001okay drew we ready to start yep one second please okay dave zablowski is in as an attendee drew but he's not a panelist yet so we need to find him and upgrade him okay so yep dave's gonna try again drew i had to actually log in through my hotmail account i couldn't get in my regular that might be something i don't know who can text him but he might have to do that hmm i'd say we give it another minute and then get started and we'll have to we'll get dave admitted i'll keep an eye on i'll keep an eye on the attendees maybe john can john ben we help yeah already prompted them we approved the budget last month so we don't have as much on finally i think he's in there through he's
002under csd support remember his name yep there it is thank you yep there he is thank you ready sue all right i am i'd like to welcome everybody to tonight's meeting thursday july 23rd the board business meeting of the colonial school district board of directors if everyone could please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states indivisible with liberty and justice thank you i would like to announce that the board met in executive sessions quite a few of them actually july 15 for personnel in school student safety planning for one hour july 17 for personal personnel and school student safety planning for 45 minutes july 20th for personnel and school and student safety planning for one hour july 21st for personnel the uh dei administrative position for
00330 minutes and july 23rd for personnel school safety and legal matters for one hour dr christian we have student recognition next we do we are happy to have justin adler here with us how are you justin i'm good thank you so i'm going to read a little about you justin so the community can hear your significant accomplishments uh and unfortunately with the pandemic and some of the awards that got delayed we didn't get this information until late june but please bear with me but we have much you have much to be proud of and uh we're here to congratulate you plymouth white marsh high school senior justin adler was named the first place winner of the pennsylvania state modern languages association high school graduating world language student award the award is based on grade point
004average participation in world language classes and activities and a future career where he'll use his world language skills at pw justin exhausted nearly every spanish and latin course offered and studied french through level four during his sophomore year he worked with the plymouth white marsh administration to organize his own study abroad in costa rica as a freshman justin also started the play with white marsh unicef club and raised thousands of dollars for nutrition programs vaccinations clean water initiatives and psychological support for children in crisis around the globe justin also volunteered as an anti-defamation league peer trainer and was a member of students against destructive destructive decisions additionally he was a member of his class hearing committee and the principal's leadership council president of the latin club an officer of the medical careers club co-editor of
005the school newspaper and a member of the cross-country swimming and tennis teams justin was also chosen as plymouth white marsh's dan hour award honoree the prestigious dan hour award recognizes public or private high school senior in montgomery county based on accomplishments in athletics academics and community service with his extensive language skills justin plans to pursue a career in medicine where he can treat underserved communities around the world through a program like doctors without borders to that end he plans to study uh biochemistry on a pre-med track and how oh it's this fall justin what and that probably doesn't cover everything you accomplished but what amazing amazing accomplishment set of accomplishments i know firsthand that danielle award is very competitive just to be nominated from your school is amazing but then when you're up with 33
006to 35 kids from around the county uh young adults who have just done some amazing things to be singled out as an award winner is is a really tremendous accomplishment um i'm not i don't even want to ask you what you do with your free time because after that you don't have any free time so um congratulations we're very proud of you and we wish you the best at haverford thank you dr christian you broke up a little bit when you said where justin plans to pursue his college career i have pre-med at haverford college all right thank you congratulations justin great great accomplishments thank you so much and thanks again for having me here no problem thrilled to have you not to put you on the spot did you want to say anything um
007just that nothing in particular just that i really appreciate the opportunity to be in this district for so long and i feel like i've gotten a lot out of it and hopefully given a small amount back so um all i can say is thank you you know um justin i just i've so i've known you know justin's a senior i have a daughter who's a senior and so justin i have it's fun for me to see because we sort of missed that seeing the kids go through uh this year and um it's really fun to see a kid that i knew on field trips and such a night is such a nice i always remember you just give me justin for a field trip always just the nicest kid and you've turned into a really
008great young adult and congratulations thank you justin we should ask you to say what you just said in one of your many languages instead of just english but none of us would understand a word you said but congratulations and uh good luck with your uh senior year oh you are with your freshman year sorry well thank you can we all clap for him maybe we have to hear it i want to hear it yes virtual stinks congratulations that's awesome well at least you don't have to walk around and shake everyone's hands but thanks for joining us nonetheless sure awesome okay justin anything else are you going to stay are you going to sign off whichever one is perfectly fine but you don't have to stay okay all right well thanks again thank you i'd like
009to ask for a motion to approve the minutes as presented in 4b and 4c which include board business meeting of june 25th and the policy committee meeting of july 13th is there a motion to approve the minutes rosemary and is there a second second beth petruno any comments or questions all in favor okay thank you i'd like to have a motion to approve the financial reports as presented in items 5b through 5 m for june of 2020 which include the capital reserve funds food service bills and cafeteria reports outstanding investment report cash flow summary comparison of taxes collected real estate tax escrow report trust fund report reconciliation of cash accounts budgetary deficit status report bond report general fund and federal program bills budget transfers and also the treasurer's report of 2020 june of 2020 if
010someone would make a motion to approve all of those kathy second chris chris any questions or comments on any of those items for mr sablowski or dr christian okay all in favor great thank you now is the time we reserve for public comments on tonight's agenda and uh dr christian who's going to be in charge of this you so mr bogley and i will uh uh we will assist with this and before we get started i just have a few comments i know we have approximately 230 folks and as attendees and i'm sure there are many people watching on youtube so we will give you the opportunity to speak mr sherman did you want to say something sorry i believe we missed the the action on the treasurer's report oh yeah item six your meter
011you're muted mrs moore um i put that in there with the financial reports if you'd like to need to do it separately i can do so mr sherman you want it separate i'll defer to mr sultanate on that if the motion was for both items simultaneously i have no objection it does not need to be separate okay thank you all right dr christian thank you mrs moore so as i said we have about 225 230 people in as attendees and i'm sure some of you would like to make comments uh as well as many people watching on youtube just because some of you uh may not uh attend board meetings i'd just like to go over the purpose of the comment period and we had a meeting the other night at the end of that
012meeting we accepted comments from from the public as well as we had received electronic comments tonight is a board business meeting there are two comment periods the first comment period will commence soon after my initial comments and if you're commenting in the first comment period it should be related to an agenda item obviously we have a motion on the table for the board to consider the health and safety plan so there may be comments about that but the first comment period is for anything that is on the current agenda that may be voted on tonight if there's something else that you would like to comment on or you comment at the end about how a vote went uh or how a decision was made there will be a second comment period as well i'm sure
013that uh you know we have plenty of opinions that need to be shared and and the board wants to hear our community opinions um the board is going to consider the motion tonight which is item j under new business the health and safety plan and we've also pardoned me attached the reopening plan document that i shared the other evening during the board's presentation what's required is to approve the health and safety plan as it stands today that's a document that all 500 districts are submitting to the pennsylvania department of education the department of education is not approving or disapproving of the plan they are checking to see if each local school board approved its district's plan i think we need to remember however the board votes whether it is approved or not approved the plan
014can change and it can change as we know things have been changing rapidly over the past several weeks and probably will continue to do so hopefully for the better but the one thing we know is they probably will change we should understand that this pandemic while still emerging will not be forever and i believe that regardless on the board's vote tonight we will be revisiting this topic every three to four weeks not only through august but as we get into the school year we need to consider important things state guidance our community needs the feasibility of what our buildings can actually handle and quite frankly the trajectory of the virus amongst other many other variables want to thank our community members for sending me and the board hundreds of emails since tuesday night i either
015a member of our administrative team or i have replied to almost all of them but not all of them i didn't get to everyone and we've either called or responded electronically and regardless of whether or not you agreed with my recommendation tuesday night and the recommendation that i put in front of the board the one thing that's been consistent is that every every communication i received you've thanked the board for their tireless efforts and acknowledged the difficult the decisions that they have to make and i appreciate that um so things will change uh i just tonight an hour before the meeting i've gotten wind of several school districts in the in the suburban county area that have announced that they're switching to a hybrid program uh and some are about to announce or have announced
016that they're closed through november 1st so they're certainly not easy decisions and we want our children back we want our children we want a sense of normalcy but we also want them to be safe and that needs to be our guiding light and it will be i believe before we have people raise their hands i would like to take the time many of the emails we received uh fell under certain themes so i'd like to address a few of those before we get started number one we received a multitude of emails related to families that have ieps and giaps so mrs burke and her team of administrators and our case managers will be reaching out to those families to answer their questions it would not be appropriate for me to share those emails in a
017public forum because we're many were specific and student specific related but we will be handling those i received several emails related to the reasoning behind a monday wednesday and tuesday thursday schedule versus having group a be monday tuesday potentially and group b thursday friday we looked at both models carefully one of the things we should consider is the daily cleaning that needs to take place and we have taken that into consideration we've purchased a multitude of supplies to make sure we clean each night we also have fogger machines for each of our schools to disinfect and training all of our staff to handle those things we also want to make sure though that even though we know a hybrid model does not provide the greatest continuity as a full return to school we do feel
018that the model that we have set up is better suited to have a monday wednesday approach and tuesday thursday approach we also thought about the number of deaths that we have in each room and making sure that students aren't sharing desks even though we're going to clean them we'll have desks identified for those students who are on monday wednesday to sit in and desk different desks for students tuesday thursday so that we can keep six feet apart and a few i'm going to continue to go through my list but i will have mrs grigitis available to talk about what a sample uh sample week may look like and please know it's not etched in stone we're still working on it we have professional development planned for our teachers in august and this is this is
019happening very rapidly so things will change and things and we will be able to provide greater detail in the coming days and coming weeks i received plenty of emails that said go back to school full-time very passionate emails and i can appreciate that as a parent and as an educator several of those also included dr christian do not cancel pia sports um and i don't and i'm not being glib uh i certainly understand as a parent of of two kids in college the importance of extracurricular activities and how it uh certainly shaped their high school and middle school careers we don't want to cancel anything i am aware that next week that the piaa is having a statewide meeting to discuss these very things we're going to continue to practice and as it stands now
020sports are not cancelled sports are not postponed ultimately if the piaa says sports are going to take place then the suburban one athletic directors that's the league in which we participate they're certainly going to have to get together with the high school principals and probably with the superintendents and talk about contact sports uh and so we may have a decision that faces us but that's not that's not something we're doing as part of tonight's vote as part of the health and safety plan um concerning the hybrid we've had a couple requests for parents because of work schedules and they they understand the challenges of providing daycare could they request if group a is monday wednesday could they request a monday wednesday and could they request a tuesday thursday to help with daycare to help with
021um to help with planning around their work schedules and so we will do our best to accommodate that we also received requests for people to schedule geographically trying to keep neighborhoods together as you plan with your your neighbors on on daycare so that's a possibility too we're going to revamp the survey and i didn't want to send it out until the board vote tonight but we'll revamp that survey to include additional information for people to make those comments i can tell you the first thing we're going to do once we look at all the data we will identify how many how many students are going all virtual first and then we'll look school by school for the students who are coming to participate in our hybrid model and we'll do the best we can it
022will not be perfect initially to start we'll probably pardon me we'll do it alphabetically just to help you know we're talking about 5200 students so it's certainly a large task but that will that will be the first part and then we'll get into the specifics uh and we'll do our best to accommodate everybody but i'm sure there will be some challenges and some difficult conversations we have to have but we'll do our best to try to to try to make that happen many many emails related to face masks and so i did attend a legal webinar today and i'm attending another one in the coming weeks and the topic was face mask the governor's order is very specific about face masks and we will be asking families and requiring children and staff to wear them
023i need to get more clarification on the requirements if folks have a medical exception but one of the things that we are doing as a backup to that because we do have uh we may have that case that's why we're ensuring also that we are six feet apart in our in our schools i'm not sure i've ever in my career discussed a topic more than the topic of three to six feet or six feet or more it seems to be debated in several counties and across the commonwealth but we need to have a belt and suspenders approach and so we are going to ask if folks wear masks and we will provide mass breaks i did receive a nice email from a resident who said can you see one of the trifolds that you have
024set up for students to have mass breaks and that's not a great view of it you're also seeing how dirty my office is and all the papers i leave around but it looks something like this and we are trying to order them and clear it's a very popular item so right now some of the elementary principles actually said we prefer some of the colors too to brighten up the room um you know these are the kinds of conversations that we're having but we're hoping that that can provide a temporary barrier for for our kids to be get some relief [Music] definitely receive several emails regarding protocols and quant and quarantines i've had a few doctors md's in the community reach out to me and they've shared some links that have specific scenarios that should be
025followed some are from cdc some are from some other organizations and we'll be putting a list of those resources up on our website in addition i have another meeting in the coming days with the office of public health in montgomery county and i've been continually asking them for some specifics related to the decisions to quarantine i do know that based upon what i've experienced thus far it is certainly based upon positive cases not potentially positive cases and that's when they really start to do the contact tracing and then they will inform us how many people need to be quarantined whether it's students staff and for how long but i appreciate a few different doctor physicians reach out in the past two days and they graciously offered their expertise and have forwarded me and forwarded me
026information that i will be sharing with the community on our website that hopefully provides some specific tangible examples of what it might look like and unfortunately we may have to do it i think it's just the reality of the fact that the virus really has no borders and we don't want to experience it we want to be cautious but it may happen you know there's been some discussion too lastly and i'll talk with i'll ask mrs grigitis to make some comments uh specifically about uh what it looks like in a hybrid model and we're continuing to develop it and provide professional development it's going to be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning and trying to get kids as much education as we can quality education while minimizing risk this is greatest could you take
027a few moments and share share your items i sure can thank you dr christian and good evening everybody um again dr christian had mentioned that our goal is to maintain that continuity of education within our curriculum no matter if our students are at home or in front of us in the classroom during this hybrid schedule i am going to screen share again before i do i want to mention just as dr christian said this is a draft in progress but we do understand that it is important for a lot of our families to be able to see what we potentially are talking about so i am going to share this schedule is that up drew great okay so on this draft hybrid schedule again we are focused on half of the students are in our
028a group and half of our students are in a b group this is what is uh traditionally an elementary schedule so we're looking through all the different content areas i have our a and our b side by side for the ease of our families to look at it so when we talk about synchronous and asynchronous learning if our a students are in person with a teacher they will be participating in a morning meeting and morning meeting is where we establish those connections with our children we build our community of learners likewise when our students are at home or in our b group we have heard overwhelmingly from our teachers and our community members that it's important to focus on that social emotional learning so we would like to embed some wellness activities through the google
029classroom platform we go to the next block shared reading is a large part of our english language arts instruction we would have this in person of course for our a students but that would be a synchronous activity that our students at home would also be able to partake in then we get on to our guided reading which is small groups of given instruction are reading i mean i'm sorry our classroom teachers will still be able to participate in this i apologize uh they will still be able to participate in this as well as their centers and then conversely our students at rb or at home will still be able to have synchronous learning if they qualify for reading support a reading specialist may be into the classrooms virtually through zooms and google meets as they
030were already if they are not and your student does not receive that support they would be working on application of that direct instruction and their assignments within their google classroom if we go down to 11 o'clock to 11 45 we are working very hard with our specialists that they would continue with in person instruction with our students and the students that are home at that time would be continuing to work within their google classroom platforms students would partake obviously in lunch and recess math same idea when they have their math whole group instruction they're starting their lesson this would be in person with our a students and then synchronously into our classroom with our b students to start the lesson so if you envision that lecture part or the whole group mini lesson of a
031teacher laying out exactly what is going to be taking place in the lesson and then the children go and they go apply it into their small groups or into their independent work they would still be able to do this no matter which area they are in the home or in the classroom we go down to science they would deliver that instruction in person and their b students are applying that science knowledge into the google classroom as well and then writing again the mini lesson in the front of the lesson as is a traditional model and then all students would apply that in their journals our b students at home are able to participate in that synchronous learning and sgi stands for small group interventions and instructions basically this is our game block it is very
032important for us to meet children at the varying levels of their need we would still be able to do this in our classrooms it is going to be different our children will not be traveling around and mixed with larger groups but we will still be able to meet their needs and on the b day or the b group when they're home we would still be able to do this via zooms also at this time teachers have time to progress monitor and complete assessments at that block please keep in mind and i have it stated down here all times are approximate and may vary by grade level or daily content this instruction it may not be feasible for kindergarten students it is not feasible for kindergarten students to have a 30-minute shared lesson so this is
033just an idea so basically mondays and wednesdays are the exact same schedule tuesdays and thursdays are the same but flipped and then on friday we spoke about it would be very important for our teachers to have their morning meetings whole class so this would consist through a zoom or a google meet and they would be able to have the whole class to continue that community building and then all sorts of different activities would take place we want to maintain regardless if we are home or in school maintain as many interactions with our students that we can so all of these different activities on friday would continue and please know that just because i have them in this early morning blocks it does not mean that they would all happen at that time frame and again
034we talked about the professional development for our teachers as we move along through fridays that would be very important for us to continue it very quickly the virtual people are asking what would my students day look like if they are in a virtual classroom much the same as if they were at home on those b days or i'm sorry on that second day or whichever group they are in so they would continue with things but they would be all synchronous morning meetings would take place shared meetings would take place guided reading would take place in small groups so if your child's time is not right there for the guided reading they'd be working within their google classroom they would have specialists we would have time for lunch and recess as well even though they're at
035home um then they would also have their math lesson same way i described earlier science writing so it is very important for us to maintain that same pacing and this was another one of our questions whether the children are virtual or hybrid we are trying to keep the consistent pace either way so hopefully that gave you a glimpse of what the draft or potential scheduling would be in an elementary classroom in speaking with dr bakani and mr fowler they also gave the same examples that they see the teachers starting off their classes or courses with that large group direct instruction and then as the kids typically do in their classrooms now they go to work on their assignments they would do the same exact thing in this model thank you rosemarie i think it's important
036to note that um there's a tremendous amount of planning that our teachers are going to have to do in a hybrid model uh and so you know it will we're going to be revising that revisiting this every two to three weeks i'm very hopeful in september that the data is wonderful and that we're able to open up and that we're able to open up uh and have more children in school uh but if we're not and we have to continue the hybrid model as we get into the meat of the year the teachers are going to be planning for two different groups and moving them forward and trying to keep them on the same pace and getting through the content that third day that excuse me that fifth day that friday is going to be
037critical to plan extra things that are going to go into the in the secondary level into canvas such as additional lesson plans possibly recordings screen castifies things that groups a and b will be doing the following week while they're home so we'll continue to work with dr bakani and his team as well as mr faler and his team and all of our department chairs and liaisons on offering as robust a program as we can in what is a very challenging situation undoubtedly this is badouzi so that was amazing to see those schedules broken down like that and i yes the amount of work that had to go into that i know that very many parents the question is we really needed to be able to we want to keep them home to educate them but
038we can't work with them until later on in the day they're younger kids so if they can't do the synchronous part you know how would that look for those families and anyway just throwing that out there thank you for that question because i did neglect to answer or bring that up and it is very important so with the synchronous lessons when all of the students are at home those lessons will be recorded and put onto the google classrooms for two reasons um one reason just like you spoke about some children may not be able to be there during that time when those lessons are taking place but we're also getting a lot of requests from families that are asking us to provide materials home lesson plans home so they can understand how they are to
039be delivering this so this adds an extra benefit for our families as well to see those recordings at this time i think we can move on to public comment uh mr bogley christy can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment hi christy sveda from plymouth meeting um thank you everybody for all your hard work i was just wondering will there be the potential for additional plans or offerings for the seniors i'm just wondering if there's any possibility of allowing the seniors in the building maybe a few additional hours a week or to participate in in activities college planning um by choice of course and socially distance with masks my older son was a senior this past year and i have another one now heading into senior year and last year
040we were taken off guard and they lost so much but i'm wondering this year with the ability to plan maybe we can you know try to to do some you know additional things for the seniors thank you i think that's a great idea and i and dr bakani and his team and i can certainly work on that okay great el watkins can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment your mic looks like it's having trouble it appears to be muted still drew all right we'll go on to christy and we'll come back christie already spoke christie spoke drew you could have john help out keep people in the queue please hi this is sarah grillo from plymouth meeting um i was just wondering um with regards i just had two
041questions or comments about the scheduling my first question was you mentioned about the gain portion of the day for elementary in k through three or k through five i was just wondering um in order to try and minimize some of the classroom movement or kids interacting would there be any thoughts in putting some of the game groups together in the classroom so that would minimize the teachers having to work so hard with all the students being spread out amongst game groups in their own classroom um and trying to keep game groups together um you know in the class overall and my second part of it was um i was just wondering the fridays i know it's very early on in planning and i know that you have a lot of work to do but i
042was just wondering the friday schedule looks like there was a lot of kind of gaps of time for any kind of scheduling and i was just wondering if there was going to be a more structured kind of schedule for a friday even though we'll all be home virtually so um again and as i was trying to explain what the gain model would look like the teachers i'm not sure i completely understand but the teachers would be in their classroom providing that individualized support for the children in their classrooms to minimize that traveling risk so the students would already be in a game group together it wouldn't oh okay that's what i just okay i just wanted to make sure i understood that or they would be getting more individualized instruction per student it may even
043more centralized and individualized within what's the classroom makeup already okay i just didn't know i didn't want wanted to be even harder for the teachers if they had children of like all levels and all game groups split up and that would be harder on them if they had certain game groups together especially since they will be doing live instruction and virtual possibly at the same time so that was the only reason i was asking about that thank you sure um and your other question was oh friday's schedule and again i was just trying to illustrate how there will be multiple opportunities for students to interact with their students on fridays but a large part of friday's is also going to be professional development for our teachers so they can keep up with this style of
044teaching okay is there is there just any concern at all about us not having full school days on fridays then or is that going to count towards like you know full calendar years this year because they may not be getting a lot of instruction on one full full day potentially so we have there's a couple things we have to do with that with the pennsylvania department of education uh and so there's applications we will submit for approval to have those uh have our schedule approved okay all right thank you very much thank you daniel can you say your full name place of residence before you comment hi my name is danielle horak and i live in plymouth i have two children in colonial one ridge park and one ces i've heard a lot about the
045hybrid and virtual but we haven't heard really much of what is the day going to look like for children like my children who have medical conditions who will remain home so what what is our schedule going to look like and are those the children who will be virtual are they sharing teachers as the children who are in the classroom with the hybrid model or are they having their own separate teachers i'll take a portion and then mrs grigotis you can take a portion so we are working with our teaching staff right now to identify who would be full-time virtual teachers and then who would be teachers teaching in the hybrid mode so if you are in a virtual class full-time as i said the other night we want our teachers teaching our children so it
046is possible however that if your children are home full-time and i believe you said ridge park but when we create a virtual class we'd love to keep it school specific but as we look at our human resources we may have to combine students that come from other other schools to make that class but they would have the same teacher through the whole through the through the whole first half of the year and potentially hopefully doesn't last that long but through the whole year if needed okay that's what i wanted to make just so that the children who do remain home can build a relationship with their with the teacher have that connection um the other thought was preparing who will be home with the children 24 7. kit science kits art kits you know the
047curriculum so we can be prepared that if the teacher is not available or if the kid has a question um you know especially with the backwards math you know we learned one day they're learning another way so you know i just want to make sure that we're going to get that support as well as having both my children have full ieps and for speech both speech therapies as well as specific learning needs and i just want to make sure that when my daughter has to be seen by the reading specialist she will get that virtually um and as well as my son for his needs and again i can speak to that um i i did share the um model of what that fully virtual class would be our goal is to keep it very
048very similar to what hybrid classes are going to look like and all of the same exact resources that your child would benefit from from being in the school they will also be able to have access to virtually okay and will the classes for especially for like the itinerant classes when the children are pulled will they remain to be that small group setting rather than having 15 kids that all need help with the same reading level it would be more like five kids on a zoom who get that additional service absolutely so we intend to keep that small group instruction as well okay and how about speech therapy is children require to um my children require two speech therapies or two half hour sessions twice a week in the spring they only received one session and
049my daughter's in esy and she's only receiving one so she's not even getting what is full in the iep so i just want to make sure that come september they she they will get exactly what's in the iep even though we are home and all iep teams will be looking into ieps and you will have the same services that you will have right now in accordance with your iep okay thank you i just i have out to dr gil gilmartin and i just know that there's a lot of other iep families that have the same questions as me and i think it's good for them to hear on this platform yes thank you so much for everything you guys are doing lou could you state your full name place of residence before you comment lou
050is here to with for dave zablowski he's part of uh pfm i believe sorry about that that correct dave or no yes that is correct i know i'm not thief dr ashley can you say your full name place of residence before you comment lee lenahan and i'm a resident of white marsh um i just want to ask a follow-up question actually to the one that was just asked about virtual learning um i know you you said that there would be at least some small group uh instruction throughout the day what we noticed i think most families noticed over the spring period was that group meetings of 15 or more were extremely difficult on zoom especially for the younger grades in kindergarten and first grade but the small instruction that was done during camp colonial was
051excellent and fantastic and i cannot thank the board enough for putting that together because it was really well done and i was just wondering how many of those it's a little hard to tell from your schedule from the outside perspective how many of those um google meetups and kind of as you say synchronous learning episodes are going to be smaller versus that kind of large class of you know 20 or more so when you do follow a typical schedule in a classroom there are times that the teachers are working with those smaller groups guided reading for one time guided math for another time gain another time those are the same activities that we would in a virtual model keep as very small groups so which groups will be sorry just to press you a little
052bit what is going to be done in a large scale activity because i know for example in the kindergarten meetups that happened three times a week they basically got through saying their names and then you know and then the session was over so there wasn't actually any learning i'm just asking how those kind of larger google meetups are going to work and how they're going to benefit the children to actually get that instruction across as opposed to what happened in the spring absolutely and one of the things that i do want to remind everyone we are very well aware that this planning now that is taking place is much more intense and thorough and it is not going to look like it did in spring um so if so it is going to look very
053different especially if you looked at their virtual schedule that is the schedule that's going in the elementary world from 9 o'clock to 3 30-ish so there will be multiple opportunities for more small group instruction as well as the whole group okay thank you sure kathleen can you state your full name place of residence before you for our kathleen dutil from white marsh township we have two questions about virtual learning what for 100 virtual learning what materials are students provided for virtual learning and again going this is great i just going back to your schedule um you said 9 to 3 30 that looks like six hours of zoom meetings um can you speak more to that for what that looks like at the elementary level the 4-5 school in the middle school even the high
054school that's a that's a long meeting block thank you sure and i just want to clarify that it is not the total six and a half hours of zoom just like we have in our hybrid model children will be applying what they learn in those synchronous lessons into the google classroom or canvas platforms just like they do in the classroom they don't typically listen to a teacher talk none you know constantly for six and a half hours they also are working in centers which will take place now in the google classroom platforms and or canvas and i already forget the first question you asked sorry what materials are students provided for 100 virtual terrific question and i neglected to mention that as well if the um again we are not in the spring of we
055are much better prepared and we'll be continuing to prepare better um all families whether they are hybrid and on those home days or are all virtual kids are going to need materials and we will be able to supply that unlike the spring we will be able to send children home with their writing journals we will be able to um have packs of materials like they did for camp colonial of manipulatives and math cubes so we will be supplying materials at home to support their learning and and ms gragatus not to jump in but a device as well correct 100 adam yes or mr shoe pack sorry diana can you say your full name place of residence before you comment sure absolutely hi everyone my name is dianna minkus i'm in plymouth meeting um and i
056have a rising first grader at plymouth elementary um my you know we're really on the fence about the hybrid versus all virtual models that have been presented to us and i really want to thank mrs gragatus for walking us through what that could look like um you know and i know that it's not going to look like it did in the spring which is great to hear because that was a nightmare for for some of us um but i am very concerned about a couple things and i and i want to preface this by saying that i'm also a former public school teacher with a master's degree in elementary education so i have a little bit of a background in this i am really concerned about the synchronous learning um for the teachers specifically and
057how they're supposed to engage the students that are in the classroom which is already going to be challenging because they're wearing masks and you can't get the full facial expressions um and i'm talking specifically about you know kindergarten first grade second grade um but then in addition to that there are going to be times when they're supposed to be engaging the students in the classroom while also trying to play to the camera and engaging kids at home and i'm really struggling with trying to wrap my brain around how that's possible um and you know especially with the virtual models if we decide to go that way um i know that there's going to be opportunities where it's not all zoom but it's going to be really heavily zoomed canvas google classroom and there's a lot
058of screen time and sitting in front of a computer for very small children with um with you know little to no interactions with other children and i just want to know um i know there's a lot of outside conversations about learning pods and trying to get um you know kids in neighborhoods together to maybe have that socialization that is uh going to be so desperately needed but i'm just really curious if if the school district have have has thought about um ways that they could potentially help with the socializing you know supporting efforts in getting maybe some of the neighborhood kids together i mean i don't know i'm just kind of brainstorming out loud but um anyway those those are my might be more comments than questions but and so in regards to the student
059engagement as you know um student engagement is a top priority for any teacher at any level because unless the students are engaged they are probably not learning um so we are um and continuing to professionally develop more specifically this upcoming um august on student engagement for our teachers and how to do that specifically in this new environment that we are all living in am i so yeah and i just has there been any thought into um ways that we could be supporting our children with socialization if they're really you know if um you know only children or or um you know children that don't really have um a peer support system and ways that the the school district might be able to support that for the kids that are 100 virtual so again building that
060classroom environment is still going to be very important to us if the children are virtually even more so important if the student or virtual and you did see that morning meeting um to develop that community of learners culminating activities that take place on fridays you also saw and and we talked as teachers about this as well there may be times that we have on fridays small groups of social interactions led by a teacher that would take place in a typical school day as well so it would also be a priority in our virtual days okay thank you so much for your time smith can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment sure my name is christine smith and i live in plymouth meeting with a rising third grader and a
061child entering kindergarten at ridge park um my question was regarding the synchronized learning i'm trying to get a better better idea of what that looks like for when they're if we're entering the hybrid model for the kids at home um i understand that the kids in class will be able to props possibly raise their hand and ask questions is that going to be somewhat similar as like for example the zoom where you can raise your hand and be able to kids at home be able to ask questions or is it more of a live stream for the kids at home and they have to sort of save their questions for the next time they're in class it could be a combination of both that you just mentioned but they would not necessarily need to save
062their question to the next day that they're in class the google classroom and or canvas platform allow for these streams of conversations to take place with teachers and students so they would be able to have their comments um submitted if you will through that but if it is in a zoom that is a two-way interactive i think too we have to be mindful that this is also there's a learning piece that's going to happen for our faculty too um so they'll try to do we're balancing the two but they're also managing their classroom a lot of variables can happen uh maybe depending upon the age of the student maybe not everybody logs on at the same time um maybe some are paying attention more than others it's not we know it's not optimal but we'll
063continue to provide professional development generate those ideas and we believe it will improve and hopefully hopefully we're not in this too long but if it does it will be it will be stronger as we go karen can you say your full name place of residence before you comment karen kish hello we'll move on to david all right uh i'm david verko from white marsh township uh my question actually i have a couple questions one question is exactly how are students in the hybrid theory of this go if they need help how will when they're virtual how are they going to get the help that they need as well as the ones in the classroom getting the help that they need that's the first question i'd rather cover each question one at a time that way
064i'm not bogging you guys down again if i understand your question you are asking that how the students would receive any sort of support that they needed on their assignments whether they at home or in the classroom no the as far as with the vert with with the hybrid theory my concern is mainly the when the students are virtual on the days that they would be virtual since it would be live how would the teachers be able to help the students that are virtual who need the help that need more help yes so while they are applying the skills that they just listened to um from the classroom teacher they would then be completing those assignments in their google classroom or canvas platforms just as they traditionally did before they would communicate that there is
065what's called stream in google classroom and that is kind of like a chat box it's back and forth with teachers so teachers would not necessarily be be able to address that on the spot but then again through the times that they are interacting or checking in on students in the next day which is one of the reasons why it was important to us as dr christian mentioned before to have this monday wednesday tuesday thursday we want to be able to address those concerns those challenges when those students get back in so the google classroom assignments are in essence a formative check in and of themselves the other question there is because i have two students that are in band and one is also in course how whether with the virtual or even the hybrid theories
066how would that work for our band students because i know i'm probably not the only one in here with band students or even course students how is that going to work for them that is that is going to be challenging i think more for chorus than for band obviously for band we cannot have students sharing instruments we're going to have to emphasize small group learning social distancing spreading out chorus we are we need to be very cognizant of the fact when students sing and project that could produce droplets uh and that that could be a challenge so um mr merk one of our curriculum supervisors is going to be working with our music department and some of our music teachers have come up with creative ideas already in each of our schools and so we're
067having all those meetings now to get into the very specifics of what those lessons can look like but it needs to be done with the overarching theme of keeping keeping kids safe and keeping them as spread out as possible so it will necessitate smaller groups undoubtedly nicer days too we should take advantage of being outside i received several emails suggesting that and when we can do that safely and in protected areas like our courtyards we should take advantage of that okay um well that thank you because you answered at least for the hybrid model how would that how would band work for if you guys went completely virtual how would that work for our band students and course students as well uh i will get you more information on that uh mr virko i know
068that some of our teachers had some creative things they did in the spring and they put together some digital presentations but i i'll certainly get we'll get you more information on that okay thank you i'm thinking mrs gragatus i'm thinking we're getting a lot and i appreciate the questions some specific questions about scheduling and things like that you know we are planning some videos uh in august uh on what schools will look like uh i i think we talked with the principals about creating some videos too regarding specific things related to the school day in class and so we should we'll continue to plan those and maybe have some parent nights where we can share that in august prior to the beginning of school doreen can you state your full name place of residence before
069you comment yes hi i'm doreen thomas payne and i'm in white marsh um i have an eighth grader and well i will have an eighth grader in the fall i do have a question as far as i'm the virtual learning option will attendance be required and monitor daily yes it will okay and then um as far as assessments or testing um formative um assessments how will that be handled as far as like you know quizzes and tested testing on virtual learning excellent question uh i think the best answer to that is it needs to be a variety of assessments uh you still can have some you can have smaller assessments and put i know some of our teachers came up with some creative ways to handle time limits on assessments so that students are demonstrating
070their mastery of that content and maybe having smaller ones more frequently to check for understanding and then additionally varied assignments including writers writing assignments digital presentations we certainly have to tap into a variety of modes for that methods for that pardon me okay and then um i do have a question in the event um that let's say the governor decides to close schools is there a contingency plan in place especially like for parents who are considering the hybrid option we would be thrust into all virtual and that's right okay all right and then i just have one suggestion because i know a lot of parents um especially like my husband is concerned about sports my my son is a football player but if i could suggest that um even if they are outside if they
071have the opportunity to go outside for like contact sports maybe they can just have small group workouts but that's possible just workout sessions instead of you know actually playing the sport because i'm a nurse and i have concern with all the contact altogether and i don't want my son to play um so maybe they can just have workouts and i just wanted to provide that suggestion i agree with you we do plan on doing that okay thank you miriam can you say your full name place of residence before you comment sure hi my name is ty miriam shu and i am in the weight nurse um county and i i not a question number one thank you so much for having these zoom sessions i i have a daughter who's going into kindergarten and this
072is her and this is my first experience with any kind of schooling she's in daycare right now um not a question but maybe just a suggestion i felt very um lost you know until i start you know getting some parents providing me these links if there can be a package for first-time schooling parents where we have kids going into kindergarten the first time my child will be going to ridge park and um i just felt like there was maybe not enough communication with the next steps or we missed the you know may orientation so we were at a complete loss so if we can do maybe like a first time kindergarten package it seems like many of these parents are you know kind of veterans and kids going back to school or going to school
073it'll be helpful for first-time parents to have a better plan or support to figure out what's going to happen for our new kindergartners we certainly can do that i'll reach out to mrs carr i know they we traditionally have uh multiple events planned for kindergarten orientation and obviously uh they were thwarted because of the pandemic but uh i'll follow up with mrs carr and she'll be reaching out to you thank you so much christy can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment course um chrissy smith i live in um germantown pike across from the high school um i'm also an educator myself in the norristown area school district so uh one of my big considerations is that you know i i feel like um the districts are so parallel and
074i wish they would consider doing things um equal that you know like we would be able to to do things sort of similar um my other big thing is just like i would i would love for our district to be able to offer kids maybe pod examples where especially for kindergarten because my my son will be going to kindergarten maybe like our families can grow into pods so if they are in a harbor hybrid model the days they are virtual we could figure out how to bring them together um and virtually distance and also be able to figure that out with the district like if we can get class rosters so we knew which kids were together and then we could pod together that would be pretty awesome kind of just my thoughts thank you
075for sharing them i do speak with uh mr dormer and and john tolino from upper marion and we try to coordinate as much as we can um but obviously each school boards uh make make local decisions too yeah i mean so i i get the difference between the school districts but i almost think like in the with colonial it would be really awesome for like for example kindergarten parents to be able to know what kindergarten teacher they're going to be with and then if we're going to do hybrids like monday wednesday tuesday thursday we know what kids they're with and then we could pod with them to be able to connect with the other families to say like hey we can throw four or five kids together and they could be doing the synchronous education
076together which would be amazing it would allow socialization and still synchronous education and we could make things happen so i just i don't know i just encourage you know the district to maybe share the uh like the i don't know like the district kindergarten classes with the parents so we know who's with who so we could pod together possibly thank you for your input lisa can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment sure my name is alyssa brzezinski i am a resident of white marsh township i have a rising second grader at ridge park and a rising fifth grader at ces and i i have a couple of questions the first question is around the hybrid model and what would cause the school to step away from that model towards
077all virtual i have a number of friends in school districts in atlanta d.c suburbs who are originally offered the hybrid model made child care arrangements um additional tutoring arrangements around that model and then based on rising cases the lag and testing results those schools have now just before school is starting pulled back to an all virtual model and and obviously you know child care is a consideration for a lot of a lot of people and just wondering you know given the rising cases in our area as well and the delays in regards to testing you know how likely is it at this point that people would move forward with that hybrid model come september it's an excellent question because timing is everything and and and the virus certainly has not cooperated with the timing we
078would need to manage child care and and things of that nature um we're going to need it could if if infection rates spike uh if the governor uh gives us a directive we'll communicate it as quickly as possible um if if the board has a local decision decides uh to pull back and go all virtual we'll have a special board meeting we won't wait until the the next meeting and then we'll communicate to parents right away um so that you have enough time to make those arrangements um this is you know the board hasn't even voted on this plan yet so uh if it's approved tonight uh that will be what's in place uh but it doesn't mean that we will stop being vigilant thank you and we appreciate the difficulties that you have in
079planning when things are changing on almost a daily basis if we were to re move to the full virtual model at some point either before during the school year started would the children on the hybrid model then stick with their same classroom teachers those teachers would just move to a five-day virtual schedule or would they be moving to a new teacher within the virtual academy it would be our goal to have as least least disruption as possible okay and then my last question is if we were to group together with say another group of second graders from ridge park obviously we don't know what their teacher placements would be yet would they be following a similar looking back at mrs gragey's schedule would they be close enough that it would make sense that they would
080be working together you know in a socially distanced pod on their virtual learning days or would the schedules be more in the teacher's discretion such that you know you'd really need to be potted with someone in the same classroom teachers group it's a good question and rosemary can comment but i think our teachers do a very nice job within each grade level of pacing together uh that doesn't mean that there couldn't be some minor adjustments but i think overall their pacing is very good and and they move uh throughout the each unit together hi mrs brzezinski hi this is greedus how are you um i did get a comment on that um you know the pacing and the curriculums are exactly the same our expectations but depending on the makeup so if if they're in
081are you and i apologize i'm all over the place are they in the virtual classroom or the hybrid classroom hybrid classroom okay so if they're in the hybrid classroom there could be some differences because as you know the teachers do differentiate for the kids that are in front of them so but the general curriculum should be very similar thank you i appreciate the opportunity to ask my questions sure and yet another reason i should have let you respond before me that's okay amy can you say your full name place of residence before you comment yes this is amy segal scam and plymouth meeting i have three kids um i have two rising ninth graders and a rising fifth grader marie long time no see um i have a couple so my first i have one
082question myself but first i had two uh this is okay i had two comments or responses to some questions that came up earlier from parents of incoming kindergartners um which i think you know is hard enough for everyone to figure out who's familiar with the schools and the district and i i can't imagine how um foreign a lot of this is sounding to parents just entering the district with their kindergartners the the question about um i think there was one comment that um maybe some incoming kindergarten parents didn't necessarily know about the board meetings um that were occurring this week or you know know how to find that information and i believe mr sherman there is a a way to subscribe to colonial school district news um that maybe can be distributed to the incoming
083kindergarten parents i i remember subscribing to that quite a long time ago and now whenever i get you know a notice i almost get three of them i get one from the news one from each school that my kids go to so that was one thought for the incoming kindergarten parents if there's a way to make them aware of how to subscribe so that they're kind of in the know the other was the question about um forming you know pods or small groups of kids um and i i imagine that would be really difficult for the schools to support but as as a way of you know communication or transparency i i know at least every school my children have attended have um facebook pages for parents or it's you know from the pto and
084i also wonder if the incoming kindergarten parents could get an email with you know the name of the group or a link to the group for their school as well as how to subscribe to that news um because i think that you know parents then could post and kind of start some groups to um you know talk about challenges and considerations for new parents coming into the district and then my question itself was i know um i think it's pretty obvious that it's going to be an ongoing assessment of the state of you know state of the you know the virus and the health you know what the health department's saying what the department of education is saying as far as hopefully we won't have to but if we would have to move from this
085hybrid into a only virtual approach but i'm also wondering the opposite is there a already planned time frame for reassessing you know even once school gets underway is there a frequency at which you may be reassessing the ability to move back into a more normal schedule or having kids come in more than the two days in the hybrid model there would be there is nothing i would like more than that uh and uh as i said while it's still emerging it's not the virus is not going to last forever and so yeah i think we have to be realistic that it could certainly as we read about the potential for vaccines in the winter time or near the end of the year um certainly be hopeful for that but we want to watch every two
086to three weeks and if there's an opportunity uh to pivot and and bring kids back and phase in more days we'll certainly examine that but we need to stay on top of it without a doubt okay thank you all for your time thank you and smith can you state your full name place of residence before you comment hi my name's lanny smith fort washington um we have two rising seniors and um i'm a sixth grade teacher in a neighboring district i don't have a question i just have a comment after seeing the hybrid model being presented i just kind of wanted to speak on behalf of all the wonderful teachers that my kids have had going through the district and i guess i'm concerned about what's being expected of them as i see the hybrid
087model um from what i understand the teachers are being expected to manage an in-person class a zoom class manage a chat a google classroom stream in class behaviors and then behaviors on a zoom class as well record their lesson post the recording troubleshoot tech all at the same time um i i just don't see how this is going to happen um it it just seems like an untenable situation for these teachers and i i i just i don't want to put them in a position where it's just going to not be not be something that they can manage um and while on paper it might seem like something that can happen um and somebody else has mentioned taking them outside well they can't go outside and then live stream as well or manage a zoom
088class from outside it just seems like a great idea on paper but in reality it just seems like something that is just putting them in a situation where they're setting up to to not be their best and that's just something i wanted to point out as a sixth grade teacher myself when i saw this going on i thought wow i i don't know how it's manageable so that's just something that i wanted to put out there for all of the wonderful teachers that my kids have had all three of them once graduated i have two seniors and i just don't want to see them already set up to not be able to do it thank you certainly appreciate your comments and uh and hear you very loud and clear we want our teachers to be
089successful i think they did an outstanding job this past spring thrust into that situation uh and i and as we have met with the teacher of leadership uh they've been candid with us about their concerns but also they've been uh candid with us about what they're confident in doing and their willingness to learn and improve in this digital environment we've been uh uh placed in uh you know i want to thank you know uh bob slagel and jill foster and beth miller uh and they have several reps and and folks and they represent their teachers very well but they also represent this community and are dedicated to our children so we will find the balance to make sure that we're helping kids and helping our teachers be successful liz can you please state your full
090name place of residence before you comment hi everybody my name is liz bland my husband russ is here with me and we live in white marsh we have a son going to the seventh grade and our daughter's going to the fifth we just wanted to start by saying thank you this is a tremendous amount of work um we appreciate everything you're doing our question um has to do with the emotional support side for our children um i think i saw on the schedule examples of potential wellness groups and i'm just thinking about all the resources and wonderful resources we have available in our school districts so will there be any uh groups or discussions with the children with the social workers the caseworkers we have in schools the psychologists so that they have an opportunity
091to talk about what's going on how they're feeling how to manage their emotions as part of the school day i can i can address that um mr uh felix scherzinger is our behavioral health advisor for the district and he has been working with our community counselors over the summer as well as our school counselors to address issues pertaining especially to the anxieties connected with covid19 so yes our community counselors will be on hand our school counselors will be providing lessons as well um to address this um so we're hopeful in fact this summer we are also uh sending out flyers for any uh community members who have students who are experiencing anxieties or issues pertaining to the uncertainty of covid who would like to take part in some groups that are being run by our
092student assistance program so that that is uh foremost on in our minds thank you i think that's that's so essential so important and i think i know our district has done a nice job introducing the idea of mindfulness and meditation and breathing i just think uh even more so now those are skills we can be giving our kids whether they're in the classroom or they're virtual thank you good point tony can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment connie cowan zanders and i'm in lafayette hill my question i have two teenagers in plymouth white marsh high school one going into 11th and one going into 10th so last year the one that was in 10th grade was starting to move through the college prep test taking he was scheduled to
093take the pre-act on march 28th obviously that didn't happen and i'm just curious as to whether or not there's going to be support in that area it's a critical time particularly the 11th grade and preparing for college and all of that i just need to know whether or not there will be support from the school or do i need to start seeking out um prep in other places whether it's i don't know i guess just google it and try to find it i had you know again i was my son had taken i think it was the pre-sat earlier in the year and again just kind of want to know so i can plan for our family so i can set the children up for success i'll follow up with dr bakani but i believe
094we will be able to provide uh assistance with that um i know we had some things in place we may have to get creative on how to do it virtually uh and or in a hybrid setting um but let me uh i wrote down your name and i'll make sure dr pakani follows up with you thank you you're welcome excuse me dr christian that just that comment just made me think of a question pw is currently scheduled to host the satay on the last saturday in august i assume as long as they don't cancel we'll have enough classrooms to socially distance and hold that test because there's a ton of kids that are willing to take that test for the first time yeah jason and i have a conversation set up for uh monday morning
095about that uh we need to talk with the college board because they're also they're going to be in contact with all the other schools that are right potentially hosting so they'll be questions about social distancing and physical and there's also the guidance from the governor about uh groups greater than 25 indoors so we need to get some clarification on that all right and i assume that we can open up elementary schools or do whatever we have to do to get these kids a test if if they're running it we'll do it we'll help as much as we can as long as it can be safe thank you the feta family please state your full name place of residence before you come at my name's julie feda plymouth meeting pa we have two children who attend
096pw high school and um on the topic of health and safety we have two questions one is on the topic of health and safety um i'm kind of aware that in the high school they do or at least they were changing classes and we were wondering if they are going to um kind of like the kindergarteners maybe are going to do maybe stay in the same classrooms or how they already kept them the hallways are very narrow that that is a great question and that is a challenge uh because in in a high school schedule it's different than an elementary schedule where you could potentially just be with where it's very easy to keep the same cohorts to get together in an elementary setting and the teachers come to that classroom in a high school
097setting i may have a class with sophomores and juniors and then they're going to an elective that has juniors and seniors so there will be passing time we're fortunate that we're on the block schedule so some schools that have eight periods a day will have seven or eight different passing times in the hallway moving to the hybrid model we're looking at 50 or fewer kids in the school at one time but we're also looking at bell schedules where we stagger the dismissal of the classes in between periods to make sure the kids can be socially distant and uh and of course they're going to need to wear masks as they move from class to class very good um i guess uh that answers that uh thank you um the second question we had was they
098both um are going to be attending the tech school at montgomery county tech school and we were wondering also if they are going to be um if they're attending the high school in groups uh well do you know at this point if the tech school will be you know will they be going to the tech school on the same days that they would be attending the high school if they go in the hybrid model it's a very good question so the technical school we're waiting for mr schramm who runs the tech school the high school principals and the superintendents are going to get together very soon we need to know what norristown high school's narstown school district's plan is and we also need to know what upper marion's plan is so that we can adequately
099prepare but i know that mr schramm wants to try to accommodate each school and what their respective schedules are so if another district is doing a hybrid we can work on those days and make sure we marry them up because he's going to have to do the same social distancing that we're doing so we will dr bakani uh and mr shram uh will be working with those two other sending districts uh to produce a plan uh in the coming weeks yes thank you very much thank you brian can you say your full name place of residence before you comment yes brian mccracken plymouth meeting proud father of a rising second grader and a fifth grader i want to circle back to the concern that was raised regarding the expectations for educators to facilitate digital and
100in-person learning at the same time well i'm glad to hear educators were part of the planning process i'm curious as to where this model is modeled from no specific model mr mccracken just collaboration between administrators and we'll continue to collaborate with our teachers and it's not uh it's it's going to be opportunities where there is uh synchronous learning in the hybrid schedule we know it can't be all day um but it's not there's not a specific model i'm not sure there has been a model uh considering all the changes that all school districts are facing with the current current situation in our country and then i would just urge um the board to consider the models that are being entertained by school districts that can recognize that the facilitating digital learning is a challenge in
101itself along with in person and this is the first to hear the expectations for educators would be to facilitate both so again i just would encourage and urge the board to look at these models and successful ones that are implemented understood janelle please state your full name place of residence before you comment yes my name is karen kish i am in plymouth meeting and i wanted to uh thank miss paduzi earlier for mentioning the needs of some families to be flexible uh during the hybrid schedule and accessing synchronous content and if i understood that correctly that synchronous content would be recorded and available to be viewed at a later time and not necessarily have to be viewed during that assigned time slot in the hybrid schedule would is that a correct understanding that is a
102correct understanding and then how would attendance therefore be noted for those students who are on the hybrid schedule or even if we go to a 100 virtual schedule in the event of uh rising numbers how would that attendance be noted for those students and also if their assignments in the classroom are to be turned in in that real time how are we accounting for the fact that somebody may get to that several hours later or in an evening how would we account for that the expectation would be and we completely understand that it may not be possible for all families to complete those assignments in the real time um and last night i believe we discussed different options for taking attendance as that will be necessary but it could be something like a google form
103or something that the children have to complete that has not yet been solidified but it is something that we do need to take into consideration and i i do really appreciate the board's consideration of the needs of working families whether that's working at home or working outside the home unfortunately unfortunately a lot of discussion among the community members have happened this week after the meeting on tuesday but unfortunately hearing a lot of family members stating that they may be forced to leave their employment in order to be at home and support this educational model for their children because it's not child care that we're looking for as much as it's helping to support our children do the best that they can learning in this environment so i do appreciate the board's consideration of that and
104i do appreciate the recognition of flexibility needed for those families david can you state your full name place of residency before you comment okay uh this is david virko again um i actually thought of a couple other questions uh actually one my daughter thought of um but the first one would be uh as far as gym classes if you do because she's going into the high school and i know they're supposed to there's the requirement of four years of gym in order to graduate so if it goes completely virtual how does that work as far as that's concerned if it goes completely virtual then we would follow uh similar things that we did in the spring but probably to a greater extent some of the fit fridays that we did and there still would be
105uh classes that our phys ed teachers would instruct and they would focus on life and healthy activities individual activities to remain fit keep your mind clear stay energetic stay in shape because the reality is that you know we've all been thrust into a lot of screen time and so we know that's not good but um i'm sure from a requirement standpoint from the district and from the pennsylvania department of education uh there will be plenty of exceptions that we can apply for as we design curriculum in a virtual world katie can you please state your full name place of residence before you comment this is katie delacondra plymouth meeting can you hear me yes okay so i just have one thought um with the thought of getting virtual and also doing hybrid and the teachers
106having to do all of these things which was already brought up i'm wondering if there's any thought of bringing in a second teacher or an aide that's able to also be there live and answering the questions that other kids are asking from home while they're in you know the teachers in class during class it's a lot to answer all those questions but the kids kind of need that they need that you know right then and there sometimes so is there any thoughts of bringing in the second person to help with that there is and whether using our support staff and being creative with substitutes we have talked about that and we're working on that but it's a great idea i appreciate you bringing it up thank you have a great night thanks for all you're
107doing you too likely a second we have second questions coming in there's five four questions left a repeat of sarah ap mo and david if if they are on the on the topic of the agenda then the board should hear them and then we can get then we can get started with the agenda ap can you state your full name place the residency and comment please hi my name is amy piazzatelli and i live in plymouth meeting um thank you guys for everything that you're doing this is quite a daunting year to start with um just two questions about the hybrid option um just the students that would be in group a that's probably monday and wednesdays what happens to the holidays that fall on mondays are they do we not have holidays anymore do
108we still recognize those holidays and what happens with the students that will then have off we were talking about that today as a matter of fact because we have some other things we have we have some half days that are built in on fridays uh that are in our uh collective borrowing agreements uh we also have a plt time that has to take place within our uh collective borrowing agreements so we will take a look at those weeks in the schedule when we have a monday off and perhaps we can flip some things around and include fridays but it's i'm glad you brought it up but we were discussing it today great okay and so my second question not to be doom and gloom but you know if we do have covet cases what will
109be the threshold number that we would have in order to go virtual would it be also on like a school basis or would it be on a district basis excellent question and it's one that i have raised at the county level multiple times and i know they can't give me an exact number but that doesn't mean i haven't asked uh and i've said is it three cases is it five cases is it ten uh we don't want there to be one um i've been told that the priority in the hierarchy would be a classroom would be closed first then potentially a wing of a school or a grade level then potentially a school and then i think we need to then as a board and i'm not a voting member but as a board of
110ten you know if we're getting to that point we need to call emergency meetings on our own and error on the side of caution so i don't have an exact number for you but we have another meeting with the office of public health uh in the coming days and it will be on my list again okay well that's it thank you again guys seriously you guys rock thank you thank you take care thank you carrie can you please state your full name place of residency before you comment hi yes this is carrie mcmahon i'm in conshohocken and in white marsh township and my daughter will be a rising you know first-time kindred gardener at ridge park and as you can imagine this this is my first child going into the school district and it obviously
111it's very overwhelming with you know like other parents and i've been told you know they have an assessment to place them in a certain classroom upon you know the start of school now if you're going in the hybrid model or the virtual model you know if they were going in school in person you probably would be able to assess a little bit more about how they're achieving the learning and so forth how are you going to properly assess that in the hybrid and virtual model to make sure they're not falling behind you know how are you going to make sure about that i mean that that's my concern because i know my my daughter needs to be challenged she's a smart little girl and i just want to make sure that she's she stays challenged
112and she continues to learn in the way that she's been learning and i can let you know that again kindergarten has been discussed at length specifically about the assessments whether your child is in the hybrid model or the virtual we will be working with all of our children on those assessments so we can continue um challenging them no matter what their level is if they are in the hybrid model we will plan on doing most of those assessments in person um kindergarten assessments just so you know as you can imagine are one-on-one anyway um so it is a relatively that's a bonus for us because even if we are um virtual we are able to do those one-on-one perhaps over zoom but we will be able to do those assessments with your child okay thank
113you and thank you for all you for all your time sure mike can i just make a a quick suggestion and rosemary as well um you know i think we've heard multiple comments now from parents of rising kindergarteners i can't imagine how stressful it must be for them um just especially if they've never had contact with the district before i wonder if maybe um you know the principals and and kindergarten teachers could set up you know a couple of zooms or something to just you know uh talk to those uh those parents and we could you know reach out to them i assume we have you know email addresses and things like that at some point you know in the coming weeks because i know it's got to be stressful for i've been them my
114notes and i do know uh i spoke to a few principals who have been contacting families but i have it in my notes and we'll get on it so can you please state your full name place of residency before you come in again hi i'm maureen aggie i live in plymouth meeting and i have an incoming second grader and also a an incoming kindergartner at ridge park uh my con i have more of a comment than a question i'm hearing that in the unsynchronous learning in the virtual option for our elementary school students i was hearing things about having workbooks sent home and i just wanted to mention that i know that i wasn't the only one on the elementary level that was mostly frustrated in the spring by um the children being by the
115children completing assignments through google classroom or through google slides my daughter's teacher was really wonderful this year and allowed us to print out assignments so that she could complete them on her own on with pencil and paper and i just wanted to comment that i am hopeful that the elementary school models will offer as many opportunities for kids to work with pencil and paper and not just on screens whenever possible thank you sarah can you please state your full name place of residency before you comment yes hello my name is sarah scarola and i'm a parent who lives in plymouth meeting and my first question was actually pretty much already expressed by mr chupack in setting up some some potential meetings in advance with principals however i think even extending that to parents who are
116going into a new school no matter what the level so whether it's people who are new to the middle school or people who are new to the high school um perhaps having similar platforms in the coming weeks could be um i think much appreciated by us as parents who have students in that position my second question was around the the input of students in any or all of this planning as we move you know into the the final stages um particularly uh with hope that if this plan does get approved by the school board this evening um could we possibly engage the student voice in any of the planning around how this continues to develop because i know that parents have been very involved and there have been many focus groups but i just wasn't
117sure to what extent the student voice has been heard in any of this planning yet excellent point we did have student advisory groups particularly at the high school this past spring not only related to instruction uh and feedback but also all the the myriad of activities that take place in our secondary schools uh and helping to plan them and try to keep everything moving forward and i'm sure dr pakani will continue this that's terrific thank you and thank you all so much for your time and your attention thank you ready to move on to our agenda mrs moore like to thank any everyone for their patience and uh comments and moving on we have a motion to accept a grant in the amount of ten thousand dollars that was secured by our food services department
118through nourishing neighbors the funds will be used in our summer meal program to defray the costs of food packaging materials and other supplies and i'm making that as a motion if i could have a second please this is north cut any questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor looks like everybody all right thank you dr christian back to you superintendent's report thank you uh board action is requested for the attached personnel changes appointments for promotion employment or transfer are subject to the presentation of valid credential and employment verification documentation and state mandated requirements on our personnel report before the board takes a motion uh and votes on it uh there is there's one name missing but i would like to announce uh that we've had a process to hire a new diversity equity
119and inclusion officer in the school district we've talked about it the last few meetings i want to thank our parents and our teachers who served on the interview committee as we had many qualified candidates we wrapped up interviews late last week and the only reason why our successful candidate is not listed is that pennsylvania requires a significant amount of paperwork and documentation uh before you uh are employed by a school district and while we have most of it one of the forms that we are required to receive is called the act 168 so when i came to colonial three years ago dr rodriguez had to send out a form to every school district that i applied to verifying my employment and verifying that i was an employee in good standing so because of the timing
120of our interviews and because sometimes we have to rely on other entities to send us information we can't always have everything on the agenda that does not diminish the fact that i am really pleased to announce that gerald james will be our next diversity equity and our first diversity equity and instruction officer in the district uh gerald is presently out in erie right now and here he's a wonderful place but we think plymouth meeting and white marsh is better and conshohocken obviously gerald has experience in education since the 90s he has worked in the k-12 sector and he has also worked at higher ed with penn the penn state baron campus he has worked with title ix issues he has worked with equity issues uh one of the things that really impressed us about gerald
121was the fact that we and i think the parents would agree that we're on the interview committee as well as the teachers we felt that he would really connect with our students uh and that he would he has we had many good candidates but we believe gerald is the best match for colonial uh so we will be continuing our efforts reconvening the committee and my apologies folks i've just been clearly in pandemic mode and hybrid mode for the past several weeks we're looking forward to his start and uh he's accepted our our offer and he will be uh ratified at the next meeting but he will hopefully begin work sooner than that uh he has some things he certainly has to finish up at penn state uh but he's very excited to be coming uh
122back to the philadelphia area where he was a teacher and a counselor for many years and i'd like to say that board got to meet uh mr james the other night virtually and he's really dynamic and i think everyone is going to love him and he's going to do a great job in colonial that concludes my report all right do we have a motion to approve the superintendent's report eunice thank you is there a second cathy miss kathy okay all in favor please any comments or questions on the report i'm sorry actually i will jump in and just say i really love how we brought in members of the community to be part of this process and teachers not not every position not all districts would do something like that they would go through the
123process of posting a job and going through um the regular ways of hiring somebody so i just want to commend dr christian and dr rodriguez for leading that charge and really in involving uh the teachers and and parents in our community who are going to be and their children are going to be affected by it so just want to make sure people don't realize that that's normal you know this is um another way that dr christian really does go above and beyond making sure that everybody is represented in these decisions so kudos to to our team any other comments all right all in favor thank you uh new business chris um yes sorry new board policies uh first read um motion to approve the board policies outlined below on a first read basis policy number
124703 sanitary maintenance policy 708 lending of equipment and books policy 710 use of facilities by staff and policy 824 maintenance of professional adult and student boundaries this and this policy replaces current policy 815.1 okay and for all those of you watching tonight these policies can all be found on board docs for anybody who wants to read policies um i assume that's a motion and is there a second mrs suchland any comments or questions on these first read policies all in favor okay chris you want to continue sure um motion to approve the revisions to board policy number 006.1 attendance at meetings via electronic communication on a first read basis i can't imagine why we need that policy adjusted but um is there a second second kathy comments or questions all in favor all right mrs
125suchland sorry i had to find my unmute button which is so rare for me um contract approval u.s enrollment services motion to approve the administration's recommendation of an agreement with the u.s and with u.s enrollment services for the implementation of benefits administration platform and dr rodriguez could you explain to everybody still paying attention what that is sure um this is an electronic enrollment exciting yeah it's an electronic enrollment platform for our employees who have benefits we currently have a platform um and we are switching to a different one a much better and more user-friendly platform so we're pretty excited about it thank you and that is emotion is there a second uh mrs epstein it's hard to see you in the dark but mrs epstein any questions or comments all in favor okay thank you
126uh mr shupac this is item d it's a motion to approve the extension of the cash settlement hedge agreement from august 15 2020 to may 31st 2021 and just by way of background in september 2018 the colonial school district entered into an agreement to hedge the interest rate of the 2020 bonds to be issued for the financing of the new colonial middle school construction due to several reasons impacting the construction project that 2020 bonds will not need to be issued until 2021 to better align the interest rate hedge with the bond issuance the school board needs to extend the mandatory termination date from august 2020 to may 31st 2021 and that is a motion is there a second case are there any comments or questions yes i'd like mr sablowski to explain this because i
127know this is something that um people often have questions about the benefits versus the risks okay uh we actually have uh our finance team uh in attendance tonight if you have any technical questions uh but what we decided to do in september 2018 when we we thought we got a very good interest rate on the bonds we issued the initial bonds we issued for the colonial middle school at that time there was a lot of talk about interest rate hikes and we thought the interest rate market was going to be going up there were rumors that there were to be three or four interest rate hikes uh in the year 2019 but to protect the the district from interest rate increases and therefore higher debt service we entered into this uh this interest rate hedge
128which basically fixed our cost uh of what it cost us to issue bonds in into 2020. now in hindsight uh interest rates didn't do what we thought they uh they actually came down uh but due to the uh a couple of items that delayed our financing and the need for money uh the initial plan to issue our third tranche of bonds in uh 2020 uh was we're not going to need that money until uh sometime in the late late late winter early spring of 2021. uh so this hedge was entered into with a mandatory uh termination of august 15th of 2020. uh we need board action to extend this out to may 31st so that we don't have to end and the the interest rate hedge and and therefore issue bonds that we really don't
129need the money for right now and pay unnecessary interest so we are proposing to extend this out to may 31st we could issue bonds any time before then uh and i and choose to uh eliminate the the interest rate hedge when we need the money but we feel that may 31st will cover us so that we can uh continue to keep our cost of issuing the next bonds close to what it was in 2018. if there's any more technical questions i can uh uh can have drew enable uh uh i know rhonda lourdes here if you need a legal uh opinion from her and i think drew if you could find ron the lord and and activate her that would be great so she can give the illegal opinion on the resolution that we're presenting
130tonight do you by phone no her name's on the list of participants under r for rhonda see if the board has questions any other questions does anyone on the board need to hear from our bond council or our financial advisor again we have talked about this a few times but are there any more questions all right seeing none all in favor anybody opposed okay thank you adam do you want to continue please yes this is uh item e under new business it's a motion to accept the stipulation to settle the assessment appeal of property number 05-00-118-11848-10-8 located at 161 washington street conshohocken and to furthermore approve the agreement with the taxpayer that neither party will file an assessment appeal for the next two years 2021 and 2022. thank you is there a second to that
131motion rosemary rosemary we have a rosemary and a rosemary i get confused easily um any questions or comments on this assessment appeal mr sluski could this this was a net plus for the district i believe could you just let us know what the impact is of this uh settlement uh sure this was a uh an office building at 161 washington street in conshohocken borough uh it recently sold so the assessment appeal was uh was fairly easy to negotiate uh the value of the assessment uh would have made the market value somewhere around 72 million the sale of the property actually went for a little bit less than 100 million so by getting the increased assessment uh to 45 million that will uh provide additional tax revenue for the school district in the amount of almost
132a little bit over 181 thousand dollars and also the county of montgomery and conshohocken borough will benefit also and that increased amount um pending next year's um tax increase if there is one will be for two years correct that that's correct the assessment will remain at the 45 million that we've negotiated and then the negotiation helps us because we don't have to go through litigation and and uh and pay attorneys to uh uh to go through the court system okay any other any uh uh adam that was a motion and a second i believe we had a set did we have a second yeah any other questions or comments from the board for mr sablowski all in favor okay thank you kathy yes item s we have a motion to approve the contract with ferric
133construction for twenty three thousand nine hundred dollars for the removal of a thousand gallon underground gasoline tank at the turf garage so for some background that the tank um no longer dep compliant as of july 1st 2020 was identified on the five-year capital project list to be replaced for a budgeted cost of 120 000 the recent purchase of the romanos bus depot made this tank expendable thank you is there a second to kathy's motion i'm sorry adam yeah i'll second it um any questions or comments on the fuel tank all in favor thanks and kathy you want to continue please sure item g which is the paving project change order for a curb replacement this is a motion to approve change order to john derocco general contractor for twenty four thousand eight hundred and eighty
134two dollars for 458 lineal feet of concrete curb replacement and associated asphalt saw cutting above and beyond the amount included in the allowance is there a second to that motion chris and miss dr christian um mr lally isn't here i don't see him on do you want to explain what this was for or what this was about yes just uh as they were scraping up the old parking lot and uncovering portions of the sidewalk there was just some need for more replacement than originally anticipated so this will extend uh extend the the life of the whole project and make everything look look better as we replace the lighting and do the paving in high school hey thank you any other questions or comments all in favor great and kathy last one cathy you there oh
135boy i was muted i've been talking i apologize um this is item h uh it's another uh paving project change order this is for the base repair this is a motion to approve change order to john diracco general contractor for 14 841. for additional light duty asphalt base repair a little background is once the milling was completed it was determined that the areas of base repair needed to be modified some proposed areas were deleted and others were added the net results was an additional 291 square yards of base repair thank you is there a second rosemary and any comments or questions from the board eunice um so with this and the the prior agenda item where does this put us over the original estimate for this project i think when we discussed it in facilities
136it looked like it was about five percent mr soblowski is that about right uh the original uh cost of the uh project was uh projected to be over a million dollars when the bids came in because of the price of asphalt contributing we came in about 775 000 so this is going to put us about 815 000 uh total for the project which is well within our budget that we had established but over the cost of the the contract correct over the contract that's correct i think okay any other questions all in favor great thank you and kathy i was mistaken there is one more for you one more uh item i this is a the last of the project change orders for pw and um ces this is for asphalt repairs at turf management
137garage it's a motion to approve change order to john derocco general contractor for twenty nine thousand two hundred forty nine dollars and ninety seven cents for two thousand one hundred and seventy square yards of milling and asphalt replacement uh some background this work is for the asphalt repair in front of the turf management garage where the fuel tank was removed it also includes replacing the asphalt at colonial drive and flower town road to the pedestrian crosswalk on colonial drive is there a second mrs epstein thank you any comments or questions all in favor great thank you um i'd like to make a motion to approve the district's comprehensive 2020 2021 health and safety plan and the 2020-2021 reopening plan as presented in the attachments so for anyone listening this is um the the plan we
138have to present to the state about our safety health and safety plan for reopening schools is there a second to that motion eunice any questions or comments from the board i do kathy yeah i just want to make sure that everybody just to reiterate i know that dr christian brought this up at the beginning of the meeting that this is something that can and and likely will change um so i know there was some concern that to wait on voting um you know this is something we have to produce um to the pennsylvania department of education but as the world changes um this plan may change as well so i just want to make sure everybody um understands that and this this plan as kathy's saying could change but it could change in either direction
139things get great and the world looks better we'll love we would love to put the kids back in school um or add a day add two days make it five days make ever you know have everyone go back to school on the other hand if the world gets worse or this area gets worse we could end up all virtual so we're all aware that this is a fluid situation everybody knows that and this is the best we've got right now and i can't thank dr christian mrs grigitis mrs burke our entire administrative team for the endless endless hours you put in to producing this plan changing this plan then changing it again answering i think dr christian how many emails four or five there's been several hundred emails but you know what they're they're excellent
140questions the parents are worried about their children their education their safety and their emotional and and social development so we need to take it seriously oh absolutely and um i hear you have more to go so um well we we all take it seriously and you know we've gotten a ton of emails and i'm looking at the screen we're all parents right we've all we're and grandparents and we all have children affected by this or have been affected by this in one way or the other and um none of us take this lightly and you know when we ran for school board nobody clearly saw this one coming um so i just i i thank the public but i also want to remind everybody that that we're parents too and we're not making these decisions
141lately but we have to trust and we do trust our administration the ones who have been doing this their entire career to help guide us through these decisions and i thank them all and i i trust i trust what they're telling me and what they think is best for this district and what we're doing um but i do just want to remind the public we're parents too and and we do understand we do understand and we're living it we're living it ourselves thanks kathy i can just add in one more thing i know that there's a lot of teachers and and staff that are watching this and i just want to say thank you in advance for um getting on board you know i think dr christian and all of our building leaders do a
142great job of fostering a culture where teachers want to teach and they want to do good for their students and for their school um so whether this is something that you a 100 are on board with or not you know thank you in advance for supporting the decisions and being as positive as you can with these students who are coming in whether they're kindergarteners or seniors in high school and trying to help them get through that um so i don't know when there might be another chance when when so many teachers are watching but you know the school board we love you we appreciate you um and and we thank you for um you know following the guidance of of the senior leadership of the district eunice um just building on what other folks have
143said the work that's been done by the administrative team by the teachers by the parents who participated in the focus groups has been remarkable not you know not just during this summer but in the spring and all the hard work that went up into it and as beth said we're all parents and everybody here recognizes that the administration parents we are all being asked to do the impossible in an impossible situation and we are trying to come up with the best solution and it won't be perfect but we need to keep everyone safe and we need to deliver as much education as possible and we are relying on the incredible experts that we have among the educators and the administrators here taking into real account the input from families so that we can do the
144best by our kids and keep everybody our students our staff our administration safe and so you know thank you to everybody who's reached out because everybody's you know feelings are important and we're all just recognizing how difficult this is and that everybody's doing the best we can to deliver the best possible solution in an impossible situation chris along with all of that and thanking you know everyone who's who's pitched in and given um guidance and everything i also want to just encourage our teachers um there these are trying times for everybody and there's a lot that they are going to have to adjust from from the great job that they've done up to this point um and it has to morph into something um not as as well known and i just you know want
145to say thank you to them they're on the front lines they're putting themselves in the classroom with the students and they do a great job but their health is also obviously at risk too so i just want to say thank you for in advance um for all of the time that you're going to be taking in professional development and having to come up with a you know a teaching strategy and learning this technology and you know it's it's a it's constantly evolving so i just want to say thank you to them okay adam i i just want to um also add my thanks to all the the folks who have uh who participated in the focus groups i think we had more than 500 people um and gave great feedback who participated on tuesday night
146and and commented who's sending emails i know dr christian and dave sherman circulated to the board you know 42 pages a document 42 pages of emails which i read through and there were lots and lots of very thoughtful comments um and and again tonight we've heard more thoughtful comments this is a as other folks have said an impossible situation um i really appreciate uh that the administrative team has put the focus on um student uh teacher and staff safety and really made that sort of the the number one priority in driving you know the the driving goal here um we want everybody to be safe and you know i think as the plan may evolve or change um you know i'm confident that that will continue to be the the motivating factor um for the
147administration because i think ultimately um you know we need to keep our students and teachers safe and you know we want to deliver as much education as we can but you know we we have to keep everybody safe and just to reiterate what everyone said as well for our parents this i know you have big choices out there to make and big decisions and i just want to say that you know it is not easy and as beth schlen said you know and eunice said we're all parents were making the tough decisions too so we we understand where you're coming from um and thank you for all the emails and everything that you've sent um am i frozen yeah you are yep totally frozen but you we can not there you are you're good again
148um i just want to say i know everyone has hard decisions to make and um again thank you to our administration and thank you to our teachers we are all in this together we as a school board are here to support each and every one of you so please reach out to us moving forward thank you okay uh jen um yeah we as a board know that everybody's point is valid working parents home parents it doesn't mean that we think somebody's right or wrong i mean i work i get it i i feel bad for the parents that have to work and they're making other arrangements but we as a board know that that is a real thing and even if we can't accommodate everybody we know that that's a valid point and unfortunately there's
149not a whole lot we can do about it so okay thanks anybody else all right and please know as you make your decisions that our administration i'm volunteering them they are still here for you if you have any further questions or need some clarification before you make your choice about the hybrid model or virtual um please know you can get some questions answered if need be while people are still listening does does dr christian want to give do you know dr christian what the next communication would be to everybody is it a is it a survey again or is it more you need to make your decision or or you know while we've got everybody watching take advantage sending the board vote if there's an approval tonight we will get our survey out related to
150opting out of transportation which i described on tuesday and then we will also get our surveys out related to selecting uh virtual and or uh hybrid models uh and we'll collect that information if we don't get it out tomorrow it will be out monday morning but we'll definitely be meeting tomorrow morning and then all of those will come with uh communications explaining the process and will be available to answer questions um that's the next step for our teachers they will get their um questionnaire that's that's already been disseminated and okay we we met with cea leadership and we have about fifth a little more than 50 percent responses so far so they have through they have a few more days to complete that and uh we're fielding those questions as well uh next week yeah
151once we have everything in which will be probably you know within about seven to ten days and we really it's time to roll up our sleeves and uh get into developing our schedules all right any last comments all right we have a motion and a second all in favor do we need a roll call on this dave or can you catch this all in favor looks like it's unanimous mr sherman thank you everyone and um i just like to add that along with all the work that the administration and the teachers um and the parents have done i'd like to thank the board for your endless hours of meetings um it's been a long haul and i know it's been a painful one for a lot of for all of us trying to make decisions
152that are none of them are good ones um i mean none of them are a good option but i think everybody's put a great deal of time and thought into this and thank you to all of you all right next uh mrs epstein anti-racism resolution motion to adopt the resolution supporting anti-racist education in colonial school district as presented can't is can we get that up on the screen or somebody want to read i don't know that we want to read it what do you want to do with it dr christian well i think it's important to acknowledge we've we understand we have work to do as a school district in many different areas related to diversity equity and inclusion we want to continue to expand upon our educational programs encourage supporting students that to promote
153equity and diversity through student organizations such as our black culture awareness club and our asian awareness club continue the expanding work of the diversity equity and inclusion committee that's comprised of teachers and parents drew if you could open up the attachment that'd be great but it is available to the public developing and adopting culturally responsive curricula that teach anti-racism and incorporate ethnic diversity and respect for persons of color continuing to establish and strengthen relationships with diverse colleges and universities of education and to provide opportunities for student teaching and internships with district schools and we we've we've just about wrapped up the search for our new district equity officer and we need to continue to research update and adopt and enforce policies to ensure that all students are provided a safe secure and respectful environment in
154which they can learn grow and reach their full potential certainly appreciate the board's support with this resolution but we know it has to be applied has to be applied in our practice and in our everyday our everyday lives one of the things that we certainly uh emphasized with each of the candidates for the new dei officer role was you are not going to be expected to come in and be the sole champion of this cause and i've worked in in seen situations where you hire somebody new in an administrative role and then immediately everybody just sort of throws their issues at them and say okay you handle that whatever the role is that can't happen it has to be in coordination with my office it has to be in coordination with rosemarie's office karen's office
155our building principles and most importantly our students uh so when gerald gets here we're excited uh for it for him to start his work uh but it will be a team effort um and i i really appreciate the parents that participated in our interview process and this resolution i think supports the efforts that we have begun and acknowledges the fact that we need to continue those efforts i do want to thank dr bakani uh he was he and i attended a protest on the 4th of july at miles park and jason was there some of our senior upcoming seniors and juniors spoke and they did an outstanding job with about 100 to 150 people there mandy edward edwards is there one of our teachers and we've received some emails from some of our students one
156in particular kennedy emailed me and jason to talk about our curriculum and we'll be setting up focus groups with our students to talk about our curriculum so we understand we look at this as a much needed starting point uh to change and uh certainly we've had some wonderful things in the in the past uh that will continue in the district such as our avid program um but this is a great uh this is a great step forward as well so thank you for the support of the board and we look forward to continuing our efforts okay um we have a motion and may i have a second rosemary any comments or questions from the board on this all in favor great thank you solicitors report mr sultanak uh a couple of things uh first of
157all to emphasize the fluid nature of the health and safety plan that the board just adopted while we were going on in the meeting i received the new center for disease controls preparing a safe return to school guidance which is updating previous guidance that we received and i'm sure is going to add to the kathy paducy headache that she was just acting out and the administration responsibilities and the opening process i have not analyzed all of the new changes that are in the policy that were just issued but it just emphasizes the ever-changing nature of what we are addressing so that's number one number two i will say is just a parenthetical comment this is the seventh health and safety plan presentation that i have witnessed this week and i will tell you it was
158the most uh harmonious and well thought out delivery of a health and safety plan of any school entity that i observed frankly i um i shouldn't be shocked but compared to what i've seen over the past uh few weeks this was the most smoothly developed health and safety plan that i have witnessed thirdly um while we have been focusing on issues such as a health and safety plan racism in our schools the federal government has imposed the deadline of april 14 2020 to implement title ix regulations for the development of the district and my firm has put together a toolkit and a training program that was developed by one of our newest members of our education law group uh former university of uh virginia general counsel who has lived with title ix and we're doing
159a training program for 22 montgomery county school entities and we're in the process of doing it on a statewide basis for school districts and we'll have a title ix policy that we're going to be having to act upon a rather shortly to meet the federal compliance standard and that concludes my report all right thank you mr sultana committee reports intermediate unit jen no report from jen okay got that um finance adam no report this evening thank you um miss suchland human resources no report but as dr christian said we've already met with uh cea leadership once and i know we'll be doing that soon to talk over all these different considerations that we have to go through and so just a shout out to the teachers and to the staff um thank you for thinking
160about all this and i'm sure we'll have quite a report next month great thank you um eunice central montgomery county technical high school uh so dr christian mentioned some of this earlier but just territory the tech school is working in partnership with colonial with norristown with upper marion with probably with lower marion as well because we have a lot of students from there to coordinate with all of our reopening plans and try and work out options that will accommodate students from all the sending districts so mr schram's been very busy he will continue to be very busy along with his team they've made a lot of investments in technology and tools because some of the programs um for example allied health are not necessarily going to be able to send students into hospitals for rotations
161like they might have so they're investing in technology that might allow them to simulate and do some of the the hands-on teaching that won't be quite as hands-on as it used to be so they continue to work on that they also continue to work on getting wonderful donations to help feed families in the community and they incorporate all that with their planning so we'll know a lot more in the next several weeks as the sending districts finalize their plan um and we'll have a tech school board meeting the first week in august and we'll also have more information on that those meetings are posted on the check school website they are also offered by zoom and you can tune in to those so that's my report thank you uh curriculum mrs petruno um no report
162but just um a big thank you to our whole entire curriculum department for all the work um that you did on the reopening plan and all the work that you're continuing to do to make sure that come i believe it's august 31st we are back up and running in school so thank you uh kathy facilities management and transportation we had a lot of change order information going on today uh and and obviously things are proceeding with the middle school renovation i don't know if dr christian or mr zablowski if either of you want to give any kind of brief update on the middle school or any of the other construction projects i'm not sure it's necessary i think we've gotten enough covered but just want to throw that out there i drove by yesterday actually
163and snapped some photos they're not as good as jamie's of the uh the middle school but the the three level uh classroom uh wing is is they're starting to put cinder block up which is really cool to see uh and you can start to see the shapes of the classrooms forming uh and then on the other side where the new cafeteria and uh gymnasium will be an auditorium all the retaining walls are in there uh over by park uh park road uh there are some impressive retaining walls without a doubt so i'll get those pictures out uh and then we have a great resident who sends me uh aerial photos uh once or twice a month so i'll get those out to the board but we'll get we'll get an update this uh friday in
164board notes uh on the progress of the project but it is moving along the paving project uh aqua america is finally uh off our property uh and with all due respect i appreciated their work but i'm glad uh they're off the property because they went right down colonial drive uh and so everything uh they filled it in with mcadam uh and then our paving project will take over and make it make it all look nice and uh joe has balanced um the work that um our contractors are doing for lighting and paving along with the necessary work that aqua is doing and you know not to pick on aqua they're putting in a new water main that's going to serve us so we certainly appreciate that and then yeah the pavings come up to i'm
165in my office now so if you're in ces the horseshoe that goes around ces that was really breaking apart uh is all scraped up now and and uh i'm gonna be really excited when we get kids back in school because in ces we have a great playground with basketball hoops right out here and mrs rock has said we need to do that too we're repaving that and we're going to put in new hoops and i love it because it's right outside my office so i get to go to recess two or three times a day and shoot hoops with the kids so um i'll stay late on those days and get all my other work done thank you i think you've earned recess couple games of knockout didn't hurt anybody you know uh i went
166to my son's third grade back to school night one of the questions was tell your parents what your favorite uh time of day is and my son put in dismissal and uh we got home and he was waiting there smiling at me he's like hey did you see my survey i said oh yeah i saw your survey always good for the superintendent's son to put that down that's great oh gosh other than that i don't have anything else for for fmt thank you mrs northcutt community relations student life safety and wellness no report uh legislative the one main thing i'd like to talk about is the heroes act right now it needs to pass in the senate and um i sent something to all of my fellow board members to reach out to uh senator
167toomey in particular to encourage him to to vote for the act as it is um but if anybody's listening to this if mr sherman could put out some kind of um you know advocacy alert but we definitely want to reach out to our two senators to make sure that they're considering passing the heroes act because that will help us get some additional funding for um carrying on the the multiple activities that are causing us more uh more costs uh and then with regard to stuff happening at the state um there's uh liability stuff happening i mean jeff i know jeff is on top of all of that kind of stuff um and psba is also on top of things trying to make sure that all of the school districts in the state are changing their
168policies as necessary to be able um to be dealing with the new environment of education um so you know we'll be you know as things happen and that the public needs to know will obviously let you know and won't bore you with all of the different ones um but uh the liability one is the thing that's most interesting to me and i know that mr sultanic is on top of that so we'll be changing any policies necessary um to make sure that the district is is safe from from those types of things i don't know if mr sultanak you want to add anything but other than that that's all i have for legislative actually on the issue of liability of all the concerns that i have with respect to reopening that is candidly my lowest
169of concerns it's the lowest on the total goal because of the immunities that exist under pennsylvania law and uh the likelihood of federal litigation on the subject i do not think it's very high insurance companies are re-examining insurance policies that exclude pandemic provisions and that certainly may be part of the process but i think our focus is um probably on the reopening issue is a much higher priority that's great that's good to hear that's all i have for legislative thank you anyone have a municipal or community liaison report if you're looking for an opportunity to exercise outside in a shady spot with appropriate physical distancing outdoor yoga classes are being presented in partnership by yoga home and the conshohocken recreation services at suncliff park on monday tuesday thursday and friday at 7 00 a.m the
170early bird yoga and at 6 00 pm all held under the trees and at the b field saturday and sunday at 9 00 am check the yoga home websites or the community center at the fellowship house for additional information and we also invite you to come and continue to enjoy curbside pickup or the many opportunities for sidewalk dining being offered by conshohocken's wonderful eateries thank you uh policy chris my report i neglect does anyone else have any community report okay thank you um and the foundation rosemary during the share the love event at john kennedy subaru subaru donates 250 to the purchaser's choice of participating charities for every new vehicle purchased or leased we're excited to share that the colonial school district education foundation has once again been selected by john kennedy subaru as their
171hometown charity last year over 40 thousand dollars was raised through the share the love event for colonials education foundation so if you're purchasing or leasing a vehicle at john kennedy subaru please consider designating the colonial school district education foundation as your subaru hometown charity donation thank you rosemary um any other comments we have some things on our uh board docs for your information if anyone wants to look school athletic accounts and um now's the time for public comments of a general nature sue could i just i just wanted to ask for the next meeting um we have incredible support from subaru and i don't know if people realize that uh the dolls who live in white marsh township um are very connected with subaru and do a lot for our district and do you think
172for the la next time we could just um i'd like to hear a little bit more about i mean it's been several years sorry the hiccups several years that super john kennedy subaru has supported us and the different things that they have done and it's not you know it's through the educational foundation it's been through other pieces i think we should talk about that a little more and recognize the incredible support uh that the dolls and subaru have given to this district i don't think people realize how significant it is and it just hit me when rosemary was talking about it yeah i think it's a great idea and i'm sure dr christian can come up with something that we can do it i'm sure neither linda nor tom will be thrilled they will not
173meeting anything to do with it but i think it's i think p i i would just it's incredible the amount of support that the company and the dolls give this community i agree okay we'll definitely talk about how to do that thank you thanks all right public comments we have no hands raised at this time that is correct okay any further board comments all right seeing none i would like to adjourn this meeting and just say not in a mean way i hope i don't see any of you for the next couple of days i think we've seen enough of each other i second that i seconded it here we go i third it thank you everybody good thank you thank you all for attending thank you good night [Music] um