001All right. At this time, we're going to call our meeting to order for Thursday, March 19th, 2026. The pledge of allegiance. Stand, please. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Secretary, we can have a roll call, please. >> Yes, I am. >> President Amanda Johnson, >> present. >> Uh, Vice President Beverly Harris, absent. Secretary Lorine Lavender Sans present. >> Board member Poke >> present. >> Board member Rice >> present. >> Board member Ham >> present. >> Board member McLaren >> present. >> Board member Kirk, Reverend Kirkland is by phone. Uh, treasure Dr. Morales, >> superintendent Dr. M. Solicitor Jacobs. >> Thank you for the attendance. >> Mary. >>
002Oh, Abraham. >> She did. He did. >> All right. >> Present. >> All right. So, at this time, we're going to ask for any reports from our staff. Any reports? I do want to say we had a good community meeting at PAUSA um last week. These weeks are blurring together a little bit. Um we had a few parents come out so um that was a decent turnout. We didn't have a lot of questions which means you guys presented very well and gave enough information um and the parents walked away with um satisfied with what they heard. So, we thank you for um having that community meeting at KUSA last week. All right. At this time, we're going to ask for our reports from Director McLaren. >> Okay. That's not how it's listed, but okay. >>
003Oh, yeah. No, >> because I know she has a lot >> for GCIU. Um, we have the Delaware County Education Foundation golf outing which is May 18th. If anybody wants to go on and they have the employee recognition dinner this Thursday, May 28th at Springfield Country Club. We are still in the process of looking for an executive director. Right now we're placing an interim in um in in its stay because we yield to no one in the first go round. And I see on um the district agenda that the cost for uh DCIU they've said in our meeting that it had not gone up although the number under what is it C9 which one C it must be C5 Um, okay. So, it did go up. >> It did not go up. And this the
004small pieces of it was taken up with grants that they did. So, for um unless someone tells me differently, they said that it was not a increase in our payment. because Miss Orales does the legislative that completes mine. >> All right, Dr. Okay, the first I'm going to start with the legislative report. So, um the legislative committee met with Dr. Moon last week. The members of the legislative committee are myself as the chair, director Reverend Thaddius Kirkland, and director Khalif K. Um during the meeting, we discussed um our goals and missions for the legislative meeting. I mean, for the legislative committee outside of just advocating in um Harrisburg, but also here at a local level as it relates to creating a pipeline for students to come into the work that we do um as school
005board directors and have a better understanding of even if they're not coming on the board of school board directors, how to advocate legislatively for their district. um that is going to be a 2027 initiative but we're currently are um selecting students for our annual trip to Harrisburg advocates today this year I feel a little bit better about our advocates and work with Dr. and Mrs. how we fail to create narratives around what we're doing with the ready to learn um adequacy funding um how we are using it, why we still need it, and then we will be able to tell a narrative about our district and have quotes to match that. So, it'll be more impactful when we go to Harrisburg with the children because the children do all the speaking when we go to
006Harrisburg. I do not speak. I do not engage. I let them do everything when they go up there so they can get the feel for that. Um so that's that on a on a state level. I've provided the report but there are a few things that I just wanted that I put stars next to um of importance to bring to the attention today the cursive writing again as legislation was enacted into law but I just want to specify that this is not something new like it's not like oh no one was learning cursive it's just to ensure and mandate that elementary schools are teaching the cursive writing um so if not and and And this is an unfunded mandate because the schools have to now ensure that curriculum and instructional pacing matches what the state
007has added. So it's good on one hand a baby will learn cursive or we will know that they have to learn cursive but on the other hand it's another thing that the district has to I don't know I don't know what word the district has to make sure the teachers are retrained and they they fit that into their curriculum this lead into the school year. Um the other thing that I wanted to bring attention to is the child abuse awareness because we've had a lot of discussion around this both at PSBA level and DCIU committee level. This one of the concerns is just that when you bring adults in front of children, depending on how the adult is presenting information, you will have children um engage with that information and that may lead to just
008a snap of the finger snatching the child from a home or something. We just want to make sure that does not happen like that. These um awarenesses if if if you know it goes all the way through are done very objectively are done in a way where a child can feel safe communicated if something is happening to them but also that the household the parent and the adults being accused of having an opportunity to be fully investigated before you just snatch someone out of their home. So that's why I um highlighted that one. The mental health days are still under consideration and this would allow for schools to give ch um students a bucket of mental health days that they can use. Um it would not require a doctor's note or anything like that. Did
009ask that question. It doesn't require a doctor's note. It would simply be you sending in a letter saying, you know, I let my baby stay home today because they're they needed a mental health. Right now it's at three. I don't know if that number is going to go down or up, but it's separate from the other um days, but it would here's the thing. Although a parent can just write a note and say they if you if it exceeds those three days, like how right now on the policy, if you're three days out, you have to have a doctor's note. It still has to follow the attendance policy. So, you can't have your baby out for four days on a mental health and just send in a note because once it's past the third day,
010you need a doctor. Sorry, I just need to clarify that. And then we have um a bill under house consideration for the ability to expand grant funding to start later school days. So uh you know, Philadelphia has started a later school day and the science behind it said that older children need to come to school later, younger children do better when they go to school earlier. And so um looking to change our schedule and anything that came along with that. They are looking for ways to expand grant funding to support that. The recess and lunch I want to highlight because again it's not that this is not happening. The concept around this is that we just want to make sure it's mandatory. So cannot withhold recess for a child for disciplinary issues, cannot withhold recess
011from a child for attendance issues. That's what this is for to make sure every child gets recess. um during the day. Right now, they're asking for 30 minutes of recess, 30 minutes of lunch, dedicated and not touch. Cell phone ban, we're still waiting for it. As I said, PSBA is not um in agreement with it as it is currently written because it takes away autonomy from the school district to implement what's best for their school. Like, if we feel like our students need their phones at some point in the day, at some point in the time, we should be able to allow them to have their Those are things that are the most important. Now I wanted to clarify because I know sometimes people can see stuff and run away with the narrative. So I
012didn't want narratives to start running away but also we have our as always we are advocating around the governor's budget and which leads me to our treasurers. >> We will now have our treasur. So from a treasury report met with the um Mr. H other Mr. H um in our business department and I'm happy to report that the changes to the PTE form um 363 right now are yielding a savings of $4.3 million. It's estimated that we would save 2.65 million and last year we got a line item of 1.6 or 1. So, we're doing better. I do want to caution because I know when people hear savings, you automatically assume the district has more money at its disposal and that is absolutely not the truth. We are always working from a deficit. So, saving
013just mean that we have a little bit more to add, you know, to take away from our deficit to lower our deficit. Uh again I spoke about um creating narratives for our advocacy funding and the reason why we need to do that is because the ready tole learn grant for the last three years now have been two parts. One is the ready tole learn grant that we normally get every year because Miss Hill is just very good at what she do. But the other part that has been attached to it is an adequacy portion which is for us has been a little over 11.2 $2 million, but it's to close this gap that says, you know, Chester Upland School District students need this amount of money over seven years in order to just be baseline
014with the best performing district or whatever. So that adequacy money we have to fight for every year for the next seven years because the state refuses to just give it to us all at one time. So the more we can create narratives around what we're using that money for, the better chance we have of convincing them that we need that adequacy. So we are working to do a better job at having one one narrative for the district um budget for 2627 has started. We did have a joint meeting to look at things that are being considered revenue streams and we gave feedback about you know making sure that we are not being too uh loose with what we are putting in. Rather have a budget that shows a deficit and not end up with a
015deficit than to have a budget that doesn't show a deficit and end up with a So that is my report. Uh I'm very happy to do this work and I really hope that you guys appreciate the effort. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. We have policy. Yes. >> Okay. Summary for March 2026. Uh committee. What we must do now? Okay. Submit the K through three evidencebased based reading curriculum survey by March 31st, 2026. district entry by the CSA designate align cyber charter residency verification workflows to act 47 that's by annual for November 1st and March 1st the mission's 10day district notification um to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and cyber charter when there's a non-resident judgement continue outreach to families. Verify and update CSA contact, that's the chief school administrative, excuse
016me, contact information, including cell and EDNA. immediately. Ensure 24-hour parent/mp employee notification for any weapons incidents on school property. Verify the building level procedures, meet timelines, and lastly, schedule quarterly school safety and security coordinator meetings with leadership and document attendance. plan to insert threat assessment coordination language into the next denial law enforcement memor memorandum of understanding. And a lot of this will be um the status of these items will be shared in detail at the um during the receivers meeting. Any questions? All right. So, any any last thoughts from any staff? Good. Any last thoughts from any director? You can't ask questions. >> Yeah. Um so, just wanted to um first say thank you for the mannequins and the actual simulators for the automotive um engineering. A lot of our babies learn better when they
017get to touch things. So that's good. My question is about all the new books which under the ready to learn grant the narrative but so are the books that are coming in means that each student is going to have their own book. Are they still going to have to share >> President John the same question. Um so I'm not sure but the way I used to do it and looking at the cost I would think that it's a classroom set and the rest is digital. That would be my for $15,000. >> Correct. >> I'm sorry. >> If they have work at home. >> Yes, because they all were one to one in terms of devices. So, they wouldn't take textbooks home anyway for the most part. That's a lot to carry. >> I may support
018that. No. >> Any other questions? Thank you, Dr. >> All right. So, what is happening between now and the receivers meeting? So, since I see her sitting here so patiently, I will announce that on Wednesday, Wednesday, right? I'm looking at the calendar. So on Wednesday there um the 25th we will have the Frederick Douglas oral contest and Andrew Turner art competition at STEM starting at 6, but they will be eating at what time. So if you are getting off of work, you do not have to go to KFC and all those other places. You can come sit down, enjoy your meal, and then enjoy a great presentation by you. I'm only announcing that because we won't um Dr. Mini does a great job with announcing what's coming up, but this will be before her presentation.
019So, that's why I'm bringing it up right now to invite everybody over to STEM and listen to our our lovely babies give great presentations. They are awesome. So, mark your calendars for that. And again, they will be serving a meal at the STEM location for the oral contest. Um any final thoughts, concerns, questions? All right. Meeting is adjourned. Oh, we didn't get we didn't get it yet.