get different results but the perceptions are the perceptions that's what drives people's decisions next slide in March of 2023 there was a survey done prior to my arrival where we've asked

028many students staff and parents uh what do you think about the school what are your perceptions so here were some of the key takeaways and actually the public forum the first one helped me to Agate this information to something that we can begin to wrap our heads around a little bit without getting too deep into the survey so go ahead a couple clicks so 82% of secondary and 94% of elementary students feel safe that wasn't the perception that most people have about Chambersburg schools so that was a pleasure to see another Statistics teachers and staff in general are doing a good job with with responses exceeding 80% for the majority of the questions it's good to see that High trust in our staff overall bullying continues though as a concern we don't even know necessarily

029what we agree that the common term for bullying is but we have it as a constant Benchmark across many schools um and that one's still surfacing along with consistent discipline across the district can we be more consistent in our approaches uh cell phone usage and Technology somewhat why I shared the video last week and also am helping uh share what we're finding uh are some general root causes potentially for secondary schools primarily um around the use of it and the last one is suggestions were made to ramp up internal incentives of the climate and positivity and and safety of all buildings so those are some basic perception survey results from all the students staff and parents next slide please so educational performance um I do like Education data so I took a few Liberties here

030to add more educational performance data I was a curriculum director here so I spent a little more time this Arena um and I hope I can help it make sense to you in the way you want to look at it so go ahead so I looked at pre- pandemic to post pandemic it's something people would rally around hey how did we do before the pandemic how are we doing after the pandemic uh I think it's a fair statement to say and it gets you engaged in the conversation so I want to go through the chart so you understand it first so this one is our elementary schools in grades three four and five the number UC represents the percent of proficient students by subject area of English language arts Math and Science the color represents

031whether we are above the state of blue equal to the state in green or below the state in Red so looking at proficiency rates almost all schools in the state of Pennsylvania saw a decrease in proficiency rates so the question is did you fall further behind than peers that's the question you should ask so I attempted to try to solve that question so on the left hand side in 2019 for grade three we were at 63% proficient in ela grade four was 66 and grade five was 62 with two of the three grades above the state average and then you can see the colors and certainly the percentages are down in 2023 and the same thing for math with science remaining strong that's Elementary next slide please so Middle School uh anomaly not many schools

032got better so Middle School grade 678 same structure English language arts math science um blue and green in 2019 for grades six seven and8 Ela all blue 2023 and then you look at math 2019 um two blues and a red and then in 2023 two blues and a red and then both blue for science now we separate elementary middle and high school to make it easy to understand but understand the education system is the total so it doesn't mean elementary is failing that doesn't mean middle school all by itself is the best and it doesn't mean the high school is in somewhere in between it's an educational system it's not a year-by-year thing the product of your K to5 educational experience goes into the middle school and the same with middle school and high school

033if anywhere you want to see your best performance you want to see it when you leave a high school so high school in 2019 uh was blue and and moved to Green in literature remain blue in algebra and also in biology although proficiency rates dropped comparison to the average in the state they held on pretty good The Challenge on this one is it's magnet school it's high school and it's also students who tested in eighth grade for their Keystone exams because we do have students that test in eth grade so you put them all together that's how you can do a comparison next slide please so in summary from the standardized testing with pssas and keystones we had three subject or grades below the state average in 2019 and then we moved to seven post

034pandemic with predominantly those in elementary which would be the greatest concern at this point next slide so how did we do compared to peers so now I took those 10 school districts and said well how are we doing with our peers so on the left hand side side are your pssas if you add up grades three through eight and and in ela and do a percent proficient for all the grades compared to our peers we're second out of 10 schools in math we're third and we're second in science so a different view creates a different response so compared to the state in elementary we struggled more but compared to our peers we're doing better so you have to ask yourself both those questions you can't just pick the data you want to support your opinion

035so the an is is real important to do both uh Keystone testing in algebra or 8th out of 10th bio 8 out of 10th in literature would be 8th out of 10th for our Keystone exams then you move to economically disadvantaged students so how do our struggling students do surprisingly we did really well we're second out of 10 in ela uh second in math and also second in science our English language learner at no surprise didn't perform as well you know we have a growing population with a slow response to to support support with programs they're performing a little bit less they're at six six and fourth although not horrible um that's a different rating for Ells and then if you look at special ed we're at second second and second as well next slide

036please so then the last one would be our high school comparisons so high school is a little broader of a topic and we're looking at attendance graduation Advanced performance on your Career and Technical um assessments what percent students are accessing rigorous courses of study and then what do our students do when they graduate and I think I want to highlight before we move on this one this is not a competition of who gets more students to postsecondary school it's a competition who gets more students with credentials that actually graduate high school and do something with that credential it's not seat time it's credential time so if you have credentials and you have access to be employable continue postsecondary school or go to training we've done our job remember when you leave High School someone El

037is going to train you you're not done with learning whether you go to work whether you go to school or go somewhere else the training continues so how did we compare the first one is attendance and I must say I have to quantify this one a little bit this does not mean only 74% of our kids are showing up every day this is a new metric uh by the state if you go back to the old metric 85 to 92% of our kids show up every day this metric though is saying what percent of the students at the end of the year are not chronically absent defined as more than 18 days of school missed so this is saying in the state average 74% of the students are not chronically absent they don't miss more

038than 18 days but 26% of the students do miss more than 18 days make sense you can miss 18 days and still be a high performing student so the metric has some struggles but in comparison now that you understand that that I don't want you to walk out of here and say 25% of the kids aren't going to school every day that's not the point so but comparison wise we're below the state average and about equal to our peers with attendance four-year graduation State average is 87 we're at 81 and then 87 for our peers uh as far as industry- based learning 6% of the students are Advanced on the industry based certificates which is your nocti typically and we're at 8% and our peers are at 8% and then what percent of our students

039access rigorous courses of study 55 for the state 4 for us and 46 for our peers and then graduates with some level of certificates it's 76% State 70 for Chambersburg and 74 the colors represent something similar the dark blue you're above the state uh the yellow you're below the state and the color I can't see or tell you is equal to the state all right next slide please all right safety I just started to dabble my toe into safety um so let's just do I think there's one slide on this um I'm impressed with the police department's ability to track information and have this for you uh if you didn't notice on the board reports or presentations every month or every other month we're starting to share our safety data publicly so that everyone can

040see and understand what we deal with on a regular basis but also to calm you down again I think perceptions around safety were were very high around possible difficulties but when you look at the data it does calm you down a little bit when you have a student body of 9200 students so this report postco so I would move beyond the 2021 school year because it was a halfhazard year but if you look at 22 23 and present data you can see trend lines with things that certainly concern us but also there's fluctuation in the data and I'm so thankful we do have a really strong safety department we have lots of people who utilize safe to say and respond very quickly here when a lot of other schools don't have these type of resources

041so I'm very very thankful you have them but also there are needed next slide highlights the safe toay incident tips this doesn't mean um that was an accurate tip it just means someone said I'm worried about someone and it's a life safety threat I think they're suicidal they report it this is a raw number we're not giving you out of the 11 safety tips this year how many were real how many were not not so so severe but you can begin to see patterns over time so so far this year we've had 11 life safety tips 17 bullying no harassment or weapons six threats uh now we have had a weapon since the data was given to me I do know that um six threats and eight drugs so we can begin to pattern and

042Target our interventions and prevention systems for the students around safety any survey you do at any school what's the number one concern all parents and students have am I safe in school show me I'm safe in school and prove that to me so we're not going to hide around the data we're going to share the data and work through that next one opportunities and next steps so this is where I paused and again there's a 40 some page Report with a lot more details uh that I I didn't present everything I just took what I think was most gerine for us tonight what are our opportunities and next steps so this is where I turn the page a little bit and say where can we go go ahead so we have five schools that are

043excelling we have safe schools and caring staff and we are meeting expectations at low cost per student but fading we have four schools and Improvement status and I want to identify School Improvement status both high schools Buchanan and Stevens have been identified in school Improvement status for a subgroup performance a graduation an attendance or an academic performance so if one of the metrics Falls pretty low we get on school Improvement status that doesn't mean you blame the entire school for being horrible and failing okay it's on school Improvement for a targeted reason and that's what we work on our plans for uh we have the highest student to staff ratio compared to peers you will see that in the report in detail um and then also on the right hand side we begin to talk

044about elementary learning loss as a high concern with our changing demographics and higher need our elll programming and then those 500 students in high school that maybe don't have the right programming and we have to focus on the credentials and certifications they can get before they graduate and then a last one that has emerged Ed has been around Elementary special education facilities um programming has changed in the last 10 years and I would say the last 20 when we have a special ed program such as autism it it is a full classroom with eight students in it well the schools weren't designed to have large amounts of autistic students in all the buildings so we're out of space that doesn't mean we're over capacity with serving all students it just means our programming doesn't match

045so we have some opportunities in elementary to update our facilities in some way to match the programming next slide so I'm not going to obsess over this one I'm just going to pick two things um this gets a little esoteric academic and philosophical um but schools of Distinction so when we start developing a developing a blueprint we have to Rally around some things and we have to have guiding principles to say what are we going to Rally around to improve our schools what would that look like so I created some guiding principles of what is a Traditional School on the left hand side which you can feel see and hear and then on the right hand side is what we see when you Benchmark schools of high performance so I'm going to pick two of

046my favorite the one where you wait until you fail on the left and it's called remediation or you prevent and intervene before you fail that one we have to get better at we tend to be really good at crisis response but not predicting a problem that's coming so how can we get better at that one uh the second one I would say quality over quantity we can't do it all but what we pick pick we do we do well and if we can do those two things in the next five six years we will have schools of Distinction but we can't do it all next slide please so what does a blueprint mean so Maryland has been playing with the blueprint for the last two years and they've laid out guidance for all their schools

047and I really like the idea of a blueprint and they've highlighted five areas and I'm not going to go into detail but this is their blueprint uh for me it's what's our blueprint uh the state of Pennsylvania doesn't have a blueprint so I was looking around what other states are doing and they seem to have a good blueprint so they're focusing on early childhood education highquality diverse Staff College and Career Readiness more resources for students who struggle and are furthest away from learning and then a heavy governance and accountability system for any additional resources that's their blueprint and if you go to Maryland's website and you put in Blueprint you can read in detail on some of the strategies they're looking to to work on Els in special education is a whole category and it

048is for us so we're not unique in that situation um it is just Paramount that we start to get ahead of some of the struggles that we see next one I would categorize our work so far into devel developing our own blueprint and marrying that with the feasibility study to match the educational programs we need and then we will then we can invest in people time and students but we need to marry the feasibility study with our educational programming for our future when we do that then we'll be ready to focus on quality prevention and intervention and the last slide so here are the steps in the short term so we've released a report today it'll go out to the staff tomorrow and then the public to follow so the whole 40 pages in addition

049to the PowerPoint I did record myself today doing this same PowerPoint this is so much better than self-recording in an office um so I'm sorry if you watch the video and it's a little less entertaining um but it will go out to the whole all the staff tomorrow in April uh we'll follow up with a survey for the community that says where do you see the greatest priorities of need help us Rank and prioritize the reality of any school is you have a limited budget so we'll put things on there like facilities we'll put interventions on there we'll put Mental Health on there we will put um academic expectations we will put things like um um maybe a fifth special in elementary do we need a fifth special should we focus on stem so I'm

050going to start outlining what our priorities are and you have to help me prioritize and so it'll be interesting to see what the the the parents students staff say of what is most important to them and then uh up until June we're going to work on our blueprint internally so the team inside the school district we're going to start looking at a guiding Coalition and start developing our blueprint to guide us forward we hope to have that done done by the end of June and then by October our goal is to have that facility feasibility study done and then we marry our blueprint with the feasibility and then we start developing action plans with resources and that is the five to 10 year outline of what we're trying to move forward with I think that's

051it one more slide I think there's a thank you slide okay so I want to ask the board first questions or comments before I set up the next presentation and also in two weeks the next presentation on why you're going to see those two presentations thank you very much for all your hard work and dedication to put this together it's tremendous thank you thanks Carl yeah I just want to say thank you I spent a an hour an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon being entertained and honestly my reaction was it's pretty darn brilliant putting all this together and warts and all and I think um you're fulfilling your obligation to say hey let's get a baseline see where we are we know where our problems are where we have our strengths and then

052move forward so thank you for that thanks Mike other board members okay not just for us good okay I'm so impressed with the number of people who are here tonight to hear this thank you for coming so what I I get to go last oh go ahead Ed thank you benefit I yeah I I want wrote down some notes as you were speaking and very impressed thank you uh I was very encouraged when the board selected you to be our new leader and uh you haven't disappointed this old fell a bit but uh a couple things just like to just mention I wrote down I think one of your opening comments uh was important topics you know you focus on important topics not all the topics as as Chris as you and I started talking

053after the board had chosen you to be our next leader that there are so many things that that need to be done so many things we want to be done and so many things we'd like to be done but if we try to do everything at once right we're going to all fail right and it's choosing the not the low hanging fruit right the high fruit that's hard to reach first where we're going to get the most results and uh in my 11th year um sitting around this table or in Co around the edge of the room uh I'm more encouraged than than I've ever been um just when I came on the board uh in the middle of a athletic coach coaching uh Fiasco uh another Fiasco with Administration staff conflicts and tensions so

054if you ever wanted to get baptism by baptism by fire on the school board I thought wow you really picked a good time fella well little did I know of this thing called covid coming down the road a couple years later a real fun times and uh one of the other things I it just hit me sitting here I've thought about it often I wrote it down since 2019 to the present five years including acting we have had five different superintendents in this district and that's you know was the end of Dr pic's run but he was here and still in 2019 we're in the beginning of 2024 now Chris is here from including Dr pic and now Chris that's five superintendents in five years in my 11 years with five different superintendent this is

055the first time I've ever seen this thorough of a report and I'm just encouraged for the future thank you I'm going to remind you that in four months when I'm asking for things um easy now what what we knew uh we couldn't wait on was to go to schools and other places to visit at our most urgent issues so a team of us went to Kentucky and that's the presentation you're going to hear tonight and I want you to hear it from them to like visit um a school and then um they're going to talk tonight and you're going to hear their passion from a school visit and I think school visits are so underrated um we should go more often go find who's doing what better and go study it and bring it back

056so they're going to talk tonight uh Mark Long's going to kick it off and then shortly either the next board meeting or the one after our visits to uh English language learner schools that have more Ells or sometimes smaller than us or less but what are they doing so as Bethlehem Allentown and Washington County so those two presentations are beginning to form the foundation of our work forward they're not here tonight to tell you what we're going to do they're here to tell you what they learned and so for the next presentation it's what we learned and the next one will be Ells about what we learned and we'll we'll get to reading by third grade who's doing it better than us what did we learn and so from what we learned that's when we

057build this blueprint and we work on our action plan so I'm excited to kick off I think Dr long you're first on the visit to ignite and we're going to end with Mike Ross in the back so thank you for joining us Mike okay and while before Dr long takes it Chris you've indoctrinated Mike Ross that he doesn't get 30 minutes at the microphone okay thank you so if I could have my other presenters come up so we're very quick going through here I would appreciate it um we had seven people that went um to the ignite Institute in Northern Kentucky um and when we drove up to the the building there if you could scroll back down Diana to to that building um or scroll back up to the first slide thank you um

058that was originally a Toyota factory um and I did find the square footage is 180,000 ft and uh the Toyotas since they were moving out the the superintendent was there was like wait a second we're losing something really important to our community and we need to do something so he went and partnered with Toyota and if I remember right Chris they actually gave him that building correct um Toyota gave him that building so when you go to the next slide Diana um this aite institute was formed in 2018 as the first Northern Kentucky uh Regional High School 10 high schools feed into this uh School uh the school contains a thousand students it's an applica application based school um So within the um 10 high schools there's 21,000 students so it's it's highly sought after

059and they do have a wait list as well but when we were flying out we were all excited about getting there because all of us had talked and and went on their website and looked at different things um one thing that I want want to read to you um is the actual focus of the school um it is to provide education and experience in career fields that are in high demand in their Community we are creating a reality where industry and education work together to ensure that Scholars have the skills and creativity to succeed in our society through project-based learning ignite Scholars will have authentic real world experiences that will prepare them for the jobs of the future and they'll have many different opport unities to do that and we're here tonight just to share

060some of those items with you um if you go to the next SL well wait a second Diana if you look at that top picture up there it's hard to see but that's walking into the front doors into the school and as you can see that's their cafeteria but that's their main hallway as well so their main hallway was their cafeteria and it was basically their Hub of the school and if you look down along the sides it's very difficult and maybe you can look at it later on online but the the classroom fronts are glass um in encased wow I can't even talk and then the one area has a large door a garage door um because that room only only held um 600 kids and they needed to have space for assemblies for

061a thousand so they put a garage door there and then they could put chairs back in through the cafeteria Innovative thinking went um from the building but also the supplying the the students uh academics if you go to the next slide Diana so the premise of why we attended um we're looking at holistic uh stats now 49% of our students get attend a college or university when they graduate 5% go to the military and then 46% are go to the workforce whether they're coming out of the career center or if they're undecided students of what to do um and we do not want that we want every student to have something behind their name that they can walk out and and be productive in whatever they do um next slide please so the premise of

062our visit basically was um there's 500 students 9 through 12 that really at one time at one year we are losing and we want to make sure that we do something in the future that is really going to make the change um we're also looking at a $40 million upgrade to cam South in the future but we want to make sure the program is is in the right path for that upgrade as well so so with that um you know we we heard a lot of terms used by the scholars and we have to call them Scholars because that that's what they introduced us at the school as their our tour guides they were Scholars of that school um we heard terms such as collaboration uh creativity critical thinking and cooperation naturally but also authentic

063learning I heard from my young lady but also things that suit me um was constant throughout the whole trip with the different um Scholars there but the the school was built on four pillars we're going to go through those pillars right now the the four are dual credit Workforce Development Project based learning and personalization so the next person on our list to speak is Lindsay Leonard she's our head counselor Lindsay so talking of that first pillar and I will let you know I am the head counselor but I also have a full case load and this year I'm working with seniors so I am about this deep into dual enrollment and Counting credits so this is a great slide for me to talk about the scholars at ignite had unbelievable access to dual enrollment credit

064so if you don't know what dual enrollment credit is you're working with a local um postsecondary education either a uh local College uh maybe like for us we work with Wilson we work with hack we work with Shippensburg and the students are getting dual credits they're taking high school credits it's counting towards High School graduation but it's also counting towards college or post-secondary education and as you can see those numbers there there's many many students that are coming out of ignite with their associates degree some of them coming out with two Associates degrees and today before I left my office I thought I'd do a little math I went on Shippensburg University cost of uh attendance for the 24 25 school year and if you're living on campus at ship ship is a big school

065that we partner at CMS and at cashes for dual enrollment if you're going to live on campus next year it's going to cost you $31,900 if you are one of those students that are shaving a year off of their postsecondary education because of those dual enr enrollment credits that you're getting you are saving yourself about 27,00 ,000 because it'll cost you about $4,500 to do a full year of college as a dual enrollment student in high school compared to going to ship right after so if any of you have college bills or you have kids coming up that you have to pay for college these students it ignite that's what it would look like for our students at cashes and CMS and the amount of money they'd be saving if they're coming out with two

066years you double that so we're looking at $60,000 even if you have students that are just going to finish with their associates degree they're coming out with what Dr Long talked about those uh industry credentials they're coming out with certifications and they're getting that while they're in high school as a student as well it's not always about the money we parents sometimes think that it's all about the money uh I see my students this year who are doing doal enrollment I could see it ignite the students that were doing doal enrollment they're getting that colleg goinging mindset they're able to put their toe into the water of postsecondary while they have support of their high school counselors and our high school teachers as well and so I think that's something that really stood out in

067their pillars is that they're preparing their students to go ahead and be ready to go into the workforce and be Future Ready in our community and I think our next presenter is that you Mr arer thank you well good evening Brad AER High School principal cashes so the visit to ignite was twofold for me first it was very exciting and secondly it was reassuring exciting because I had the opportunity to see what we can do and where we can be reassuring because it showed me we actually have some of these things already started we just need to make them better for instance some key takeaways for me um at the high school level ignite had 150 plus Partnerships huge sense of community the neat thing about ignite is where it was positioned it's very close

068to Cincinnati um Cincinnati is a large city Chambersburg is a small City but when I think about this I look I I look back and reflect we do have some very large business partners just to name a few JLG Volvo man atalk meno Haven Paramount and if you're not familiar with Paramount it's going out um towards calonia it's a um older folks home Patriot Federal Credit Union Ventura Foods something else that was very reassuring to me was the fact that when you look at their Partners none of them had over 15 students that they served we do so there's there's growth but there's a lot of potential already occurring here so that was a huge takeaway for me we just need more partners because every senior at ignite completes an internship before they graduate so

069consider that here at Chambersburg if we graduate approximately 750 students we would need many more Partners certifications that was a second takeaway there are students there um because they're partnered with so many different businesses and and such they receive certifications through all the internships that they complete if you're not familiar with u um Pennsylvania all students now have to complete what's called act 158 it's graduation Pathways if we were to employ something like this we wouldn't have to worry so much about our students achieving graduation Pathways as well as credits and like um Lindsay said before me many of them are doing this also through dual enrollment a third takeaway from me was student competitions not only are these students partnering with different businesses but we have have businesses that are actually providing them the

070resources to go forth and show their great work and what they've learned for instance they are the world champion robotics team because of what the Partnerships have provided them moving a little bit past the students um side of things staff something that really stuck out to me was the fact that they have six systematic focuses within their six colleges and that's going to be discussed here by my next partner uh Crystal but before we go with that all their staff within those six colleges that they provide have professional development to continually get better in order for you to get better and have your students um improve you also need to have state-of-the-art instructional tools and resources the Partnerships assisted them with that because as these students go out into their internships you wouldn't want to

071train a student in the school system to only go out into a partnership and not be prepared for the tools that they're going to be utilizing that was very evident to me and lastly um it was very clear and very evident that the staff were fully focused on College excuse me in career and Workforce Readiness um they actually had an individual there that their main focus was to ensure that each student had an internship by their senior year so that way the student students weren't struggling to find this location but instead could focus on what they want to do in the future that's something I think we need to do a little bit better because currently we have one Co-op teacher for one period a day for all um students grades 9 through 12 so

072like I said when I started it was exciting it was reassuring and I can't wait to see what we can do after Chris's presentation today thank you Crystal good evening I'm Crystal lotens sler I'm with the division of curriculum instruction and being able to visit ignite was um an exciting opportunity to not only get to see what students learn but also how they get to learn it um and the academic program that um they have there and the way the students are scheduled slightly different you know how how we do it with Chambersburg um but similar to what Mr AER said so many opportunities of um what we can do and confirmation of things that we are doing so um looking there at the different colleges of innovation uh the ignite student schedule consists of

073three days of content and career classes and they would be on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays and then they would have two days of Project based learning on their Tuesdays and Thursdays they modeled their instruction around an initiative um many of you might be familiar with it's called Project Lead the Way and when you read about that or when you hear about that the the key words that would come to mind would be engaging would be Discovery exploratory um problem-based so ignite started with a focus on engineering and then they expanded into where especially areas like when we talk about um the students the scholars that they were giving us the tour um I actually had the opportunity to have two and they were in the fields of biomedical and engineering and education and then also

074computer science so it was really um almost like Christmas morning for me being someone who just loves seeing what people do and how teachers do um instruction and how students are engaged with that so when you look at the graphic at the center you see the word design right in the middle of those colleges of innovation and Project Lead the way has what's called the engineering design process and that process is what ties together it's the thread that ties together the students content learning and their career objectives and if we go to the next slide so here you'll see um you'll see a couple students in the background of that first picture but students work in teams on Tuesdays Thursdays that project learning day and they are working on what's called year-long projects yps and

075this is where they get to investigate problems they'll design Solutions and what's really key is they'll examine entrepreneurial aspects of that field of that industry um and even how it will impact their community so they will take that um project and connect it to possible improvements um in all three of those areas and you can see the first picture is a Vex robotic robotics unit where the um students are you know really building that from the ground up and um they're working together as a team and the other photo it's a little bit hard to see but that's an airplane um a deconstructed airplane that they're going to put back together and from what I understand they're going to take it for a flight so um kudos to that teacher getting in there getting in

076here to do that um so at the end of the year then um what's really neat is they'll get to present their projects to their peers and you think about Steve Jobs and how they have the big screen in the back and that Auditorium that Dr long was talking about they will get to stand up on stage and share all the great things that they did together as a team um they'll showcase their findings and then refine their skills in collaboration and communication um so now I'm going to turn it over to Mr Stinger where he's going to talk a little bit more about those professional habits and how students develop those thank you I'm Sean Stinger principal of the CMS um the first thing that really struck us after you look at the facade

077outside and the size of the building and the open architecture is as we walk in the building and we meet these Scholars they come up they Shake Your Hands they look in your eyes they introduce themselves they tell you what college they're in and what their Ambitions are I thought okay these are the people giving you tours so they're trained to do this right we go into the first school first college three kids come right up to you same thing uh I'm Mrs goggler I do this this this and it just it was mindblowing I'm like how did I felt like we're the only group ever to visit the school we that special but come to find out they have professional habits every class 20% of their class grade is professional habits soft skills the

078ability to say thank you yes Shake someone's hand look them in the eyes be on time to class and be thorough with your work 20% very powerful one of the things that really stuck out to me um the next thing is the personalization which I really believe in in education so my young lady was in the engineering department and I said oh what you you want to be you know do you want to be a you know work on engineering like construction she saids no I want to work on cars My Dad's Mechanic and I want to learn how to do a little better so she's getting this really high level which most people wouldn't think but she wants to push the envelope in the auto tech industry okay and that's the personalization the pre-engineering

079or the engineering college is huge hund hundreds of kids but each one on their own specific track with their own passion for what they want to learn um and then what really stuck out again the kids were so happy there now when you walk in if you're a little older like me you notice there's no dress code it makes you a little uneasy at first there's hats and scarves and um but you get when you talk to the kids they're so happy to be there and their motto at ignite is care first and teach second so they meet the kids social emotional needs first because they know without that being met you can't educate a kid right um so they have the mentor period which we have it out at CMS as well which is

080very powerful developing student teach relationships what which I believe is the key to education um so as far as the individual those kids were extremely happy to be there they felt like this was the only place they fit in and they were super proud to be there as well um I'm going to introduce Mike Ross not that he needs an introduction because everybody knows Mike right but from the career Franklin County development thank you Sean um yeah so I um I want to start by saying I'm like the non- educator here uh but I was privileged to be able to go along uh when Chris invited me I was very excited about this trip and I want to start by saying what I got to meet and and be with this team when I went

081out there and uh and I'm not saying this to be patronizing at all but it reinforced and reassured me of their commitment to education because every one of these folks is totally committed to being the best and making this District the best it can be so uh so I say that uh very respectfully and um and and so again privilege to be a part of this team so from being able to go out and look at and I don't have a real slide so um so so don't worry about for you I I appreciate that um so but but it is reflective of of what we do at from an economic development standpoint where we're trying to retain and expand businesses we're trying to recruit and diversify our economy and work with folks that are

082starting which is very similar to what their Economic Development uh team in in Boone County is doing and um and and they've been able to use this school very effectively and meeting the workforce needs of of their of their e their Regional economy and that's what we're trying to do and when companies are looking they're looking at at a community's commitment to education and it's very it's very evident in boom County uh and so that that was um very impressive to me I think um and as an aside of I'm I'm also the vice chair of the South Central Workforce Development uh board which is the 8 county regional board that uh looks at Workforce Development needs and what we're focused on right now is best practices and trying to um uh really look at

083how we how more students can be credentialed uh as they come out of high school out of college so that they are more career ready this school does that uh and I think and and that that was very impressive very impressive and how and it's in it's really helping them to diversify their economy uh again I think their relationships with with their local community colleges and in their case they have articulation agreements with every University in the state of Kentucky so that these kids when they earn earn these degrees that it's recognized I by every University and College in Kentucky um I'd like to see us start to make sure that we're recognized and articulation agreements with at least Shippensburg Wilson and Penn State uh but hopefully beyond that and and Harrisburg Area Community College

084ideally hagertown Community College so that we're uh be able to build those relationships um I think that um what this school has done which I think we I would love to see happen here I think again it it's reflective of their commitment to education I think it's strengthened and expanded their relationships with local employers and and and again you as has been already talked about you can't overstate the importance of that so uh Brad when you're talking about the co-op program and getting students placed um I mean they do a great job and I think they had 186 employers that are are tied to this school and that's that's just remarkable um the one thing that is a little different uh and and I think that that Chris had addressed and and some of the

085others is they're dealing with the countywide school system we're dealing with you know I think uh I would love to see Chambersburg pilot something like this because I think this is the right School District to do that um but I think that we are different in that way in Pennsylvania we're both Commonwealth but they they are they are that's the one of the four or two of the four so um but um but I don't know what that means um so um but again I think and where I see this I this is our and and I want to back up our we we do a lot of things right here I I got to tell you we do a lot of things right and our and our Magnus school I think the at the

086high school at every High School the magnet school and the Career Tech are doing a lot of things right this just expands what's being done and I think it's and I it was described to me when we were leaving for this I think Chris you were the first one to tell me th this is our this is our Career Tech on steroids and that's what it is um so I would love to see that happen again I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this and if you advance this idea I would love to be I will be supportive in every way I can so with that Kurt you're on less than 30 minutes Ed I'm going to wrap it up and I think Chris will probably help

087wrap it up a little bit as well but uh you the one of the most exciting parts were after we had the visit and we went to our hotel lobby and this group here sat around and we de briefed and it was a long debrief um Chris gave us kind of the parameters you know let's not talk about barriers let's let's talk about what you saw and and what what can happen and uh it I want to thank Mike Ross because you know you came along and you were enthusiastic and you loved what you saw and I think you really listened to everything everyone was saying say and you're very supportive and you're like you're ready to jump in and support us so I think that was a big piece um that that really helped

088our our visit having that support from uh our Workforce Development here in south central Pennsylvania um want to reiterate what you heard in a presentation a little bit earlier tonight that we have several hundred students that aren't getting what they they need or what we could offer them and what a great opportunity for us to provide something in addition to we still need fcctc but you know colleges lots of credentials for our students even associate degrees you know getting them into college and and having a big First Step getting into college but as we develop that blueprint and educational programming there is a strong need to develop these opportunities like ignite for our kids with those uh credentials and um Chris alluded to that we're also doing some other visits for like our El students

089we're going to be talking about that at the next month's meeting and and uh very excited about the work we're going to be doing with the blueprint so I'll turn it over to Chris to finish up yep thank you all for taking your time tonight to come and share your passion and it was uh affirming to me that that it was what what I hoped it would be and thank you for for making it be that special trip and I also got to know people I didn't know very well from my past I'm going to leave some of those stories to a different time because it was a good time uh here's what impressed me the most the superintendent we met with has been not the superintendent for nine or 10 years and he comes

090back to every tour and speaks the story and he's so proud of what that community did but he did one he said one thing to me that I thought was very Paramount to the the the visit which was we saw you in Pennsylvania get Cyber schools we watched school choice around us we knew it was coming we just wanted to get ahead of it so that we were the School of Choice and it goes back to the one slide I obsessed over is in 2034 if we have double the cyber kids and double the homeschools we're not doing our job so if we can get ahead of this and do something like this we will be the School of Choice that was what the lesson learned for me was that you didn't wait and then

091I I think this team affirmed that we can do this and I'm going to leave it at that um for tonight board members I am I am so happy to see an emphasis on what I have always referred to as the mass in the middle the mass in the middle are those kids who are not necessarily College Bound and they're not in the IEP section they just have been lost for a long time and this is just so exciting to me um of course I have a strong uh Career Tech background with my own practical nursing education and my husband teaching there and so on but you know expanding opportunities in the uh Career Tech area is just so needed yeah I want to say thank you all for for for doing this for the

092the the foresight to to do this this is um my son um graduated from here and um and his going into his 10th uh uh from 10th in 11th grade here he told me he said dad I I had no intentions on going to college and I was like thank you because he knew he works well with his hands long story short he's an aircraft uh uh mechanic and um seeing stuff like this this is this is this is incredible obviously you know CMS and and and having uh only so many slots I think something like this would be essential for this area so thank you all for uh for doing that visit yeah I uh B you want to say something no no I already did so um I think it's fantastic and I

093have a bias of looking at organizations as a system and if we want this outcome the input starts 12 years before they get like to high school so we really got to be doing the work at the elementary level and I believe there's a commitment to do that as well but without that this doesn't work very well anything we missed from the board that that the picture wasn't painted uh any specifics that we didn't say about like this a th kids 250 a Grade 9 through 12 like do we miss anything that didn't tell the story because we were passionate we told our story we didn't necessarily tell all the story but if we missed anything this is a time to throw a question out to us all right well thank you Chris and your

094team for bringing this forward to us and you are certainly uh encouraging to to those of us who are get to listen to it so you know as I say in the private sector Mike right you have to Brand it so someone has to Brand it now I've got an alibi then on a question so you must have asked the question in Kentucky this must have cost money and there are taxpayers in Kentucky and there are taxpayers in this room how did all that you want to run the numbers anybody else want to take that Kurt you want to run it so so the the building was gifted run away from it or the building was gifted however they had tax incentives to get the building there so we didn't get that number um they

095donated which was approximately like a $10 million number they put on it and then the county school put 14 million into the facility so they had a $24 million investment seven eight years ago um so that those were the numbers just for the facility and then the Staffing and equipment and curriculum on top of all that so we didn't get into cost of that but that's your base number for facility in Kentucky eight years ago but it really started with vision and Leadership you know yes a very targeted population and a very targeted problems to solve and and then the money came yeah and they did get donations along the way I think they got a grant to expand the building in the back another 5 million and the school is also now a model

096school for the state where people can write a grant to start a school so they're going to replicate like franchise it they're going to replicate it throughout Kentucky it's that popular add 200 students 200 more students yeah right it's exciting thank you okay moving on to the uh consent agenda items in our agenda 401 to 409 you know these items uh if we agree they will show up in two weeks on the consent agenda uh one vote next in two weeks for all nine items so uh 4.01 Mr Varner Mrs stalford Mr Varner talk to this yeah tonight we are seeking uh board approval for a co-stars Cooperative contract with cm3 for the amount of $599,800 th000 budgeted for this project um Scott and I and our team looked at several different options to address

097this equipment uh and the scope of work chosen uh was to um tie the old 1993 boiler plant into the new uh existing 2007 plant um there was additional capacity um so uh combining the two systems uh we will add a a single hot water pump additional hot water pump for redundancy um this option is more cost effective than replacing the boiler it'll be more efficient it'll save energy and operation and maintenance costs uh also we will completely refurbish four cooling towers two 2007's and two 204s uh the minimum guarantee for the refurbishment uh is 10 years with the option to expand the life for 15 to 20 years um and additionally we'll be commissioning and reprogramming the central chilled water plant um right now we notice chillers are short cycling creating wear and tear

098uh on the equipment increasing energy costs so with that I'll take any questions Mr Varner any of these uh Towers or uh facilities were they part of the rebuild in 2005 six seven yeah so the uh in 2007 during the renovation uh there was a new hot water plant installed for the new section of the building um and at that at that time uh they had additional capacity on that system so we are going to do away with the old water plant hot water plant and tie the old section into the building in to the new section so this isn't replacing any of the new equipment yet from the 2007 restoration no absolutely not those those boilers have plenty of life left on them good the cooling tow is the 2007 cooling towers uh were

099installed during the renovation um we are looking at refurbishing them not replacing those um and the typical lifespan on a cooling tower is about 15 to 20 years before replacement or refurbishment thank you is this uh I'm assuming this is going to be done through the summer over the summer months yeah so um obviously lead times uh for different components for the cooling towers are going to come into play um but we're we're going to do all of the boiler work this summer um and the cooling tower work may go into the fall of the year uh and until we get out of the cooling season before we can complete all that work so does this price are we on a deadline on this this pricing or is that I mean the the we have

100a contract with them uh you know for the guaranteed pricing um if if that's what you're asking so uh you know uh we're asking this to move forward for approval uh at the 27th meeting okay okay any any questions move that item forward um 4.02 Andor 4.03 do any board members have any questions or discussions on either of those items or do you do you want to hear a an individual report on each one or would you like to just go through them if you have any questions okay um 4.05 4.06 and 4.07 any questions or comments or if any of the staff or admin really feel there's anything that you you know you you can you may speak up as well the unique field trip was the one I mentioned in the Friday folder

101concerning um the timing okay thank you questions say this would be the time for these questions because these will be on consent agenda in two weeks weeks just one vote for all items um 4.05 uh Big Ticket item Dr long you don't get a pass on this one eate purchase of network infrastructure yeah I'll take that one okay so you did get a pass Dr phone a friend so this one is the purchase of access points and um a new core switch and Network switches um this is going to be 80% of the cost will be paid for through eate this will prepare us all the things that we're hearing tonight this will prepare us for the future um and it will really affect performance and help increase that so the total that we will

102be paying is 300,000 that will be from the technology budget and um that will equate to to um 1.2 million for total cost of the project any questions okay 4.09 any questions for early graduation of two students I assume Magnet School students uh well one Magnet School one cashes student um we generally we bring several of these to the board over the next couple months uh students that are looking to graduate early they generally have you know reason uh for that uh whether it's Workforce uh but with the caveat that they meet all their requirements for graduation okay thank you Mr Whitman last call for discussion questions on consent agenda items okay 5.01 budget transfer special education Mr Woodman so at the voting meeting we're asking that this be a separate item uh we're giving

103it a placeholder uh Mrs Shere Sullivan and I will need a few minutes to discuss a budget uh transfer um this item uh we don't want like I said we don't want on the consent agenda so it allows time for discussion the business department and special ed have spent an amazing amount of time looking at our Trends and trying to get ahead of the riseing cost of special education um if you remember a little over a year ago in finance we had a presentation about special education driving factors uh we want to uh update that and in the in the end uh we want to include in next year's budget uh our best prediction with these factors um and as you heard in Mr bigger's presentation the numbers continued to grow in special ed since

104just our October 1 count this year we have over 60 students coming to us um after the school year began okay this is a uh reoccurring event uh hopefully we in our discussion on Friday Mr beggar said uh we're we we have some new processes and thoughts in place that but hopefully not saying we won't have a budget transfer again next year but at least aot closer magnitude will be a lot it's going to be uh minuscule compared to the last three years of budget transfers uh like I said a lot of work between the special ed Department uh you know I have to give a lot of credit to Denette and Tammy we we spent an amazing amount of time on trying to uh look at everything and down to every detail of every

105employee that works with a special ed student so and I think uh it's probably a shout out to as you mentioned ear and your intro there Mrs Sheree Sullivan does just a fabulous job uh there was a there was a lot of backlog of cases to get through and get in front of I think is the key in the special ed and uh believe uh Mrs Sullivan has done a great job as long as well as the administration and that whole department uh it's a tough Hill to climb but we're climbing any questions okay uh Dr Long uh 5.02 and then just go into 5.03 you know if you want to discuss any details on this board we'd have to do it in executive session so Dr long um just approval for the the expulsions

106of these three students okay you want to talk about it more we'll do it at executive session ahead of the next meeting 5.04 statement of work for one Elementary special education student Mr Whitman yes this is a student that has um High needs that will be attending new story and uh when you look at the cost breakdown we have it for the next few months there okay any questions from Mr Whitman we're going to move on to item nine um Mrs Stein can you check I saw there was a couple that came in late I don't know if anyone else signed in for for public comment but don't worry even if you didn't sign in you will get an opportunity uh the sheet that's been provided uh looks like there's two definites and one maybe

107um and I'm not sure if there are additional ones there but thank you Mrs Stein for grabbing that for us thank you three three yeses and one maybe uh the board recognizes the value to school governance of public comment on educational issues and the importance of involving members of the public in board meetings the board also recognizes its responsibility for proper governance of the district and the need to conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner it is asked that speakers observe proper decorum by presenting the truth re refrain from sharing personal information and defaming individuals please refer to policy 903 and approv the floor amended resolution attached into the public files and board documents for more information egregious actions that do not comply may result in legal action and I believe when we

108discussed this as a board uh one of the comments was uh to adhere to the 3 minutes so uh going forward I might be a little more forceful on the 3 minute clock so Dr Long diligently reminds me of the three minute clock um again on the signin sheet I'll go through these and if there's anyone else who wishes just have public comment you're welcome to uh CJ Barnhart yes sir come on up and uh well we we are we are on audio you you're not on video but you are on audio so we we get a lot of complaints about people not being able to hear us and that's why even my fellow board members will you know quickly remind me when I forget to turn on my mic and it's not necessary for

109those in this room but for everyone else who might be listening I don't I don't need that on the only way they can hear you yeah green light first I want to say thank you this is my first uh time here and I'm really in all of you guys every one of you that's amazing program from Kentucky and I boy if I win the lottery I'll be more happy to help but uh I'm praying now you know I'm praying you know God sees other things but uh we got your name and phone number and address thank you sir um and you're being recorded I always keep my word um I'm I do foreign exchange students and there's one that's in the school right now well there's two the one girl is in the Honor Society

110and she's been asked to do that because she likes it here she wants to come back now we used to do F1 students why are we not doing them anybody can you answer that I've been told so many things I've been told money go ahead continue okay yeah we don't we don't do the we don't reply with the public comment that you will get a reply later it's on a back and forth dialogue okay thank you yep is there another thing about the um the internet problem we had where somebody hacked our system um is there any more information on who what and all that good stuff if you're allowed okay asking questions if I'm not going to get answers no no no you you will get answers you know and they'll come from you

111know from Chris's staff will will then be providing answers well okay well I just want to thank each and every one of you because uh um you're awesome this is hard you know when I was in the military and I was in charge of a thousand people but you guys even education is the most important thing you know and our kids need to know that now they're lacking because and there's more to it in just a school it's the parents too so I just want to thank you thank you J could you give me an email or phone number I don't think we have that for you so I can give you the answers so if you could here for me just write it down greatly appreciate email or phone number you uh Valerie Jordan

112I am going to attempt to lay to rest the idea of diversity equity and inclusion as something being so horribly wrong in our nation right now the reason is because of one young Republican United States Senator named Katie Britt who got it all wrong on Thursday night in my humble opinion she spoke strictly to her Alabama girlfriends on Thursday night in a kitchen setting that many taxpayers in our school district and County could only wish for she messed up royally when she didn't include any of us in that rebuttal of hers to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address if I wasn't already turned off by the Republicans I am now I am a 72y old woman who sees diversity Equity inclusion in a whole different way than State United States Senator Katie Brit

113does I see diversity Equity inclusion in my own household I see diversity Equity inclusion when I bond with grandparents of different races who are raising their grandchildren who come into the very food pantry that I volunteer at their grandchildren turn attend our school district I see diversity Equity inclusion in the same food pantry when I see a Muslim family whose children also attend our school District I see diversity equity and inclusion from parents of different races who come into the food pantry that I volunteer at their children attend our school district too I see diversity Equity inclusion when I see a guidance counselor bond with a young child who who needs a hug and I did see that I see diversity equity and inclusion when I see teachers on a school playground watching over their

114students while their parents work I also saw that I see diversity Equity inclusion when I see students being fed breakfast by teachers who might not have gotten it before coming to school that day while their parents work I also saw that I see diversity Equity inclusion with the inner workings of the schools PTO I also saw that I don't know what the rest of you see but that's what I see thank you thank you uh Mr Piper you indicated maybe you had a comment to share or a question I have none okay is there any other any other members of the audience who would uh care to make any public comments for from privilege of the floor tonight okay uh moving on to item 10 uh new business I uh was going to mention this

115in my opening comments but I'll just interject it now um as I said a month ago at our committee of the whole you know this is an opportunity uh this is one of the opportunities I prefer to be the main opportunity for board members to to begin a dialogue a discussion on any topic that interests you uh again I say I prefer this uh venue versus trying to debate it on email text or or anything else i' actually actually dissuade that severely encourage it a lot um and our solicitor if you were here which would cost us money I'm sure he would agree too so like I say it's a three-step process the way the way this I think works the best you know we bring topics up we decide whether we even want to

116proceed discussion with the topics which may be at uh a future committee meeting or a future Committee of the whole uh at that time we discuss it again and decide whether it's going to go forward onto an action item at which time you know with administration's guidance uh we would establish a reasonable timeline to put together a proposal that would come back to the board and at that time there would be a third Vote or opportunity for a vote to if the board uh decided to move forward with anything or this could be just a matter for kind of privilege of the floor for a board member uh it's your it's your paycheck for for giving your time as public servants tonight he had his yeah I uh I respectfully submit the following as new

117business I propose that the district develop and Implement strategy to create opportunities for all elementary students to meet to meet each other not just in their school but through the whole Elementary system to meet to cooperate and collaborate with their peers throughout their Elementary learning experience currently we have each Elementary School is an isolated entity they have their own separate identities as sports teams separate cultures demographics and socioeconomic statuses they don't interact much and if they do it's often in a competitive environment on the playing field I've talked with many students who have expressed how difficult the transition from elementary to the middle schools can be parents have also told me about the Stress and Anxiety their kids have experienced during this time we have an opportunity to create an environment that lessens the stress

118of that transition let us provide frequent and substantive experiences for elementary students to get to know one another develop friendships collabor aborate cooperate and team build in addition to the knowledge gained in the classroom these skills are necessary for later success as adults in the real world so I end with this question are we doing the best we can do to repair our elementary students to transition to middle school if the transition was less stressful it may keep students in brick and mortar schools and reduce the impact of financial expenditures associated with with the sky cyber school Exodus it might better prepare students to adapt to new social settings and unfamiliar emotions reducing the support services required to respond to students with socio emotional needs and it could potentially reduce the number of events that

119require law enforcement intervention I believe we have an obligation to equip our students with the necessary skills so that they can be independent responsible kind human beings that know how to play together live together and work together despite any perceived differences this is not an US versus them mentality let's switch it to rather it's we are in this together one Trojan Nation built from the ground up discussion I think I've heard some of that I think uh about the the transitioning going from you know going to the Middle School some of the um the obstacles I think that uh whether it's culturally whether it's you know um I actually had a had a uh a lady bring her son to my shop and wanted me to kind of kind of Mentor him because was going

120through that exact same thing this was years ago this is probably at least at least uh at least 10 11 years ago so I think that there's there's definitely um value in something something like that what that would look like I don't know but I think there would definitely be value in that other thoughts comments ideas I think the idea has Merit however the implementation seems um fraught with some issues and I think that Mr bigger is in the process of developing a blueprint for the future and some of the potential changes that he may be bringing to us um may have some influence on doing some of the same things that you're concerned about so I think that the immediacy of progressing in this direction is not urgent I think that we need to

121give the potential change that is forthcoming an opportunity to be developed and then possibly move in some direction if you have a specific idea as to how to accomplish what you're suggesting and so on but I think that some of the possibilities for changes in our uh Elementary structures and so on May reduce some of what you're addressing yeah I would agree that I think uh Mr bigger is on the right track and probably that may be part of the solution in the long run but this is a placeholder for me to say I want that in the strategy not just thinking about it as an afterthought later on that's my point and oh by the way I was very very careful to say I'm not going to tell Mr bigger how to do his

122job I'm not going to give him the house and all the ideas I have everybody here has plenty of ideas it's his job to tell us how to do it I'm only asking that it be done so and I know like I know and you sort of preface that but I mean what what would it look like I'm trying to understand what it might look like or what the educational value may be and one of my my concern is and I said it earlier after the the great state of the district report again first time in 11 years I've ever had the privilege of seeing something like this yet alone on this thorough but uh I don't want to get into the business or even the perception or perceive feeling where the administration is feel

123feels like they're being micromanaged uh that we are trying to micromanage procedures um I'm more in favor of you know allowing the admin and I I'll conclude in a minute why I feel that way but I'm more a fan of allowing the admin to do what they feel is best in the in the correct time uh as I said earlier with Chris's report there's a lot of things that we need to do here there's a lot of things I would like to do here uh but I'm going to conclude with this I gave Chris my promise back in November that I was going to support him and his thoughts and his ideas he mentioned earlier that he left the district in 2015 and probably at that time Chris had a different thought of this old

124fell and Chris and I agreed on certain things and we disagreed on certain things uh but I gave him my word that I'm not going to tell him what to do or how to do it uh I build roads and bridges uh and he doesn't tell me how to build roads and Brides Bridges I'm not going to tell him how to uh Advance an educational platform that he his name is behind as the leader of the district but with that said if there's a majority of the board here tonight that want to continue this discussion then again we would move it forward to probably the next Committee of the whole for a more in-depth discussion before we would move it turn it then back to the administration to come forward with action I just trying

125to think in our well if we do move it forward I guess I'm trying to figure out what category it would fall under because I just I apologize maybe I don't completely understand it which I don't but maybe under education and services would probably be the category it would fall under but so that is my thought but I'm just going to ask if there's any more discussions or thoughts or comments anyone would like to share on that top or just this whole this whole this the item that Mr hack has has brought forward and then we can go on to if you have another item absolutely but let's close the loop on this one for tonight anyway yeah Mike I love your passion love your idea um it strikes me as a little bit vague

126precisely what you're proposing um so I think I agree with much of what uh Fay is saying you know Mr bigger is in the midst of something I think it may address some of your concerns um I'm open to continuing the discussion for sure uh the key words as I've read the statement you had emailed you're looking for the administration to develop a strategy to create opportunities for elementary students to get to know one another as colleagues that's a great vision I love that um but I don't know precisely what that means and I think maybe I would need a little bit more I would need more concrete example of what you're proposing I'm certainly open to continuing the conversation though to answer your question it means this it means the first time that students

127meet one another see other people that don't look like them don't dress like them don't talk like them that they're not strangers they've already met them in elementary school so that when they get to Middle School it's not as unpredictable uncontrollable and unfamiliar as it might have been because they had an opportunity to actually interact act with other people throughout the years as they arrive to middle school age yeah that's my point yeah it's a great vision I I think the how though I think I maybe I and and maybe we could brainstorm that what are some ways that we could do that maybe the administration could brainstorm that what are some ways we could do that and then but as is you know I'm very open to continuing the conversation I have no idea

128if I support it in the end because I me I don't have enough I think it kind of ties in with something that I have been advocating for for some time and that is more Community involvement in some of this type of thing rather than the school district being responsible for some of these social um areas I I think we are very disjointed in our community um structure as far as organization working together for the common good in um the area of student populations I'm one the Franklin County U Area Office of Aging advisory and in healthc care there's a healthcare Continuum group that is working to improve the accessibility the knowledge of what's available for the elderly in the community I don't think there is much cohesiveness in community organizations when it comes to

129young people and I think that it's there that this type of initiative probably has more um value or more potential to be worked on yeah um I think with that there's there's a there's a with that disjoint or this disconnect I think part of it is and and and I've shared this with um I shared this before the meeting before on um George arasmus um is from the uh Denny tribe in um from Canada and he said and he's talking about Community he said where Community where common memory is lacking where people do not share in the same past there can be no real Community where Community is to be formed common memory must be created and I think there's a lot of common memory that's missing uh uh if you grow up on this

130side or that side and and how we see things or how we perceive things um and that causes causes that that disconnect um how we bridge that Gap I don't know I think I think there are a lot of ways but but we're not necessarily looking for those Solutions like you said you don't want to tell tell them how to do their job but I think that that's one of the big things that we have I I deal with the public that's my job every day and I I sit with with customers and they'll say something and I'm like wow yeah I didn't exact same thing saw it totally different whether it's because of my life my life's experiences my my my upbringing because of my age and their age because of my my skin

131tone or their skin tone because of socio economic a bunch of different things and I think these are the the areas where the where the disconnect is is is taking place and if we're not willing to if I'm not willing to step out and say okay you know what look at these issues whatever they are like a Rubik's Cube not just look at it on the face let's spin this thing around Let's Twist this this way let's twist it that way and see exactly what this thing really is because if I'm not willing to step in your shoes and actually see what you what you're saying we're going to be disconnected all the time uh and I'll give I'll give one example of that and it's uh and this has come up um Columbus Day

132and I get it that there's for wherever you stand on this issue but if you were to take yourself out of your own shoes and step into say somebody who's Native American would you feel the same way about Columbus State and this is what this is where I think that that uh uh uh uh Georg arasmus is getting to that the disconnect is is not so much and so I think I think those connections need to be made we need to be more willing to step out of our own shoes and get in get in the next person's shoes to to um and I think that may be speaking some to what you were if correct me if I'm wrong no I think you you're on the right track yeah Mrs gal or Mr mcke

133any thoughts or or comments I guess so or I'm sorry go ahead I I think it's a great idea I mean I you know but it's again how to execute it and is it part of the long range it may be part of the long range but I think we got to hear where where we're going you know educational wise demographics wise all that before we can really tack in a in in a real way you know I mean it's it's not cuz I mean you know I'm a big believer you just get along with people you know uh and that and even if they disagree with you you know and that but I think we got to look at it in our frame of where we're going um just wondering when someone is considering

134moving to the area and they go to a realtor and they have a family and they asked the realtor how's the school district what's the response what do the Realtors know about us what does the community know about how we're functioning or about the presentations that were here made here tonight so that goes back to community um if we don't tell them they won't know and there are we've been talking about communication I think there are a number of ways that we could get the word out about who we are and what we do and where we want to go and the channels available to us are many um and it means a lot of discussion but that's just a question I have does the community know who we are and what we're about and

135how we're doing yeah help me I'm trying to maybe tie the two together but if you know like um Mr hack's um recommendation like that's something for current students and I think Mrs go you're talking about maybe something you know I mentioned it earlier when Mike was here see you Mike you know how do you brand Chambers School District to incoming families or prospective families or prospective students it's reputation management reputation management yeah really is reputation management not with current students or or well I think the kids at luran don't know anything about the kids at Ben Chambers um and how we get there or the families um same school district totally different culture I don't know we are a community we are a diverse Community how do we let people know that how do

136we get to know each each other so that we can work better together which I think is what Lance was talking about and that's my point the time to do that is when they're young so that when they get to be like me they're already cooperating they're not like taking their sides already and disagreeing with everything the other person says they know how to get along you do that when children are young it's easier to raise a healthy child than it is to fix a broken adult I think we'd all agree on that when when you say it's cheaper too believe it or not so I I think I'm hearing but correct me from wrong is you know my thought is thinking out loud here at a future Committee of the whole which would be

137the first meeting in April um to have a discussion item you know in the Five series on education and services and guess I would encourage any board member who has thoughts ideas recommendations maybe we funnel them through Bev and get them into the Friday folder you know try you know wait a little bit don't just you don't want to dribble them out and you know maybe send your thoughts in and you know we do we do have two board members uh missing this evening which is which is rare really but it is what it it is um would that would that be acceptable to the seven of us who are present this evening okay we'll we'll move this to a discussion item at the uh April Committee of the whole meeting Mr Walker do you

138have another item you wanted to bring up no it was just a it was just a comment I wanted to uh go ahead no go ahead I wanted to thank I don't know if anybody's attending any of the kindness conel tunnel kindness tunnels it was that was really thank you uh M Goin for for coordinating that that was incredible I had I do have a story at uh uh when we were um in fville uh I was giving the the kids uh fist bumps and saying good morning to them and everything and the uh the one little girl she had I I gave her a fist bump and we're saying good morning to her and after I gave her a fist bump because I personally I was there feeling like I'm you here to welcome

139the kids and she pulled out a little uh keychain and had a heart on it and she handed it to me and I was like wow I wasn't expecting that but I thought so anyway long story short I had the little keychain and I wanted to thank whoever that little girl was who gave me the the keychain heart on it thank you so much that really made my day and uh there were a couple other people there who saw it who were like you know impressed with it it was almost like she was waiting to to uh uh cheer me on and I was there trying to cheer her on so I appreciate those uh kindness tunnels are really it was really great just to clarify I only coordinated having board members at the kindness

140tunnels the counselors in the district uh coordinated having the kindest tunnels yeah last call for open I get last oh man