001all right i' like to call the order the board of director's Committee of a whole for February 20th 2025 let us stand for our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God and indivisible with liy and justice for all all right we will do roll call come on up roll on in get ready do roll call director Washington President excuse me direct Neil Pres director McLaren pres and director H I give you time sorry president Amanda president um director Morales is on her way all right that is our roll call and at this time we'll give it over to Dr suton for our um presentations okay I don't know how you want to do it but we
002have facil good evening everyone good evening that's a good mic right there so just a real quick uh facilities report and um this report report doesn't really reflect on all that we have going on throughout the school district so some of the key things that um I jot it down it's just some of the things that we're doing in this magn School District we have here so for Chester high so for the boys and the girls locker room that is 90% completed one of the things we're waiting for is the completion of the bathrooms and some Plumbing issues and that'll be completed we're expecting for that to be completed within the next month or two with a little bit of pushing from for the contractor so that that'll be updated as soon as that's completed
003so for the cheerleaders locker room um that went under design and when they went under Design By Us wanted so much for these these young ladies that use that facility there we kind of put the design out and it went over budget so what we're going to do now is we're going to redesign it we're not going to you know take no shortcuts but we want to make sure that this room is something that the che will be proud of here and forever so we're working on that so I'll update you guys once that's complet and that's the girls cheer loer room upstairs all right so chest High roof uh we had a grant for that we're working on um getting the roof fixed U we've been very fortunate to not have a lot of
004Plumbing issues with all the rain but having so we've been blessed with that so but we are coming around the corner and doing some things at CH High one of them is the roof the girls cheerlead the lock room and the boys and girls locker room also for the girls locker room at Chester High School um they're getting new washer and dryer so we're working on some Plumbing issues there before we start bringing and that new stuff right there so as you can hear there a lot of exciting things going on in Chester high school so here's the black eye right here and I don't know if I'm going get in trouble for saying this but I'm just want to put it out there so I want to say the early parts of February we
005experienced a a motor failure with the Border down in the Border Room which caused us to lose some time for the school and staff for the students and staff which was very unfortunate and that's something that we're working on we're going to do better with handling situations like that Premed maintenance and all that so I apologize for the inconvenience that it ca the staff and students so we're working on them type of issues as well so that was the one thing about Chester high that I was a little upset with so for Toby forms um overall renovation is completed we had the last bit of the training today for the HVAC system next year also um at Toby fors we're we're looking at putting in some new bars throughout the whole school district I mean
006the whole school um thanks to um some grants and funding that our team has been working so hard on and I really appreciate the team that we have in place and I want to say thank you guys for all the hard work you doing to help out with this report so we're expecting that to be this summer um of course you know everyone has to be out of the school so we're working on the bathroom going to make sure that the students have some and staff has some nice bars to come back to in September all right okay so going to the School of the Arts School of the Arts and this is one of dr's pet PE that you know if I don't get it done I don't know if I'll be here next
007year you report the floor there inside the dance room um it it means a lot not only to me and Dr but to the kids that go there I go there I visit I see them playing but unfortunately the floor needs repairs so we're currently waiting for three quotes to come back for the repairs of that floor again all right so we're working on that also at cusa um we're we're getting a new boiler the boiler there is outdated we don't want to experience some the things that we've experiencing here so that Bo get changed out once again from the team with the environmental Grant with the environmental brand so we Chang the M off that and also um some of the things that we're doing at chest grand school district I mean at cusa
008is that we're changing out some of the tiles and I'll get back to that in a second as I go down this report so for stem um they have a space at stem that they consider the major space and we found out that over there that there's no real heating and cooling system in this room so we're designing something that can go inside that room and possibly give us some heat in the cooler so that's for St so back over to Main Street we received an environmental Grant this year um for the removal of aestus Tis so just to give youall a short history on aestus tiles aestus tiles are 9 by9 tiles and these 9 by9 Tiles at the bottom of them back in the day when they did cold and everything there was
009no real cold for how you put TI down so under that tile the 9 by9 this is like different under the 9x9 tile is some adhesive views it can only be disturbed if you push it and push it and push it and then it goes in the air and dispens goes out so the viment of Grant said that we can change out that type of stuff so we're working on getting all dispenses removed out of not just that school but also at the ca school cuz there is a couple of rooms that have the 9 by9 Towes in it so that pretty much completes my report we good any questions just this issue you just spoke on yes is this the first time we felt dealing with that because espe as you know I'm thinking
010that that's something was been in the past has that been addressed so previously or so I don't think it's been addressed previously so what happens is they had this thing called the Hara report and it comes out every 3 years and during these aara reports they go around and identify schools that had Environmental you know um issues so in the hair report it says that Kusa has aestus tole flooring and Main Street also has it so with the help of the team we um were able to get a grant to um start moving some of the stuff out of these places yeah that's those the only two those the only two that's been identified to have report yes um crua and Main Street to over schools who gets to use the washer and dryer so
011the the guys already have their own washer and dryer on their side of the locker room the women they have one but it's not functional and there are some Plumbing issues that we have to address so um it was approved for the you know to get a new wash of the dry re so I guess that would be a question coach um teacher staff I don't know but but they they're getting one because theirs is outdated and it needs to be changed out and we believe in that title now we don't want we want to make sure that everybody's playing even Mr Robinson did you say that um there is a grant or one has to be written or is it already we already have it en for the environmental yes there's already a grant
012um we already have the grant um we've been actually meeting up with teams to go over there and take a look at some of the things that we have concerns with so the grant is in how much is the the gr comes from DC and it's 819,000 DC Department Economic Development you said 8 819,000 thank you any more questions good I want to say thank you to everyone and once again thanks to my team who's been nothing but support you know sometimes gets me in trouble but yeah I want to say thank you to you guys thank you next we have Dr Parker good evening everyone evening so the curriculum and instruction team would like to share a few updates with you um particularly around prek counts for this upcoming board agenda meeting um we
013are working with um some external Partners to help our classrooms with their um eer review which is the Early Childhood rating scale those reviews are in progress that helps our district monitor our programs and help us to provide um support for our teachers and make sure that the programs that we are offering our students are effective and so those are happening now they conclude next week we also are looking to renew our creative curriculum for pre accounts and my teaching strategy which is the um virtual or the online companion to creative curriculum that will be coming up for Renewal as well additionally we are updating our District's continuity of Education plan particularly around the prek count students to meet our requirement for the 180 day requirement as you guys are aware um our district is
014now using hours 900 hours for elementary school and I believe 990 hours for high school um however prek count still mandates that we have 80-day requirement and to do that we are allowed to use a flexible flexible instruction plan which um we are proposing to um provide our teachers and students with additional prek count specific curriculum that is mobile that they can use at home if necessary so we're excited about that um also the cni team has received some rfps for high impact tutoring that we hope to implement throughout the District next school year um we are currently reviewing those proposals as a team and we hope to have a decision made for um our upcoming meeting and finally I just wanted to share that the spelling be was a huge success this year um
015it lasted 3 hours this year which is huge for us um our younger students actually were continuing to compete of Beyond an hour so we were super excited about that it was a very long night but a very exciting night because our students continue to spell I mean words through the 300s so we were very excited about that have any questions I have a question sure for you and Dr Su the last time we spoke we talked about um the the fact that the progress of our students that go from Chester High to higher education institutes are not tracked and I was wondering if there something that we could give some thought to absolutely and we will as a as an entire team we will work on that um I know we did talk about
016that last year and that is a part of our discussion in terms of action planning around what that would actually look like and what kind of supports we would need what kind of tools we would need and who we would need to contact to make sure that we can keep sort of a track so to speak on when students graduate from high school where they go after that and do they graduate from college and how do we get that information you're welcome I have a question sure for those programs that we put in place last year how are the students doing are we tracking that specifically math um first and Math maybe or I ready when we got our scores last year we purchased quite a bit of curriculum for ma reading as well but
017I was just curious I don't I I didn't really hear about our did our scores increase you know so you should know that we monitor instruction and how students are doing three times a year right um in a sort of interim way so that we can see a snapshot like how they're doing throughout the school year year and then we also use the end of the year standard testing so I'm sorry they test in March right after uh spring break or something I believe it's April this year but yes so so that's a standardized test but we also use inter room testing as well so we use I ready for that in the K to8 level and map testing for high school was there any improvement in our standard test state pssas wise the end
018of year what the students take right at I think it's bad that they take it right after we come back from spring break but they do take a state test was the scores any better I would say it were varying degrees of success that we experiened as a district um I can say that as a whole the district did well in terms of growth um we are as you know you know um considerably um below the actual Target but we can tell that there is work happening because there is growth being shed in our P data which is a growth indicator that the state uses yes so is that well yes I mean we we were we were quite surprised that it was as long um as it was but it was it was good
019it was good it was good to see and good to see how many children were participating um so that that's that's an indicator as well thank you you're welcome thank you any other questions thank you thank you gather good evening good evening I'm going just have a few things the business office has been uh fairly busy for the last couple weeks we've been preparing for monitoring Federal monitoring we've um also been having uh budgeting and um negotiation meetings so we've been U fairly busy just wanted to just remind um some reminders the homestead applications are due March 1st if you have if you get that question let people know that they're doing March 1 we've been sending out the applications as we get them from the county the instructions from um County but um if
020we seem to be getting a whole lot of questions about that so let them know it's March 1st and if they need an application they can contact the business office or the um front desk uh at 1350 next month um also um so the last uh date for um tax revenue was this December 31st of course 2024 so January February March they tend to be the school district lean months because we're not getting as as much as that revenue and the the revenue that comes from the delinquent taxes have not come in yet so um so the this is uh U aggressively looking at what we can pay and what we um we can um uh delay if you will uh to until um the next month or so so we're doing some proactive responses
021to these few lean onths and and typically after about um March April we're we're back we're back set um I have in my hand um the documents for uh payables if I'll just leave one this if you want to copy this just the list of all the uh thingses we paid for the month as well um and as far as upcoming agenda I one of the new items that we're considering is going into a partnership with um organization called GSL consulting firm and they are a grant uh Consulting uh firm that will help school districts find uh grants that will improve capital projects um that are they'll identify the projects they'll um do the negotiations they'll help you get the grant they'll um actually uh do the paperwork so so it's a pretty uh comprehensive
022um partnership that we're looking at yet and as as a result um they've even built into the the pricing that we would not have to pay them up front it would be all part of the gr process uh and uh that that would be of the upcoming agenda after the review um with the receiver and I believe that's all I have you have any questions so we don't know what they they would charge to me do they charge a percentage of the grade percentage of what they what they what they yes what they so what they go out and do once we're awarded once they do that whole process of awarding of that Grant is a percentage of the grant do we know what what the percentage is we do it'll be onent we do
023I just wanted the reason I'm uh concerned because it's it's still in in in approval process so um where are we on our audits are we are our deliverables to the our financial deliverables to the state are we caught up no um so when I C with the artist we're still um working on the 2021 audit we're much closer than we were um we actually received um I forgot what the papers are called but we received the notification from the Auditors that the that they're they're preparing there's still some things that we have to deliver um we spoke with um there representative from Witham who's our financial financial company that's helping us with the Audits and um they're still working on that process 2021 so and that's that's like the that's the challenging year for
024us because it was that it was the pandemic year it was all of that and I um I'm so sure that once we get past that year the other years are not going to take that one at all so you're welcome I do have a question about the charter payments do we have we since uh whenever it was we came back from court it's been discrepancies and how much we're going to pay them how much we owe them back um what do we have an amount that we're paying to them right now and what does that amount in confence is that in reference to uh the agreement with chester Comm so right now we're paying what the agreement says um I do believe that if I'm not mistaken it's still they're still working up the
025logistics and U with legal but as of now we're paying what the agreement says a question um I know that there's some people that have been that have moved into the area so but they're not familiar with the process of the homestead you said that media were sending out applications how they so if you expressed in getting an application to um the uh in media then they will send a notice to us and we'll actually mail that application out there so that's one way you can get the the application the other way is you can go online and if you Google Homestead application PA it'll take you to the website you can print that out I thought there was an age requirement it is there's like it's not like everybody there's an age requirement there's
026an income requirement so once the application PA Y and it'll take you back to the the website where you can call the office and we'll print it out and you can pick or email it to you if they have email I know some the saers don't use email anybody else thank you thank you thank good evening everybody I just have a couple updates for special education um some new Partnerships that we have um our 12 plus program has started working in coordinating with Miss Bowser um and the Victory closet which is the closet that we have all of our supplies for our students and families who are receiving um services on mikini vento and so they started working with her uh employability skills and so that started last week and will continue so I'm excited
027that we have started that the other thing is we partnered with the office of development developmental disabilities um to provide resources for families and for students to get Services through their office through them we have also uh we're going to conduct a professional development for our school psychologist because it's important for a student to get Services through the office of Developmental Disabilities there has to have certain things in the evaluation report for them to qualify for services so we're going to work with our school psychologist through this office to ensure that the uh evaluation is always for us so we can get these Services if they qualify one of the other things that we uh were able to do is we had two of our speech and language Pathologists they were trained in the set
028process which is a process for students there's lots of different layers to that but these speech pathologists were trained for augmentative communications currently if we have a student who needs that type of service we have to contract it out to the dciu now we have our own speech pathologist who can come in and do it for us so great thanks we have a speech pathologist we do we have um seven speech [Music] pathologists okay any other questions thank you you're welcome good evening good evening uh so just a couple items uh one we have uh been working with the St Joseph's uh University prevention Academy and so they started to work with our fifth grade students uh in the month of February they provided lessons on uh avoiding drug and alcohol use uh they provided
029lessons in the classrooms uh as well as some follow-up activities uh this month they're working with our eighth grade students and so they'll be going around to excuse me in the month of March they'll be going around to the e8th grade classrooms providing lessons and support as well uh the reason why this is important is because the funding for these activities is coming from the opioid settlement and so uh many schools in Delaware County are participating uh it gives an opportunity to provide some initial support and then our hope is to build out from there so that along with our other partners we can continue to make sure that our students are aware of the dangers of drug and alcohol use and some alternative coping strategies uh so that they can be healthier beings and
030that's a primary goal of ours uh in addition to that we are continuing to work with the dciu around PBIS implementation uh so we had a assessment that was done uh so our several of our schools several of our schools scored above 80% which means that they have a high implementation rate and so that was based on uh surveys that was conducted with all School staff members including teachers and climate Etc and so uh that was a part of the ongoing work from the dciu uh on March 12th they will be providing additional uh meetings and training with uh several schools so three of our schools are having specialized training around PBIS to support their implementation at a tier one level and so that will continue throughout the spring as well and then uh lastly
031We are continuing of course our mtss uh multi-tier system of support implementation across all buildings and so we are uh really pleased uh at many of our buildings in terms of level of implementation that schools have plans that students are engaged in with our mental health professionals uh our social workers our counselors our reading Specialists uh are have plans for students uh there are over 725 uh intervention plans which means that students have plans with respect to secl Behavior Uh Ela math and other academics and those plans are progress monitored so they're updated either weekly or bi-weekly so that we can see the progress and then additionally we can also see whether or not students are growing on I ready of course at the end of the year we'll be able to see on pssa
032or map scores as well but we're able to track student progress on those plans as well and so again we're just continuing to strengthen the level of implementation uh and then we have some additional support that we're hoping to provide to schools upcoming before the end of the year but those are still works in progress are there any questions yes you said for um avoiding drugs that was fourth grade and then you're going into eighth grade fifth and eighth grade fifth yes for the um intervention plans I'm happy to hear about 725 is that those who are receiving special services and those without them or these are students who do not have IEPs so in addition to the students who have IEPs which are generally not uh directly in mtss it's possible but most of
033their needs are addressed through their IP meetings so that wouldn't be a part of mtss but these are students who are not receiving specialized Services who are receiving different levels of support so for instance are students who are receiving reading assists um those are tier three plans at a high level we have students who are receiving of course support from Reading Specialists we have of course teachers in the classroom so some schools are doing more of homogeneous grouping where there's instruction being provided based on the students level during the math or reading intervention block and so that plan might reflect that that level of instruction so again uh there are some students who are on attendance plans because of poor attendance or uh lateness to school and so depending on the students some students may
034have one two or three plans depending on the needs for that student that's a good thing though so PBIS with dciu you said that was 80% of what what was the 80% so in other words um that particular was looking at um the percentage of Staff who believed that the school was implementing PBIS at a high level so there were several schools um that at at least 80% of the staff said that the school was implementing PBIS at a high level so uh I forgot what the exact lier scale indicators were but at a high level so are they still dealing with um conflict resolution so yes there's still some of that taking place at some schools in terms of restorative practices as an example uh Chester high is utilizing Youth Court they made some
035adjusts Youth Court is continuing as well and some schools uh have uh different other interventions that they using is dciu still involved I think there was a conversation recently about some schools needing additional training so there are some conversations around those schools who need like booster Level Training because I know they they've been involved yeah that Grant is expiring okay at the end of the year so but Toby farms and um ES study we participating in that did they get the final year was it a threeyear program it was a threeyear program yeah so this is the end of the three I would be curious to know how that's working I give me a follow of course the 80% for the PBIS do you have is that overall a total overall or is that 80%
036of each building is saying that they believe the PBIS is affected 80% at three of our buildings um other staff indicated that it was being implemented at a high level and the other buildings so the other buildings varied so they were all above 60% uh some buildings were new in terms of PBIS training and so um um those schools we would expect that you know year one that there might be some growth areas but there are again um at all the schools it's evident just whether or not it's evident at a high level and there's a prettyy strict rubric that's used as a part of that um survey and then as I mentioned on March 12th those schools are getting some additional support in terms of strengthening implementation you don't have to tell me the
037schools right now but I will ask at another date but the schools that have the lower PBIS appr fovs do they have greater or lesser behavior problems overall that's a really good question uh I would say it varies there are some schools that have some Behavior challenges and have low implementation rates and that's part of the work that we're doing with those schools but then there are some schools that um don't seem to have a high behavioral challenges but the implementation rate might be different this year if there's been like a change in leadership or some other factors that may have contributed to that or might be also changes in Staffing overall yes you mentioned U weekly monitoring is there a monthly report available for a semester in report available for the for the for
038the monitoring that you do weekly are you referring to the intervention plans yes so there are uh so the answer is yes that comes in different formats though uh so one of the one of the formats is whether or not the plans are updated which is important because we want to make sure they're updated the second part is uh looking at the total number of plans and then the third part would be looking at the specific data sources that I mentioned that requires a little bit of um adjustments of the data but all those things are available yes so if that's something that can be produced in a report that the board to digest yes it would just take a little bit of conversation around what specific items you would want in that report but
039yes that's possible thank you thank you thank you thank you just one more so Mr Bell good evening good evening yes uh thank you for having me tonight um wanted to present from the athletics department um just want to give updates on um the athletic department what we have is a live uh website Chester clippers.com um this is updated every day um know 24 hours we get an update in regards to what Athletics are doing you can check out on Chester clippers.com any update to results uh schedules um we have box scores for our boys and girls basketball program the updates that we have thus far uh in regards to girls basketball um they had a game on yesterday second round playoffs um didn't win the game however have a playback uh on Saturday love
040to see faces uh there at the game um 2 p.m. um Chester Clippers TV uh you know it's televised there uh we also have you know a lot of our updates on Chester U Clippers Shipyard that's run by our athletic department that we update every day that we can on what our student athletes are doing um our um girls track program indoor um have meddled in in districts uh in two weeks March 1st they'll be uh in our state meets um so my hope is that we can have that televis on our um our website I'll get more information into that um spring sports are underway uh so I just ask that we stay tuned to chest clippers.com for all of those updates that's a live website again um everything that we do is on
041the website from schedules to results uh who our staff are um buying tickets buying tickets absolutely so all those things are available uh because we know that there's so many uh I mean we even get our live broadcast we'll get people that will say buy your tickets here but there's a scam so therefore we put everything on Chester clippers.com so it's a legit tab that you can um click to get the tickets um in regards to the washer and dryer um I wanted to get back to that situation so myself and Mr Robinson we spoke in regards to how to make that um that both locker rooms have the same so if we were to take a tour there you'll see that both boys and girls locker rooms me each other we have our logo
042in the same space um our couch is in the same space thanks to miss jbre the team um to to to get those items for our student athletes um we have Sitting lockers for both boys and girls uh programs um but in regards to the laundry M Laundry M the laundry room um there are some some things that we got to really you know get to before putting the equipment there because the company needs to bring it in they will actually set it up however there's some things that we must address before they do so uh but to make it uh as simplistic as possible what the boys have in their locker room the girls have also um we also have in our cheerleading locker room um we just uh had it renovated if you
043will a new paint there some cabinets we got to remove and some that need to come into that space but uh for the most part what we do for one we got to do for the other um but just wanted to give an update on um the athletic department everything we do is live um and you can see it on chust clippers.com is that a s behind Clippers or that is correct trust Clippers all one word okay Y and then the shipyard there another word that is actually on Facebook and so we get a uh we we do our very best to put it out there for people to follow our student athletes um we'll get post that we'll present we hear information just to update the community on what's going on um a lot
044of things that we do the Flyers Imaging those things that put our student athletes at the Forefront so Chester clippers.com and also um Chester Clippers Shipyard on Facebook and we also have an Instagram uh page that you can follow um it's Clipper athletes and so a lot of their images because we know our student athletes that's their platform and they love to see their images any questions yes um could you tell us do we have any additional um programs other than the traditional ones that we may not know about in regards to Athletics or activities or Athletics so we do have spring uh the implementation of girls flag that is like that's a Hot Topic right now um pwaa has just passed the the girls flag football programs to Across the state for them to
045participate um we do have 24 young ladies that are now on team um coached by Mr Anthony Moss um the young ladies are excited uh so we have girls flag and we're talking spring um our hopes are to get uh softball off the ground we've had young ladies that spoke about softball that's not a a program that you would just literally jump into because it's technique that's that's involved there um we had Boys Tennis this spring which we haven't had that in some time so our tennis program is coming back in Spring girls flag of course boys and girls track um boys volleyball they don't participate so much and that so they don't they want to wear that that uniform but we got to make it attractive for them to come out so we can
046change the uniform possibly we can have young men to come out for that sport so no volleyball right now volleyball for young men no so the boys volleyball program is in Spring the young ladies is in the fall so we do have fall for young ladies yes baseball baseball absolutely we have baseball we do is there any way we could I mean I know we don't have a pool but is there any way we can partner and have a swim team great question um there's been some laid work in regards to um trying to establish that partnership with wi uh in a conversation I had with their Aquatics director um there are so many programs already utilizing the space so that may you know we need to push there to to get space for that
047but however we need to start at the elementary level um so they can learn how to swim there there's some um some liabilities there if a child comes you know they don't know if they can swim or not so there's a lot of things that we got to do prior to them even getting to the facility to swim I did reach out to rley YMCA for the same you know type of service the the hold up there as a transportation we would have to bust so many kids to that location and they already have you know so many activities going on but that's that's definitely um a program that we want to see how about the school on conqu road that's something I can reach out inquire about all right thank you no problem thank
048you the reason I was asking about the waser and dve thing is I was just wondering if one of your your athletes came to you and say hey I need to wash my clothes and I can't do it at home with that now I hope I don't even say I'm fous at all that's a no brand that's something that we would take care of um of course young our young people come to us in discretion or in confidence and say hey I got this issue and we don't even think twice you know we we've had team managers that you know have to not to put anyone out there all but um we've had some questions like that already so we definitely address that thank you absolutely more questions thank you so much so at this
049time we're going to have director Morales give her legislation report good evening and apologies for being late this report is very long but I'm going try to condense it I sent it out in an email so that you all can read whatever is not um presented here tonight and if you have any questions you can ask me later but the governor gave his budget address um surprisingly he didn't sway very far from the request that he made last year as far as it concerns funding for education so if everything was to stay the way that if if the budget was to pass pass as he's requested we will only see like a $1.9 million decrease in the overall funding that we receive next year but we still have the additional increase to basic education there
050would be an increase for special education for us there would be still the $5.5 million adequacy gap payment we would receive and $2.1 million for and Charter reimbursement and savings what we wouldn't see is the funding that was out at this year for school safety and mental health that was not part of the budget that he presented but it is something that we are going to advocate for once we start our advocacy um season also for them to implement into the budget this year that the payments are over the seven years so that every year we don't have to keep going and asking for the money some legislative changes that occur of course we all are aware of the orders um that are coming down at this point the only one that would have some
051type of effect on our advocacy is the request that um the president made for states to find ways to redirect Federal funding or tax funding to um broaden private choice so right now we've been able to hold off on that in Pennsylvania but it's a little bit different when you have have the president asking for states to look into ways to divert those funds um we have House Bill 233 that was introduced that requires Charter board representation um School Board representation on any charter school board that operates in the school district so if that was so if that was to pass it would be required that we have an every Charter School of school board director from the elected School Board in the district um there is a bill that has been recommended to the
052House Appropriations Committee addressing eating disorders in school this would be another mandated thing that the schools have to take care of with no funding attached to it so I'm sorry about that um a mandate for cursive handwriting has made it to the house education committee extending school budget lines is something that's up now so and that's been referred to the house education committee which would give school districts an additional 30 days to submit their um budgets House Bill 46 has been referred to the house education committee and is to increase access to prek for PA kids House Bill 130 is a bill that has been refer and is to effectively allow the education money to follow the child this could be a good and a bad thing for our district because essentially it would mean
053that if a student was in a parochial school or anything like that we we would not be the recipients of the money for that child like it would go it would be almost like Charter how we pay the charter school for each student that would happen in every aspect of where our children would be at in the district so it's not really a good thing we don't need to give away any more money then we have House Bill 338 which is Cyber School attendance accountability so it would be to that's also been referred to the house education committee holding Cyber Charter Schools as a more strant um level for the attendance like right now they have like only have to see the child two days a week face on the camera right so how do
054you know that the child is actually participa in the other days the T the could just be on um removing lead from drinking water um this would allow for funding for this which is really good because we are working collectively with swore on a lead task force for the city of Chester and so this would hopefully allocate some funding that we could use towards that if it was passed these are the last three house bille 342 teaching mindfulness in schools which again will be another mandate on schools with no funding attached to it um then we have Senate Bill 28 which is black studies in K through 12 curriculum which has been referred to the Senate education committee for school for pde to direct and own a curriculum a universal curriculum on black studies that
055each school district will have to follow and then Senate Bill 77 um which has been referred to the sen bill with um mandates um mental health days for students so at least three mental health days that students could take instead of just not being present in school that's what I have right now the next one's probably going to be just as long but these are what uh this is what's happening right now thank you so um with dciu there's been approval for new board members that those who were um did not choose to go for reelection and then there was approval of um educational programs as well as academic professional development within various districts I'm sure that we are part of that um by the dciu staff is cons considered to contract for those Services
056they're having their National um conference in Atlanta Georgia there's concern about the things that board member Morales spoke on with regards to the choice but uh you know the Mandate that the president has that he wants you to identify with the sex that you were born and there's some issues behind that which safety that school districts are having to deal with and his wanting to divert money for um early childhood education there are concerns I'm sure we're all dealing all right thank you so at this time we are going do you have anything I thought I heard no I said thank you but I will share something briefly and this just around um policy so the team will begin the process of of review of policies and we're currently working to get a few interns
057to uh support this effort for uh the district thank you any have a question all right at this time um I am going to ask Mr rodkey to come on up and he has some information to present to us he is no stranger to our community but I let him well hello everybody uh my name is Tucker Rodi I'm the executive director of Legacy Arts Chester we are a mentoring Arts based organization here in the community we've been around since 2019 we've had about 100 families come through our programs and uh I won't go over everything that you have in front of you you guys can read that in your own time and see what we're about but our uh main thing is that we Mentor our youth we advocate for their success we invest
058in their skills and we nurture their minds um and so we have art programming that we provide for students in the community uh for first grade through 12th grade completely free we don't charge anybody a cent uh we have kids from every single School in the Chester community that attend our programs over at the Cultural Arts and Technology Center uh and we've been seeing incredible impact in the lives of students through this through long-term relational mentoring uh through helping them work through just personal challenges but using creativity to do it uh on page three of one of these handouts you guys can see just the impact that Arts programming has in communities for kids mental health uh for just life in general for their creativity for job skills things like that the main reason that
059I'm here tonight is to number one introduce myself to you so that when you see my name you can put a you know face the name you guys have my contact information but also just introduce our program to you and offer us as a resource for all of you and everybody else in the room uh for what we do and what we can provide uh our goal is to be resourc for the school district to provide support in art programming in the district we all know that if there are budget cuts to be made it always seems to start with the Arts U because that's like the first thing to go and so what we do is we have completely independent uh funding from Individual donors from Grants from Community organizations uh we don't rely
060on the school district or for funding we don't rely on the community for funding it's entirely supportive from outside the community and offer it as a source so as an example um like we just connected with Toby Farms we'll be working with their treny days to prevent treny um by providing free our programming for any kids that need it for any kids that are in you know Chester high that maybe they don't have their spot in sports and uh they can't find it in different areas connecting them to our programs where they have a place where they are empowered where they belong where they are loved and we're starting to see just tremendous things happen with the kids that are coming into our programs as I've had kids now that I received in my fourth
061grade that are in juniors and seniors in high school they've moved from being students coming in with severe anxieties severe depression behavioral issues that now they're are student leaders and teachers and instructors so we take them on we hire them we train them to empower them to be the leaders of the Next Generation because we believe that our students can change the legacy of our community we just have to empower them to do that um so like I said we have programming four different programs for 1st through 12th grade maker space is our elementary program then we have our art Club program which I just came from that's why I paint all over me uh where we had you know 25 kids running around having a great time creating I had like eight-year-olds learning one
062point perspective and crushing it fantastic studio arts program where kids learn specific mediums work through those mediums where they build a portfolio that is it is if you don't know this our the kids in our program are above average in the creative Fields especially visual art like I can put any kid in our program up against any kid in any other school district and they will I mean I don't want to say they'll crush them I'll just say they uh they're pretty phenomenal one of our students was recognized by the top color pencil artist in the world like in the world recognized for her skills like that's the level of talent we have in our kids and in our community and then finally we have a portfolio prep where we help kids repare portfolios as
063they apply for colleges and college uh scholarships and our goal is just to empower and equip and partner with everyone that we can in the community so I just want you guys to know who we are understand that I'm here to support the school board support the district support any other programs that we can because I believe that working together is how we move forward right it's not operating and silos is coming together as a community uh so I just want to introduce myself and our program to you and now that youve got a brief description of what we do are there any questions about what we do or thoughts comments concerns anything I can answer for you during this time my niece is in your program she's very very great but I just wanted
064to know about the transportation um because you may have students who want to participate but if it's only after school and it's off school property if that's the only offering for them they may not be able to take advantage of that opportunity so do you offer any type of Transportation or is there any way that the program could be brought into the school as an after school program on some days or what what is the flexibility for yeah so uh as we all understand the limitation is only resources not a lack of Desire uh so our limitation is simply our volunteers and transportation um capabilities so one of the issue we used to provide transportation but one of the issues that we would face uh which I'm sure everybody here can uh empathize with was
065uh volunteers showing up they would go to the school to pick up the kid the kid wouldn't be there and they would keep doing that week after week and eventually the volunteers are like why am I doing this the kid is not showing up and then you have people dropping off and things like that so our goal eventually would be to be able to provide transportation that's not not something we're capable of right now as far as providing programming in the schools itself we're starting to explore uh those options we definitely open to those discussions uh the main reason that we currently don't have that setup uh was simply because we had too much interest from too many schools or too many kids from too many different schools that wanted to be a part of
066it and we couldn't do eight different programs we could do one uh that they could attend so those are things that we would like to do but aren't able to offer right now days and times uh so our maker space and Studio arts program is on Tuesdays 4 to 6 and then uh studio art or Art Club is Thursdays from 4 to 6 Saturday is portfolio prep in the morning from 9:30 to 11:30 and here since 18 2018 2018 where's the location the cultureal Arts and Technology Center on Fourth Street the market it's above the marketplace Chester secret Hidden Gem just miss yeah so each year we not each year but basically every other year we add another programming day or time uh for the kids so we started with just Art Club started with
067like three kids and then that filled up so then we added in studio art we all grew up and grew into that um but as we grow and as more funds come in we're open to offering more days and more times like we just uh we're selected for the Pennsylvania Delaware Estuary uh artist residency program so that brings in like 30,000 that we use for programming another 12,000 for supplies that we can use for public art um different things like that it's going to be sweet so mural somewhere yeah so for that project we're creating public Arts piece um um there I mean we have a bunch there's like one on the third floor here there's some at the Boys and Girls Club we've got stuff all over the community uh we haven't wor in
068the early stages of planning uh that project uh we'll have Community meetings over at City Hall at um you know different locations with like making a change group with the Cat with different Community groups where as a community we'll design the public Arts piece and install it either as a mural or a three-dimensional immersive thing we've got lots of ideas it's more uh we got to narrow down which ideas we want to pursue so we got lots of cool stuff going on go visit the union Stadium you'll see some of our art over there as well get it any other questions I can answer for anybody thank you thank you guys appreciate it all right I believe um that was all our presentation for our directors from our teachers so I'm going to ask Miss
069Arnold to come on up and did you want to present something to us or something thank you so very much um about a month ago several weeks ago I called because there was some extremely growing concerns that I was hearing about for the safety of the students and the staff at Toby farms in times past I've talked about about having sufficient number of security officers at our buildings and I know we had done some hiring however uh in the recent past we had one security person at Toby farms and uh one of our climate managers I think was out on medical leave and I think that resulted in one person physically on the grounds at the time that may have been a contributing factor but my serious concern was that I was hearing about the
070safety of our students and staff at Toby Farms property was being damaged persons were being wounded and instruction time was being um compromised significantly ly and I know that we have seen situations like that occur in our district from time to time and my concern was in what ways could we come together have some discussions identify contributing factors and really put in place an operative that would correct the situation and so after I had talked to I think maybe I don't know if I talked to you Mrs Neil or Mrs Johnson my question tonight would be after that time has after some time has elapsed I would like to know if you've been able to take any action in that regard because we cannot we cannot have a school operating in that kind of condition
071because it does not help us fulfill the goals for which we exist I'll say it that way so if you could give me any kind of feedback any kind of responses at this point I would appreciate it I know the community would appreciate it and I know the family toally would appreciate it so um Miss Arnold did reach out so we we don't do comments because we're not making any decisions but she had a concern so we did give her this opportunity to present it so she reached out to us before today so I just want to make sure we know that we are this is not a comment this is more of her wanting to share something with the board and we do want to hear from the community so that's why we gave
072her this this opportunity um when you reached out to me I did let everyone know that you had a concern and um receiver Nicholls said that he was going to be looking into it and get a response for you so that was the answer but we will stay on top of it because you presented to us we will stay on top of but that does have to come from him but he he is aware that you would like a response from that so wouldn't that be directed toward our superintendent well not the receiver Nicholls was the one that responded so I know that it was a we was going back and forth a lot and I know he said hold off let her present and then just um he would give a response and also
073if he would like to know more about what we're doing in the district Miss vix please feel free to reach out to if you would like to meet with our team to actually talk about what we're doing thank you you're wel all right thank you you know how important this is and so yes taking action to rectify the situation and really letting the public know that and really just creating that environment that everyone needs that Toby is critically important I don't want to beg the issue and I will end my comments here but thank you for letting me least say this much publicly tonight thank you so much thank you so much thank you thank you all right that will end our discussions are there any other comments from the board or staff okay so
074we do want to congratulate um Jamaya and Iman the Chester High Clippers who chap Chester High lady Clippers who um joined the 1,000 Point Club so we definitely want to let them know that U kudos to you ladies um and I know that you got ladies have been rocketed out so and the National Honor Society applications are now out yes they're out yeah okay all right so we we were we were told that there are a lot of qu um students that could qualify they just need to put in the application so um please get the word out regarding that other than students are responding at stem awesome awesome all right can I get a motion to Some Mo motion second e