001to order the November 17th meeting of the Kesga Valley Board of School Directors. I want to welcome everyone is who is here as well as those that join us all online. Uh will you please join me for the pledge to the flag? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> May we have attendance. Mrs. Martin, >> we have seven school directors present tonight. Dr. Martin and Mr. Hurst are absent. We do have a quorum in place. I'd also note that in attendance of the board officers, Mrs. Martin, who's the secretary, Mrs. Huninger, who's the treasurer, the superintendent, Dr. Hartman, and his administrative cabinet. >> [clears throat] >> This is our general meeting, the
002second meeting of the month, where most official votes are taken, many of which are listed on a consent agenda, which includes those items which are routine or have been discussed at our la our last week work session or previously. Our meetings observe all legal requirements and our district policies to the best of our understanding and ability. All agendas and related public documents are available on the website. Are there any corrections to the me to the agenda? Any additions, deletions, or changes? >> Yes, we had one update today. The 2025 data review and the major curriculum item presentation was updated. The reason for the change to that file. After completion of the original data set containing the unofficial PSSA and Keystone data from 2025, PDE publicly released the future ready PA index site. The updated PowerPoint
003reflects the final official PTE data set from 2025. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any other corrections or changes? If not, I will take a motion to approve the agenda. >> Motion to approve the agenda. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> Nays or abstensions. If not, the agenda is approved. [clears throat] Board commendations. Thank you to the KGA Valley Education Foundation for awarding $43,000 in grants during its fall grant cycle with grants ranging from reset room equipment to Hummingbird steam robotic kits. The $43,000 includes $5,000 in preK scholarship funding. Kna Valley High School held its 50th annual college night on November 3rd at the high school. And thank you to Barbie McDaniel and everyone else who helped make the evening a success. As usual, kudos to the art department for a
004successful start to the school year. The October art department report can be found online. Congratulations to the CV High School Model UN team, which took part in its first competition earlier this month. The high school's first winner were CJ Nan and Isla Bartelt. And bravo to the casted crew of the high school's fall play, The Curious Savage. Performances were held this last weekend. Superintendent Commons, Dr. Hartman. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Grath. Good evening, everyone. Uh, couple announcements uh this evening, mostly around new hires. But before I do that, I do want to uh just say thank you and and recognize our our two board members who uh this evening's their their last board uh meeting. We're going to do a little bit of more more in-depth recognition here uh towards the end of
005the meeting, but I did want to mention as part of my report uh a thank you to Phil Hurst for four years of service. I know Phil couldn't be here this evening and Michael Tally for 12 years of service. So certainly we'll be missed uh but we're sure you won't be strangers. So, thank you. And we'll we'll celebrate in a little in a little while here. Uh, in addition, I have several new hires I'd like to introduce to the CV community this evening. Uh, I'm going to start with Christianne Calvert. Kristen, if you could get a little wave. Uh, Miss Calvert is joining us as a learning support long-term substitute at the middle school. Uh, she most recently has worked as an emotional support paraprofessional with the Warwick School District and has also worked as
006a personal care assistant at Mannheim Central. Prior to these experiences, she worked in management and sales in the private sector for many years. She's earned a bachelor's degree in early childhood education and special education from Eastern University in 2024. So, welcome, K. Next, I'd like to introduce Marina Mazahari. Marina will be uh graduated from Millersville in 2023 with a degree in early childhood education and special education. Since graduating, she has worked as a special education teacher at Newstory uh in Mountville and she'll be joining us as an emotional support teacher at the middle school. Welcome. Next, we have Aaron Young. Aaron is going to be joining us as a learning support teacher at the middle school as well. Miss Young has taught special education in the southeastern York County School District, Dallas Town Area School
007District, Mannheim Township School District, and most recently at Hempfield. She has a bachelor's of science in elementary education and special education from Millersville and a master's degree in educational development and strategies from Wilks University. So, welcome Aaron. Next, we have Taran Biler. Taran has her bachelor's degree in elementary education from IUP and a master's in teaching and curriculum from Penn State. She began her career in the Hanover public school district and has also worked in the Gettysburg Area School District and Mannheim Township School District prior to taking time off to raise her young family. She'll be joining us as a fourth grade long-term sub at Leola. And last but not least, Hope Garner. Hope is going to be our new HR generalist. As you're aware, we've been looking for that position since Miss Hurst uh
008became our director of human resources. Hope graduated in 2020 from Millersville University with a degree in philosophy. Prior to Millersville, she also attended West Virginia University. She has worked for the Hempfield School District since 2023 as both a human resources assistant and most recently a a human resources employment specialist. So glad to have you here, Hope. And to all of our our new hires this evening, welcome. >> The board welcomes all of our new staff members. [applause] And that concludes my report. >> Mrs. Martin, is there any correspondence? >> There is not. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped board comments. Did anyone from the board like to mention something that they uh attended? Most of these uh have already been mentioned in uh in the earlier uh remarks. the high school play, the powder puff
009derby, those that celebrated something special on Veterans Day and our own veteran uh Mr. Tally uh JA real life uh event and Biztown I understand was was a great success. Now we'll move on. Is there a correspondence? >> There's no correspondence tonight. >> Okay. If not, we'll move on to the presentation. Mrs. Hanser, you have an enrollment report for us? >> Yes, I do. >> So, good evening. Um >> so every year uh we give you an update on our uh student enrollment projections and we use this to identify any potential trends in uh increasing enrollment and that way we would have to address any potential capacity issues at buildings. So we first start with a history of the birth rates and this is something that's posted um um by the state. They actually do
010this broken down to various categories but you can see our current year we have 500 or 2025 we had um 508 um births in the district in the municipalities here. [snorts] So really that has been very consistent with the last several years and the projections are showing that is going to remain fairly consistent. So next then uh what we do is to look at what our um estimated uh enrollment numbers were last year and compare it to what the actual enrollments were for this year. So PTE prepares these uh enrollment projections and for uh CV for they last year they had projected 2526 enrollment would be about 3,698 students uh and the actual enrollment as of our October one snapshot was 30 3,712 so there is a 14 student difference there and I think that's
011a fairly about as close as you're going to get. So, breaking it down a little further into the elementary buildings and this particular slide includes our prek numbers. Uh, but you can see that for 2425 actual October 1 snapshot, we had 1,789 elementary students, uh, compared to this year at 1,710. So, that is showing a decrease in our actual enrollment at the elementary level by 79 students. And then moving to the secondary level, uh last year the actual was at for uh middle school and high school was 2,161 students. Uh dropped this year to 2,115. So that's uh a decrease by 46 students. And then at taking all of that, we put all of the um kindergarten through um 12th grade onto one slide here showing three years of actual enrollments versus three years of
012um the PTE enrollment projections. And you can see that our enrollment has been decreasing steadily, not significant, um but that PD's projections again, if they stay accurate, are going to show a continued decrease. Now, we do have some large apartment uh townhouse buildings that are going up in the area. Um, specifically the ones that are over here on Greenfield Road and Willow. Um, we have no idea what type of enrollment that will bring, [clears throat] but in discussions with East Lampeder Township, you tried to use the reserve, the other apartment complex further down the road as kind of uh an estimate because that's built with the same uh kind of more of the higher higher costs uh higher higher end. Uh we currently have one student that we're transporting from the reserve to one of
013our buildings. So we used to have about 14 the other year. So that has dropped off or else the kiddos are just driving themselves to work to school too. Now the IU prepares a uh survey every year and then this is just a nice report where they're summarizing here for 2425 uh some of the various enrollments in different areas and I just want to bring um you to uh to two items there. Number one is the CV district cyber charter schools. We have at this time reported about 87 uh that would be full-time students in the in our own CVVA program. But also what is interesting is that uh comparing CVS non-public uh school students compared to others, we are second in the county for having the highest number. And that's probably attributable to uh
014a lot of the Amish population we have in the district. You can see Seno is the largest uh has the largest nonprofit non-public enrollment and that would also be because of their large Amish population. And then interesting too with our homeless students. Uh this report uh shows that we have 326 homeless students as of last year and that puts us right in about the middle of the pack for the for the school districts in the county. And this is just a breakdown currently of where we stand with CVVA. We have about uh 85 full-time students and 130 part-time students enrolled in our CVVA program. And then there's a further breakdown too of um students that have an IEP, individual education uh plan or a GI, which is for gifted. And of course I can't not
015show you the slides on cy the outside cyber charter enrollments. Um you can see that our we had a significantly lower enrollment back in 2019 time frame and then with covid hitting we had a lot of students that enrolled in in the outside cyber schools and those numbers really have not fluctuated too much since then. We always figured that if a student went enrolled in a cyber they're probably going to stay there. uh instead of bouncing back and forth. And then uh again, I mentioned this last month when we were talking about the uh 2425 uh fiscal results, and I'll be mentioning it uh in a little bit here later on this evening, too. Our t total cyber charter tuition cost for 2425 was just under 1.7 million. So, I'll be bringing you an update,
016too, on the impact of um this new state budget and um uh what looks like we're going to have for cyber uh tuition reform. So, that and I always just like to have um no wrong presentation. Sorry, that's the end of my slides. >> When you look at the numbers of students at the cyber charter schools, I understand once they were there, they tended to stay. When you look at the grade mix, do you see that coming down that it wasn't students that were involved in COVID? >> Not really seeing that decrease on um like students aging out of the program. I'm not seeing that. What worries me about that is that these cyber charter schools uh student achievement is so low >> and I don't know if the parents just look at it as
017choice uh and don't realize it's really a challenge to to do well in their their curriculum. >> Yeah, >> we do our best. >> That's right. We're trying. >> Any other questions for Mrs. Huninger? If not, thank you very much. >> Thank you. Dr. Man and Koser and Mrs. Schaefer. All right. Well, good evening everyone. We are here to present our 25 data review and our major curriculum um items as part of our projections for next year as we look at our budget and so forth. So just to start looking at demographics um this gives you a obviously a nice picture of the demographics of the district really has not changed that much over the past couple years. The you know fluctuate maybe a point here a point there but really has been pretty stable.
018And here when you're looking at um continue looking at the demographics and you look at the foster care homeless and so forth again um the numbers actually with the homeless have started to come down. So we're starting to which is fantastic. Um not sure why can't speak to why but you those numbers are have to decrease a little bit and you can see our special education and and so forth. Now, just to um highlight a couple things as of today, just released from PTE, just to give you a sense of where we rank in the county. Um for ESL, we're third in the county for number of students. Special education, we're eighth in the county, homeless, we're third in the county, and then uh for non-white, we're third in the county, and economically disadvantaged were
019ninth in the county. So, those numbers were just released today. Um just to give give you a little context of that as well. And again you can look at these um numbers over time and you can see fairly consistent although we're we're seeing you look at 2425 they're um actual numbers in the 2526 are um unofficial numbers. So just wanted to point that out. you know, they're they're unofficial, so there may be some fluction. They may fluctuate a little bit in the future. >> So each year we go over with you the formal final PSSA data and as Mrs. Martin stated at the beginning of the meeting, we put the presentation together based on our internal data and then PTE released what's called the future ready PA index, which is the final final with all
020of their calculations and formulas. And so we wanted to update the presentation tonight with those final numbers. So that was the change in some of our um graphs. It's it's just typically a couple of percentages here or there um based on their files compared to our internal final files. So each year we walk you through two sets of data. Our PSSA and our Keystone data is our proficiency data, our achievement data, right? How many students are actually achieving at those grade level standards or above. And then we also share with you our growth data. And that academic growth data shows us did students meet their expected projection for where they were predicted to be on the PSSA or did they exceed those predictions or did they not quite hit those predicted targets? And so we
021walk you through both of those because both measures really give a more comprehensive picture of where we are with the health of our system. So it's important to know that the data you're seeing we've been working with since about June 2nd. So, our schools have been through this data in every which way possible. We've tossed it and turned it as part of our schoolwide planning process. We've um done much much deeper root cause analysis, dug deeper, compared other data sources to this. So, you're getting the the final summitive high-level view uh while our schools have been working with this for quite some time now. So, let's start looking at our math. You're looking at PSSA math. That's our K to8 achievement measure. So the the number of students that were proficient. Um what you can
022see is at elementary we're in our fourth year of an increase. You see a circle around 2022. That was this board that helped to adopt the stepping stones core resource. And so that is the year it was implemented. And you can see that's been a really critical factor in um getting all of our classrooms in consistent grade level standardsbased instruction. And so we're continuing to see the outcomes of that um core resource coupled with the modern learning curriculum and those math performance tasks uh over the course of of postcoid years here. We're up about 15% in elementary math. And I just think it's really important um just to highlight what that means. That means that over 120 students are now mathematically proficient that weren't previously. And so the research that ties math achievement to um
023other life outcomes, high school graduation rates, higher earnings post-graduation, um more students going to college when they're proficient in math, that's that's 120 kids that have been impacted by these changes that we're seeing within the the instructional system. Um looking at our middle school, we were excited to see that bump this year. we kind of had just some some slowm moving progress, but this year we saw another 3%. This 2025 is circled. That was the first year that the middle school started working with the Desmos math resource. Again, that was another resource the board um approved for us to be using in the middle school. So, in K to8 math, we're starting to to see those changes that we've been working toward really take root and um elevate more kids to proficiency. I have a
024quick question on that. Um, now 53% is proficient, but then you have that alternate percent that are not proficient. What are you doing about every single one of those students who are falling below that proficiency cuz then that's going to snowball in middle school and high school. And I understand not everyone's going to go into a math field, but we're talking I mean second graders, third graders, it's addition and subtraction and they have checkbooks and bills to pay. So that's my concern is that 47% that are failing. >> Absolutely. Can we address that when we get to the curriculum, our budget items side of things as we'll walk you through the comprehensive plan pieces and some of the upcoming initiatives that we're working toward. Is that okay? >> Yeah. >> Continuing with math, looking at
025the Keystone um algebra um at the high school. Just to point something out, uh, last year, if you thinking back what this looked like, the graph looked a little differently. This year, we're looking at cohort data, specifically the junior class. So, as a junior class, it went u through the programming. And so, some of the students have taken the algebra, who have taken it in eighth grade, nth grade, 10th grade, you know, up through. And so, this is looking at cohort data. Just wanted to point that out in case you go back and look and say, "Wait a minute, why does this look so different?" um to that point there. The um um other things to to take into consideration when you're looking at this is the how this impacts graduation and the as the
026students work through their programming um and the resources that that are in place to help with remediation and things of that nature along the way. And so when students need to retest, they're eligible to retest. and we are working on putting programming in place to help support that if that's the right decision to make. Um, act 158 is um another thing that you probably heard about or or at least um some aware of and that's with the um the graduation pathways that the students follow um passing all the tests would be like pathway one, pathway two would be a composite score of all three together and then there's other pathway. I just want again just point out there's a bunch of things in the background that that play into these numbers as well. >> Okay.
027So that's the achievement side of math and then we also look at the growth side for so for the students um Mrs. Cap capkot to your point who are not proficient we definitely want to do a double check then are they growing are they meeting their expected academic growth in one year and so when you're looking at this chart here you see the overwhelming majority of our grade levels that are in that dark blue that means that they the students in those grade levels have left their grade level well above where they were predicted to be. And so some of the strategies that we're putting in place to support the students who are not proficient, we are seeing those have an impact because students are actually moving further than what they were predicted to move
028within one year. Um when you're looking at the growth numbers there that are in the four and above, that is absolutely exceptional growth for a cohort of students. And so uh we're looking at all of our different levels of students. we're seeing them exceed where they were predicted to be at the end of their um grade level in math. And so again, just another lens to look at the data to look at the health of our instructional system. And so what that means for our takeaways at elementary um we are staying the course. Our data is showing that consistent and steady growth, 15% over four years is actually pretty amazing to see that much of an impact um on a district system as big as ours. And so we're we're staying the course. Um sticking
029to the plan that we've put in place, the real world connections, that's been a piece we've been continuing to emphasize through the athletic performance test within the profile of a CV learner. Again, giving students to demonstrate those math skills in context in real life situations um has been a really key anchor as part of our curriculum. And then finally, that fidelity to the core resource. Last week, we talked about learning walks. We talked about the opportunity to use the classroom mosaic app to do some checks in our classroom for fidelity. Are we seeing what we expect to see in classrooms? And so, that's going to be a really key piece as we continue to move forward at the elementary level. and at the middle level similar you know stay in the course and fidelity to
030the core resource like um Julian mentioned earlier we're in year two of that that resource um we want to do a root analysis of that seventh grade math we've seen some struggle there and continue to see some struggle there and so we need to take a look at that high school as part of the TSI plan um an emphasis on data informed decision-m so back to your point about like what about those students that aren't doing well um really working with the staff have in um unpacking the numbers and you know looking at the numbers kind of behind the numbers and you know where kids are specifically struggling getting down to the actual standard and in the area that they need supported. They may not need help in everything but just specific things and so
031helping them in a very targeted way. Um which also speaks to like when I said earlier about if it's appropriate for a kid to retest you know that we have the right supports in place for them to retest. um but really making sure we understand um and making informed decisions when it comes to the data you know using the cdts for example or the new state test firefly um and that's you know I think we're doing firefly at the elementary level so all levels we're doing that and again looking at the data and you know working our way through it attending different professional development opportunities to help teachers and and administrators understand the data um and be able to make those informed decision decisions. >> Can I comment going back on the graph the the
032before with the blue, yellow, and green? Um, it seems to me last year there were two or three grades that didn't even meet. So, this looks pretty good to me. >> You got it. Good eye. Yep. >> Absolutely. If I can add to that before they move on to the next subject area because I it's confusing when you don't live in this data every year to remember like what what's the difference between PAS and PSSA and Keystone and all that and I I'm not trying to dumb it down but I'm not a you know I'm not a super big data person but you know PAS if you look at what it stands for value added assessment. So that's just supposed to be the value added that an individual teacher had on students. When you're looking
033at just proficiency rates or prof percentage of students proficient, you're really comparing apples to oranges because you're looking at how last year's sixth graders did compared to this year's sixth graders. Uh so you know the kids are different. You have you have talk to any teacher. You know they're on any given year you have like a strong class come through a class that has some more challenges. So really, if you're going to compare proficiency rate, you really need to look at how last year's fifth graders did when they were in fourth grade and to see if there was growth. What value added assess it takes the the PAS and I'm not going to get into the methodology of it because it's really complicated, but essentially it's taking every single student and where they were the
034year before and based on all the research from all the kids across the state of PA and and data trends and everything, what would be a good amount of growth for that one individual kid to make in a given year. So it's did you get how many kids did you get from wherever their point A was to their point B. Uh and so really to me I think all data is important. The value added data to me really if you're looking at what what impact did our teachers have on students in a given year. That's where customer when you when you see dips and gaps in overall proficiency sometimes that leans more to are there curriculum gaps? Are we not quite aligned somewhere or so on. Uh but when you're looking at the the quality
035of our teachers and and and what you tend to see, what the research will show you is if you start to see those blues and PAS, you're a couple years away from starting to see those increases in your overall proficiency rates. So it's very promising to your point, Kathleen, because it's showing that I think it's showing our trajectory is going in the right way. Even though we'd all love to see 100% of our students proficient, but keep in mind like for elementary the state average is 41%. So 53%'s pretty good. Um for the Keystone, I think it's 41% across the state as well. So the the numbers don't look like when you're equated to like a grade you're thinking, oh 53%, that's not very high. But when you're looking at what the state averages and
036so on, how many students where typically students perform in large numbers on like a bell-shaped curve, that's you're kind of right in on target there. All right, let's talk English language arts. So, looking at our achievement data, PSSA data, K to8, um you'll see a little bit little bit of everything going on up there for us within ELA. At the elementary level, this first year, we was the first year of online iPad testing for our elementary students. So, they had never taken the assessment outside of paper pencil and we were expecting um somewhat of a dip. The state saw a decrease across elementary as well because they're pushing more districts to move in that direction. And so, we've already started to work with, as Dr. Mann said, the Firefly assessment, which is PTE's, math, and
037ELA assessment. That's the closest to a PSSA type assessment that we'll see. That's all on the iPad. That's all online as well. And so we're already this year digging into that with students and helping to build their test taking skills. It's a very different set of strategies when you have a paper, pencil, highlighter, um scrap paper in front of you to straight iPad, um when we're teaching students to annotate text, underline, circle keywords, right? So um we're building those skills and third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers have already begun to really shift to that new tool. um this year. And then at middle school, we held our own. We saw a little bit of a decline over the past couple of years. And so holding even at that um middle school level was important just
038to to get our bearings there. Middle school had been online for several years. And so that wasn't that wasn't an issue necessarily for them. So we're continuing to dive into our curriculum and our assessment opportunities at the middle school as well. And just so you're aware, the state's going to 100% online testing. It's not our decision to do that. The state's moving everything in that direction. I think this is the first everything's on. >> Yeah, everything's online. >> So, looking at the Keystone again, just to point out the cohort difference. Um, so this is a little different than last year's graph. Um, pretty much holding our own as well. Um, with the work doing there, I again some of the things I spoke to earlier with with the high school and looking at the data.
039Um I know that that um this year math and ELA for example they've also made some modifications to the schedule a little bit in support of the students. There's co-eing now taking place in more of the of classrooms where where we can do that. So we have some of that taking place in math and ELA as well. I mean that's just not just an ELA thing. Um so pretty much you know pretty um stable you know want to see more growth but it's stable for now. >> Then we move to our PAS data and again you're going to see the overwhelming majority of our grade levels in that dark blue that well above. I want to just give a shout out to the fifth grade ELA teachers. Um it's our one grade level that broke
040the 5.44 44 um growth index there, which is absolutely phenomenal. And so again, we're seeing individual grade levels, individual schools have really taken this data apart in writing their schoolwide plans and creating their specific um school data goals for their grade level teams. We've incorporated all of these pieces into those strategies as well. So, our takeaways for ELA, one of the things as we tossed and turned the data, one of the areas that our students continually um are struggling with is in that text dependent analysis where they're actually deep diving into a text and they're able to determine some of the choices that the author makes in order to convey the main idea or the theme of that text. It's a really sophisticated skill and we start working with that in third grade. And so,
041uh, we've been spending a lot of time, I personally led professional learning with our fifth grade team to really dive into text analysis to build in more opportunities across the modern learning curriculum. Um, we started with a TDA in um, September this year, getting the students in and and exposed to that idea of how to really analyze text at a deeper level. We've also been focusing on increasing opportunities for our students to have those books in hands, texts in hands as much as possible. Some of that was the ESSER funds that the board had um given us the approval to spend on text sets that support the science and the social studies connections in our interdisciplinary units, but having more kids in more texts, real books, hands in their books in their hands um for
042more time. And then again, Mrs. Cava will talk about this a little bit when we get to MTSS, but a big big emphasis on small flexible grouping and that's the strategy that we've honed in on for our students who are not proficient. Really using our Dibbles data, our Acadians data to figure out exactly where that breakdown is in early literacy. and then making sure that students are still getting their grade level comprehension instruction, but they're also getting that really dedicated small groupoup time for wherever they are on that literacy continuum. So, if they're if they're on a phonics issue, we want to make sure that they're getting regular intensive phonics support in a small group in addition to I don't want to take them out of that grade level comprehension. Um, but we've been working
043all fall through our professional learning opportunities with our elementary teachers on designing those small groups to provide that intensive intervention. I uh I was reading I don't know if you saw the article in uh today's paper on the PSSAs and there was a complaint about the configuration of the literary literacy parts of it uh that they felt were inherent in the test to make it more challenging in all the wrong ways. I wondered if you had read that article. >> I did. Was that Lancaster online? >> Yeah, it was in this morning's paper. >> I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I don't know if you if you have heard anything about complaints about the composition and uh of these tests. I I've seen that before when when especially in u in reading tests
044where sometimes the uh the sample was so long or unnecessarily complex that it was difficult to get an accurate comprehension name. I didn't know if you had any input on that or not. >> I'd be curious if it was about that text dependent analysis standard. I'm I'm very interested in that because that that continually statewide continues to be the weakest standard across the entire state. It is a highly complex process, especially for third, fourth, and fifth graders to get a hold of and it takes a lot of scaffolding, breaking it down into really small steps to get there. I mean, we're we're asking our students to um be able to determine, hey, the author used this word because they were trying to convey a theme of friendship and these words put together explain. I mean,
045it it's a complex task. So, I'm I will be very interested in reading that. >> I know there used to be that problem one time with the SATs where the uh the samples you read were so long that it ate up all the time even if you were a proficient reader. >> And uh I've always had a problem with the the composition of the the literacy. I just wondered with this complaint from I forget what school district I interviewed if if you saw the same thing. I don't know if you get to see much of the test. >> It's like strictly prohibited, but they do give us samplers. So every year the state will put out sample items that are you can use with students, you can use in classrooms and so we do rely
046heavily on those. But yeah, there are times where students have two texts that they're reading and then they're comparing the two ta two texts as part of their text dependent analysis. Um and it can definitely be we've had students we have had some students test four five hours I mean they they are grinding it out um on those ELA sections. >> Okay. So kind of just [snorts] detail when you get the numbers back it says okay punctuation is a deficiency or reading comprehensive like you get those numbers even though the parents don't see that you have more >> standard. Yes. Y break down by they're called assessment anchors which are kind of a couple standards bundled together and then we have the ability to really break that down and see where those issues are and
047that's how we knew text dependent analysis was our lowest >> that's >> Yep. And then those are exactly the curriculum fixes then that we do. That's that you got it. That's the improvement cycle right there. So then with science, we don't have a whole lot here because this is our first year using um the steel standards was the first PSSA assessment with the new standards and so we actually didn't get data back from PTE around the new assessment year one. Um it was the the kind of pilot year for the test and so we don't have aggregated data that was provided back to the districts. there's not public data available in the future ready index for science. Um, spring of 2026 will be the first steels keystone biology assessment. So everything science assessment wise is
048basically a restart from here on out. Next year's presentation will show you year one of our data because it's not even worth comparing to the old data because the standards have changed so significantly. Um it's one of the biggest shifts that we've seen uh in recent years around how we teach and what we teach in our science classrooms. So think of that as a blank slate for next year restart and um move forward. And then you know I had to put a note about prek in there. So I wanted to show you our um this kindergarten classes fall data, our dibbles data. That's our early literacy assessment. And then our acadians is our early numerousy assessment. And so just a quick snapshot here of our students who were enrolled for a full year. So we
049took the students who were with us a whole year um in prek. Students who hit the benchmarks compared to those who did not have any CV preK may have had other prek, may have had other experiences, may not have had anything. Um I think what's really significant to note here is if you recall the preK counts program uh are students who are um within 300% at or below the federal poverty line. And so we're looking at students who potentially have some complexities outperforming the all group which is exactly what this program is intended to do. And so our focus now is maintaining those gains through the rest of the year and then into early elementary. That's that is the difficult piece for a lot of prek programs carrying those gains through into first grade. >>
050So looking at major curriculum items and um the process that we go through um to make those decisions, we start with the district mission and vision. You know, we want to make sure that we are supporting that and that you know that fundamentally the decisions that we make are rooted in the mission and vision. and you'll see that as we go through this. >> So, coming back to those district demographics. So, how do we go about how do the three of us go about determining what our budget is, determining what's coming up on the horizon? How do we make these decisions for major curricular items? We start with that vision and mission. And then we look at our demographics. We look at the students and the families who are in our our classrooms every day.
051And so, this is really a crucial step for us because as we've been emphasizing, you heard Dr. mansay, you know, we're the third highest in some of these diverse demographics across Lancaster County. And that all factors into our planning and our decision making. When you have students who are experiencing economic insecurity, housing insecurity, who language might be a bar barrier, they come with some more complexities. And so those are things that we have to make adjustments for. we have to plan um for individualized opportunities outside of that one-sizefits-all, right? What we know in Kanesoga Valley in 2025 is that a one-sizefits-all approach no longer works. It no longer serves us. And so, as we look at these initiatives and we look at our next steps, acknowledging and really seeing the diversity of our student body
052is a critical piece in that process and into our planning. Again, going back to to Diana's point, we have a lot of students with a lot of different needs. And so, we need to have a a maybe wider tool belt. Is that a thing? Do we want a wider tool belt? We need to have more tools in our toolkit um to address all of those different different needs of our students. >> Bigger box. >> Bigger toolbox. There we go. There's the mechanic talking. There we go. >> All right. And so, um, you know, as we look at our district comprehensive plan, um, we we look at, you know, how does that fit into what we're doing and the direction that is taking us in this three-year process. Um, as you know that this is a
053living and breathing document. So, as we go through this each year, we do make adjustments to it um based on, you know, how things are progressing. if we um um perhaps are like maybe falling behind in a particular area, we'll make some adjustments to make sure that we can bring bring that up or or so forth. Um, one of the key pieces to all this is that that you're not chasing the latest fad, you know, so that it is rooted in what we're doing in the vision and that, you know, like when we say about stay in the course, you know, there's I don't know if you'd be surprised or not, but the amount of stuff that we get advertisements and things and say, "Oh, this is the next greatest thing." um or you need
054this to do this and okay, but why can't we, you know, we need to stay the course and make sure that when we make a decision that it is rooted in um that it's informed um and so forth. >> Dr. Herman, if you could go back, I I just I don't want to lose Diana's point because it's so important. What are we doing for those students who are not proficient, right? And so in that district comprehensive plan, that's why we have an entire goal dedicated to this idea of the multi-tered systems of support, the MTSS framework. That framework is really the roadmap to support struggling learners. That's the framework that says, all right, if a student is not responding to those core tier one instructional strategies, are they getting small groupoup interventions that are aligned
055to their needs? Have they been then um has their data been looked at by the advanced TE's team to create a more intensive maybe they're going with the reading support teacher, the instructional support teacher to get even more targeted um supports in place and then if needed special education ESL services along the way. So that MTSS framework is such a focal point of how we are supporting that diverse group of learners we were just talking about and students who may not um be proficient yet. utilizing that, anchoring those data points, consistently looking at progress and determining if we're not seeing six weeks, if we're not seeing progress with a particular intervention, we know we need to turn that intervention up. We need to do something different. We need to keep looking at their data to
056um fine-tune the plan for that student even more. So, really critical piece um in moving students to proficiency. Yeah, I think another example of that at the secondary level, more at the high school level would be looking at those students that are high basic or or high below basic, you know, and seeing what work needs to be done with them. They're just sitting right there and they may need just a little bit to push them over the top. And so looking at the the the data and the information that we get back from the state on the standards and saying, "All right, well, where is Don Man? You know, where he's you missing in this particular area here." Well, we can put the emphasis there rather than kind of just a general um overview of
057it. Be very specific in in the um support that we give to the students. So, so breaking those numbers down so you can so you have below basic and basic, but you can also look at like all right, where's the high basic those kids that are sitting right there and what's keeping them from going over the top >> at school level. Do you look at their career path that they're looking at towards how focused you get certain? Well, well, part of it is when you look at the act 158 um and you looked at um I think um 339, you're looking at students career paths and so forth. That's part of it. Um but um the most the path of least resistance for most students is is passing the test, >> right? And then as
058it breaks down, what the state had provided us are tools to help students get there that may be more appropriate for them versus for example career like you may get into a a career focus of of something like that or earning credentials that are um u nationally certified or recognized credentials um in a particular area for um you know students again which may be more appropriate for them. Um, you know, we also are looking at um you as we re-evaluate and examine our graduation um requirements at the high school and so forth is looking at embedding a lot of this stuff in courses. So that you know um u for example the um the uh project that students may be able to do if they need it as part of one of those pathways. Well,
059just embedding that in a in a course that they're just naturally doing it that has perhaps maybe a career focus on it already that can lead them in that direction. So, it's yes and no. >> All right. So, we're still getting to how we determine major curricular items. So, we look at No, you're good. We we we look at our mission and vision. We check our comprehensive plan, right? Our comprehensive plan then is guided by our demographics which now takes us to what's the roadmap. How do we get there? That's our profile and our instructional model. And you've seen this instructional model so many times now. And what we like to say is we have been super clear since the instructional model was unveiled before I came to CV in 2020. >> This path has
060been outlined. So there are no surprises. Everyone knows the steps we're taking, the moves we're making to bring more students into proficiency. Right? It's those three big areas. And so where are we, the three of us, when we're looking at what's coming up next year, we come back to our instructional model and we say, "Okay, where are we on our road map? What have we accomplished? What have we embedded in our system? What's next on the horizon?" And so we're going to share with you some of those major uh anticipated curriculum expenses and items that we see for the 2627 school year. We're the group that gets to kick off the budgeting process and and give you a little bit of a preview of what's coming for us next year with curriculum and instruction. So,
061Mrs. Schaer is going to start with the first area of the instructional model, positive school climate. Just to think about why positive school climate is important. It basically lays the foundation to remove all the barriers that are getting in the way of kids to maximize all this great curriculum and all that great instruction that's happening. So that's why we really focus on that here because in order to really benefit maximally benefit from from what's happening in the classroom, you need to have the classroom ready to go. You need to be positive. You needed to be um exciting. You need to have kids wanting to be engaged. You need kids in the classroom. You need attendance rates to be high. You need kids not in the classroom and not in the office. So that's why we
062focus on some of these areas. Um, this isn't nearly all the things that we do in order to foster those positive school climates, but these are the two the some of the big areas that cost money as part of what we're presenting tonight. So, you know, we've talked a lot about PBIS, positive behavior. Um, so we use rewards for that um both in the supplies, but also in a um an online PBIS rewards program. And so the cost for those two things are there. So the PBIS rewards is about 13,000 and then the supplies that keep the program running are over 12,000. And then of course we have character strong which is our uh our social emotional learning curriculum that we work through um K to8 and then the high school develops their own character
063um lessons and uh trajectory on what they want their kids to do in the in the high school by month. Um, so Character Strong is really the only piece to that that costs money and that's the K8 program and that's almost 5,000 and then of course the professional learning that goes along with those areas equal about, you know, $1,250. So in the next area of the instructional model, the relevant and rigorous learning experiences, this is where you see the bulk of the curriculum and instruction budget um for us. And so the only new anticipated brand new expense is that classroom mosaic app. We talked about that last week. We do not anticipate any other new resources, programs, items for next year. We talked about staying the course. We talked about not chasing the next fat,
064right? And so this is this is really in this area, classroom mosaic would be the only new piece. Um, we do anticipate still needing some support from IU13. We did reduce that budget number by almost half by about $15,000, uh, bringing on our director of curriculum and instruction. We're going to be able to utilize Dr. Gre. There are still some areas like steels, um, teched that we do anticipate needing some additional IU content experts to be a part of with us. Um, is new on this one. So three years ago, we used our ESSER funds to pay for the LL license. That contract is now up. So this is the first time you will see the LL in the general fund. And that's one of our our core embedded um learning tools, really one that
065we use to help differentiate, help identify skills gaps and um do some really intentional work with students there. So that is an ad back into the general fund. Then overall our assessment and our data platforms. Again, nothing has has changed there at this time. And then really the the high price tag is the curriculum software, the online resources. So this ranges from everything from our Edge of Planet curriculum warehouse to our um online Desmos software that we use at the middle school. It's a little bit of all of our learning programs that we utilize. This could be some of our Worldbook online tools. um little bit of everything there. Leadership development, we do still anticipate setting aside some of that um the funds to support our principles, assistant principles and directors. And then um we
066do anticipate continuing to work with Devipar consultant consultants. Again, we significantly reduce this amount. Our last u agreement with them came in at about $75,000. So, we're significantly planning to reduce those supports. However, our consultant there, Dr. Sneath, does a ton of work with our school improvement teams, the deep dive data analysis. Um, Dr. Sneath is leading that with our principles to really design those um effective schoolwide plans. So, that's what we're anticipating for next year. Nothing new, a lot of reductions, but we do have to bring that in to the general fund, and that feels like a heavier lift there because it was ESSER funded in the past. The last category is flexible learning environments and two areas really uh focus on is the blended learning and the purposeful and strategic inter in integration
067of technology. Um this actually one of these areas that we are going to look at changing and updating some of the language um in this particular area just because of of how things have changed over time like blended learning means a variety of things anymore to a variety of people. So looking at updating things like that. However, as far as um the main intent and the focus here and you're looking at CBVA and the software that goes along with that um the the IU student centered learning academy and the cost to go along with that um the technology that um Mr. McGraw will talk about next next time as far as his budget, you know, obviously is a big part of of all this that moves through the technology integration and so forth. And then
068I know um Dr. Hartman's been chairing the the AI um task force and have some ideas there as far as what that potentially would look like as a cost. Um there's there's a a whole host of things out there that that districts can take advantage of or or or leverage or start to leverage. And so Dr. Hartman, I don't know if you want to speak to that a little bit. >> Yeah, I could just real briefly. Um so and this is all why we put TBD there. uh we're considering you know with with with all the the trends with with AI and AI integration the more we've been studying it uh a lot of the tools you know there's what they call premium versions anybody can go online and create a real quick account and
069get a free chat GPT account or you know GR whatever there's every day there's new AI platforms popping up uh for that data protection component and for some of the features and for uh it we're looking like there's there's probably uh value in as a district us determining a couple AI tools that we want to really invest in and say this these are the ones we're using. We're getting we're getting accounts for uh whether it's like magic AI, school AI, there's a couple couple that are catered to K12 education that especially if we're going to want students to explore with AI where uh there's a data privacy component to them. uh even though it's AI, they're not it's it's and Adam could probably use more technical terminology. Uh but really there there's a there's intellectual
070property concerns when you're when when you're putting student information or student created content into an AI tool and then that uh is being used to like teach itself the tool. you're there you're you're seeing some case law and stuff out there now about that really being kind of a theft of intellectual property when you do that. So so when you buy when you have a paid version of some of these tools it uh there's some guarantees that come along that they're not using they're not using your content your data your information that you're putting in AI to really build the AI or to continue for the AI to to learn and to evolve. Uh so it's kind of like unknown territory type stuff but but a lot of the legal guidance is towards adopting tools
071that would involve having licensing agreements and so on. So we're not there yet but we're we're looking at that. We're looking at what that would offset. I think there long term there's probably cost savings with going that route. If you think of what you can use AI to create for you versus having to go out and purchase. So uh all unknown things to us right now that we're sort of exploring. >> Thank you. So that the last couple of slides then just build on the discussion last week around the classroom mosaic app I had shared with you that I wanted to give you that preview um last week but really the classroom mosaic tool being used to implement our new learning walk system that we anticipate to get up and running this spring really focusing
072in on now we've invested a lot of time money personnel effort resources into those three big areas from the instructional model and So we want to know to what extent are we seeing what we expect to see in our classrooms given that we have put so much focus in these big areas. And so that's really what our learning walk set out to do. The next slide just gives you a little bit of an overview of that timeline. We'll be doing some piloting this spring. Um finalizing those protocols and doing some trial rounds of the learning walk so that in 2627 we would have a full learning walk system up and running. We talked about that last week. we'd be able to bring you some data. So, that last slide, Dr. Hartman, gives you a screenshot
073of, um, what that classroom mosaic app could potentially look like. So, um, when we show you the analytics that are going to come right from that live, as soon as you walk out of a classroom and you enter that information, we're going to be able to use it to really look at trends and themes across a school, across a grade level, a department, across the K to2 system if we if we need to. So very customizable for us based on what we're using it for here in CV. So I wanted to just add that information and give you a little screenshot so you can see what that looks like. So that concludes our our data and then using that cycle of improvement with the data to determine the focus areas and the major items for
074next year. Um, we'd like to to give you that preview in the fall as we continue to build out those plans and the rest of the budget through the the school year. So, questions for us? I have a couple. Um, [clears throat] one I would with the homeless numbers being down, I would love to know why. Um, because we've also like with partnerships with seeds and some of the other things that we do. Is it because of them? And it also, I'm full aware, it could also be, you know, you may have had a several homeless members of the same household that averaged out. I know it's hard to get those numbers because a lot of kids don't want to say that they are. So, but is that also a reason like maybe some kids
075are and they're just not saying that they are? I'm just curious because that is a that's a significant drop. Um, [clears throat] so love to hear back on that one. The other question is, so with all the colored dots and that data review, so we've seen those numbers a couple I've seen them a couple years in the running and I always am left with that kind of like wanting more thing. Not necessarily from a give me a full breakdown, but for example, like the seventh grade class, I would love to see since it's all of the the colored dots are based based on a law of averages, correct? So it takes the entire seventh grade and it averages it out and that average is coming up as below or doesn't meet. So I would love
076to see just to give us the board kind of an idea of what does that really mean? Even if you just took the seventh grade class and said, "Okay, where were they last year? Where are they next year when those reports come out?" And then what is the breakdown for each colored category even? How many were in red? How many were in the two greens? How many were in the blues? But just to kind of give us an idea what is because that's the data that you guys are looking at on the back end that we don't get to see. I don't want it broken down for everything, but just a snapshot into okay, we're focusing on seventh grade because that one performed in red for both categories, English and math. So if you look
077at that and you go, okay, break that down for us as a board so we can see and then also start to see those numbers hopefully start to grow as they move. Even if that's the one grade we're just going to track in these presentations for the next little bit, I'd just love to see a little bit more of a simplified version of how that progresses instead of just okay, we see them in red again and maybe it moved a little bit on the scale, but I don't know what that means. Um, >> absolutely. And we can show you some of when I say we toss the data, right? We have we have that data. We have the growth data by different groups of students. So we have was it the advanced students? Were they
078were they the ones who didn't hit where they were projected to be? Was it how do we do with the our lowest 33% of performers? Were they the ones? And so that's exactly when we put that in through different layers within the system. So happy to put together a kind of portfolio and how we >> kind of like snapshot like a snapshot kind of like take one grade. What is the review that you guys do? We just love to understand your process a little bit more. And I think it also builds some confidence because when we just see the law of averages as the board goes like okay we're not seeing a lot of movement in the needle. >> How do we see I mean we are don't get me wrong we absolutely are. That's
07915% is huge strides but then you see that one grade and it's natural for the board to be like what's going on with seventh grade. So show us a little bit of more of that if that one thing. >> Sure. >> Um are there any crossovers with >> particularly when it comes to the math stuff? Are you able to see? I know it might be harder because that is that main is EXL mainly elementary or is that used across the board >> across the board. >> Great. So are there any is there any datadriven resource exploration on that trends to that? I'm just curious about that crossover. >> That's a great question. So one of the things we do as part of our MTSS system is at the elementary level. Um, we look at our
080all of our elementary district data together and then the buildings look at their school level data compared to the district. Then the teachers look at their classroom data compared to the school compared to the So one of the tools that we specifically look at is the LL numbers. And actually at the elementary level of all of our assessment tools, um, and the new Firefly assessment were the two that correlated the most closely with where students ended up on PSSA. Wasn't perfect and there were some anomaly grades here and there. Um, but overall when we saw students who were meeting the the benchmarks in EXL, um, we closely saw that happening then in their PSSA proficiency. And so, um, we've done that. Mr. Ledwig is our our resident data guru at Brownstown and so he actually
081plotted every single student at Brownstown and was looking for some of those correlations. U so we we were finding some similarities that is one of our tools that's helping us. >> I can't say it's direct. I can't say it's perfect but it is tracking in the same direction. It's been a helpful tool for us. >> Very cool. when you look at our district assessment map, you know, we have that K to2 now and that's becoming more formalized, >> you know, all [clears throat] these assessments are are noted in there when that we do like the snapshot of like forl for example and so we capture that data and then we look at that firefly data and we can actually as she was saying with Mr. Logig, we can pull those um data right color code
082and everything right beside each other. So you can see that. So if if there are anomalies or you're thinking something doesn't something's not quite right, you know, I know this kid can do more than this and but you know and so forth. So it allows you to pull that together. So you can you line all kinds of stuff up like from PSSA to CDTs to the you know all in one report and you can look across and look at um what where are those um concerns or or growth areas that you So yeah, there's a lot you can do. >> That's very cool. Mr. Gunel is braver than I am. I'm always afraid if I ask that sort of question, he'll actually send me the data and I will drown in it. [laughter] >> I
083I know it's uh challenging >> to try to take that data and find the core of what you can learn from it. >> And I appreciate the effort. I I know we've been this has been a long presentation, but a couple comments. Mark, you made a good comment about the homeless data and I will just that data is probably some of the hardest data to know if you have 100% accuracy on it or not because for the same reasons you mentioned, >> we know those numbers aren't 100% accurate. We know there's students who don't parents don't fill out the paperwork for McKenna Vinto and all different stuff. Uh but there I I think it would be I think some of the efforts of some of our community partnerships have paid off dividends. >> Um but
084I also think there there's been some efforts uh with some of the the tools and some of the other uh efforts that we've explained to the board over the last year or so about really trying to get a better handle on our students and keeping better grasp. And to be frank, we've had some students who were kind of like on our books for a while who we went back in and realized they shouldn't be homeless status anymore. They've been living they found permanent home, you know, residency in a different district and, you know, they kind of have moved off and we we've been trying to work with our our team to to better recognize that. Not that we we're not trying to get rid of kids that we want here, but but ultimately, you know,
085there are uh enrollment rules to follow and so on. So, we've been trying to clean up some of that a little bit as well. >> Well, and at the end of the day, if you can't find one specific thing, then it has to be all the efforts together, right? >> So, it was just more just that idea just because that is that was a big shift. So, plus of course, if something is working really well, we'd love to know about it, right? you know, like, hey, we got a massive win, you know, uh, 10 families got placed in homes because of an initiative with seeds or something like that. Then we'd be like, well, that's awesome. That's what you want to hear. >> Yeah. >> So, no, I I appreciate it for sure. >> Diana
086had mentioned about uh the high school and whether or not we're we're factoring in career. Uh, and I just think worth mentioning, you know, we mentioned the future ready index a lot this evening. That that's the state dashboard. That used to be the school performance profile. It used to be where you could go and get all uh they just call it the future ready index. Uh but that we do similar tonight was focused on academic achievement but the similar data is reported on there of like how many students completed internships for us at the high school level. How many students completed a rigorous course of study which is either an advanced placement course or or dual enrollment, how many students earned an industry recognized credential. The state values that that data equally. That's why they
087changed it to the school or to the future ready index. It's no more like, oh, that this is only weighted this amount. It's presented as a dash dashboard because schools want us to look at that data as much as we're looking at PSSA scores and Keystone scores anymore. Uh we have a we didn't include that this evening because I think uh Miss Upton has a presentation coming up in the near future that will highlight some of that data on our career initiatives a little more. >> Thank you're happy to stay and talk about data and curriculum. >> I was hoping to make this get this to 60. We're almost at 60 minutes for this presentation. So, you know it. >> Thank you. >> Oh, I did want to say I'm glad your beard's coming back
088in, Don. I feel much more comfortable when you have a beard. >> I lost my little bit. [laughter] >> We'll make sure that's noted in the minutes. At this point in the meeting, uh, we have time if any of the public would like to address one of the agenda items. Is anyone here from CVEA to [clears throat] speak or from other employee groups? If not, we'll move on to the consent agenda. We have [cough and clears throat] we have items A through G. Are there any questions or concerns on any of the items on the consent agenda? If not, I would take a motion to approve it. >> Oh, come on, somebody. >> I move to approve the consent agenda items A for G. >> I second. >> Okay. A roll call, please. >> Mrs.
089Fiser, >> I >> Mr. Tally. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Kapka. >> Hi, >> Mr. Gensel. >> Hi, >> Mr. Eie. I >> Miss Trobridge. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Croft. >> I It passes unanimously and we will move on to the acts to discuss agenda and we start with a request to approve the BBA grants. Uh Mrs. Myers, >> she had to leave to go back to work. So, >> okay. >> I'm Shannon. I'm the secretary of um like rats leaving a sinking ship. >> Okay, better. >> Okay, we have two grants that we're going to be reviewing. Um, the first is for girls lacrosse. They're asking for 25 heavy waterproof jackets for the girls to wear on the sidelines. The quote that they're asking for is quote number one. It's $1,800 from H&L team sales.
090Um, and those would stay with the program then, um, after they're done using them this year. Um, and then the second quote that we're reviewing is the boys basketball booster club is asking for an iPad Pro. Um, and they were asking for the quote number three for 9.49. There any questions on those? >> Yeah. Uh I don't have any questions about these specific grants, but uh do you know where your balance is right now? >> Um we are still sitting at close I think $200,000. Um we are trying to go through that money um with different grants um like a community BAA grant for um some replacing some of the equipment in the concession stands. So, we're reviewing that stuff with Ken to make sure that we're doing the the right things, purchasing the right
091equipment. Um, Shelley also met with Frank last week, I believe, to go over some different things that we can utilize some of that money for. And I believe that we're going to be changing bylaws coming up soon um to get more more booster clubs access to the money. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. We had a Adele uh Mr. Hawkins, myself and Shelley had a meeting last week where we're looking at uh they have some big ticket items. There'll be some more grants coming your way to try to by design get that fund balance down a little bit, but also we're looking at a little bit of a redesign and how in their operations. So, um, with Frank being new to the district, he we wanted him to get the lay of the land a
092little bit, but so, but some exciting ideas for some grants that I think are coming in the near future >> that'll help multiple sports, not just in activities, not just one or two. >> Yeah. >> And I know where Mrs. Grath is going. >> I I know where you're going with with the balance, etc. But with a new athletic director coming on board, I think there were some things that was hung up a little bit in the past. Uh there's one grant that could eliminate probably 30% of the balance. So there's some big ticket items that are going to be coming. So >> it's been a while that built up and I think it's time to apply it. >> It gets so complex because you know is it >> district capital funded? Is it BAA
093funded? Should it be split 50/50 from that aspect? So those conversations are being happening because there's so many of these big ticket items. There is, as is appropriate, a mix of business of district business of uh fundraising uh and that's as it should be. We just need to make sure that the balance is appropriate for for what their needs are. >> But we certainly appreciate the work of the BAA. Believe me. >> Uh I if anyone doesn't mind, I am going to hold votes for one vote >> in this section of the agenda. >> You're what? What was that? >> You're going to what? I'm going to hold it so we can vote on them all at once. >> Oh, that's fine. >> Okay. >> We will vote on it. I promise you tonight. [laughter]
094>> Thank you. >> Uh, >> do you want to vote on it now? >> No, we have four items in this. I want to put them all together. >> You want to put them all together? >> Yep. >> The next item is the budget update. This ought to be interesting. Have you had time to review this? Well, >> oh, I was um a cat on hot tin roof waiting for Pasbo to come out with all the details for this. I I just I literally couldn't wait. U [laughter] not that I'm an accounting nerd or anything, but it was just I wanted to know what was the impact for us. >> Well, I will tell you the one thing I was looking for was that money that uh Mr. and I both thought was coming when
095we voted for the lower tax rate. >> The ready to learn adequacy. >> Yeah. The other half of that. >> Yeah. >> I I was confident it would show up. >> Well, it did. >> Yeah, I know. >> Yeah, it did. Luckily, very fortunate. So, um that was the area where I was concerned about and quite frankly looking forward to future year state budgets. I know I'm sounding gloom and doom, but with what all happened this year with the 138 day delay and the politics involved, I I'm will not be surprised going forward that we're going to have more challenges with the state budget. And as Dr. Hartman's mentioned before um when in [clears throat] some of our discussions and other meetings uh they've did a lot of funding into the adequacy supplement which is
096money that they don't have to have a hold harmless unit that they can reduce that going forward. So if you put that into the basic ed form funding formula then there's you know a hold harmless that you don't get less than what you did the year before but >> yeah yeah I figure they have more control. What I found interesting was when when this whole thing started, the governor wanted 51 billion. >> Yes. >> And legislator wanted 49. And I looked at that thought 49 to 51. Well, that's 50 is right in the middle, >> right? >> Which is where they ended up. >> Yeah. After all this time. Yes. >> I could have told them, but nobody called me. >> You should have called them. >> Oh, yeah. >> You got a hotline into
097the governor's office. So, uh, I'm sure all of you have, you know, seen the excerpts, uh, of this first slide here. And what I really want to focus on, too, is the cyber tuition reform. But, um, and what it looks like as far as what we received u on the next slide is our uh 2425 actual subsidies uh that we got for basic ed, special ed, uh, the ready tolearn foundation. And that was like that standard 348,000 that we got every year. And then the adequacy supplement. And then also in 2425 we received $107,000 to um help offset our cyber tuition uh cost. That was a little cynicism there because of our cyber tuition costs. 1.7 million 107,000 didn't do too much. Uh but anyway, in the in February when the governor proposed his budget,
098you can see the numbers uh there did not include any cyber funding for uh school districts at all. So we were, you know, very cautious, conservative, uh conservatively optimistic, I think is the one of the words that I had mentioned um back in uh the spring when we were moving through our budget process. Um we were on target pretty much with the basic ed special ed uh but we only uh budgeted 50% of the adequacy supplement that the go governor was proposing hoping that we would get it but concerned that we might not. So the state budget came through and they did fund the adequacy supplement as we mentioned uh fully. So, um, really our net advantage here is $725,000, but again, we had, uh, a budgeted a deficit knowing that we might get some
099of that $700,000. Um so the cyber tuition reform part they will talk about how much they're estimating that it's going to save um uh school districts or you know their budget to um reform cyber tuition. It's going to be x number million dollars of savings. Well, it's not coming from the state. You know that's going to be reducing the tuition that cost that we pay to the cyber. So, it's not a state funded advantage for um for meeting their budget, but instead it's reducing our cost. So, I ran through the calculation. Uh there's not a detailed guidance like I would prefer that there would be to be able to pres present a number to you. Uh we're waiting to get more detailed guidance from PTE, but Pasbow uh kind of uh laid some of it
100out for us and running the numbers through uh what I believe is going to be the final calculation uh for 202526. If this is retroactive, if this tuition chart change is retroactive to July 1, it would save us $200,000 a year. if it's um prrated as of November 12th when the budget was approved, uh we'd save about $125,000 for the current year. So, I'm certainly not going to dispute being able to save money like that. I was certainly hoping that tuition reform would be more significant than than that for us. >> Well, [snorts] if if uh if that's what it is, will we just uh wait until what we really owe matches what we've paid so far? Oh, there yeah there would be adjustments coming through on the cyber uh cyber tuition bills and I'll
101be reviewing all of those in great detail just to ensure that they're calculating it correctly. So um moving ahead and looking at um what does this mean for for us? Some of these numbers might look familiar to you. Um our budgeted revenues was 93 93.9 million. budget expenditures were 95 million. Uh we budgeted a planned deficit of 1.2 million. Uh but getting that $710,000 and for the um adequacy supplement dropped our deficit down to $479,000. Now again, cyber uh cyber reform uh if we get the full amount retroactive change in the calculation of that would be a $200,000 savings that drops us down closer to than $275,000. Still a deficit and still a lot of challenges uh for us coming coming up in the next couple years. Again, number one, gloom and doom with not
102being able to anticipate clearly what the state is going to be doing. It's it's interesting. On Wednesday, I've been invited by Dr. Daner. Some of you may remember him. He'd been a teacher here and administrator. He's an adjunct professor at Millersville University. And he asked me last year to come out and again this year to teach two of his classes about school finance. And [laughter] I I'm glad that the budget got passed before I go out. Um [laughter and gasps] but one of the questions was how do you move forward with a budget when you don't have the state state numbers? Yeah, it's just you find your vices you it's just very frustrating. [snorts] Um anyway, some of the challenges we're going to continue to have is our act one index is going to continue
103to decrease. Um but you know again that's we have uh challenges with the continued cyber tuition costs. Um salaries are locked in for teachers at 4%. Uh benefits, insurance costs are projected to go up about another 7% this year. Uh interest rates uh went have been going down for the past year and a half. Unfortunately, we're going to be losing uh interest income revenue uh due to those uh decreases. Uh special ed costs continue to increase. That's all um everywhere all throughout the county and the state. And then just a continued in increase in cost due to inflations and and and tariffs. And then I always like to keep this last slide in mind. It's um this causes some sleepless nights for me, but just to keep in mind that our debt service again the
104district looks great. The campuses look wonderful. Leola's coming around looking really really good. Uh but it all costs money and we've got 8 point um 8.4 million dollars in debt service. So just uh to know that's one of those costs that we cannot uh cannot miss but have to account for. So quick update. Any questions? If you paid attention not just to the K12 part of the state budget, but the overall state budget. One area I have that I'm concerned about that I think will have ramifications for schools is even though you saw a slight increase in in increase in the percentage of funding to K12 education one area that took a huge hit with the state budget is human services. Uh so mental health services counseling all that uh was really they were the
105big loser in in the state budget. So we all know where that onus falls when other providers can't provide those services. The expectation is on the school. So I have a feeling some of those costs uh the expectation will be that they fall to public ed. That's just my looking into my my uh magic ball predicting that. Uh but yeah, I I think there's some definitely some promising things in the budget K K12. Uh I think we were pleased with some of the things some of the cyber reform. Uh, one thing Adele didn't mention, uh, that's not really fiscal, but with with the cyber reform, uh, there they also, uh, included some measures that put more of the onus on the cyber charters for some of the the, uh, data tracking and recording and making
106connections with families and ensuring it's where in the past that was on us to catch if a family wasn't living in the district anymore. So on so there's some promising things in there. Uh I would just caution everybody even though it looks good for you know four months later I think we were at a point mentally where we were just happy for anything but when you look at it and you know you can share the increases but you know yes a 2.7% increase across the board for special education our special education costes costs are rising way more than 2.7%. So the gap is still widening between district costs and what's being funded by the state for special education. So, that's my soap box and my public service announcement for the evening on on the budget,
107but I don't want to be all doom and gloom. There's some positive in there, but but there's also still some concerning numbers, you know, with the adequacy. Keep in mind that's not bonus money. That's that's money that out of the fair funding lawsuits, the court said PDEOS, it was public schools. Uh, so it looks really good that we're increasing it by that. They're just giving us what the courts have said. They were underfunding us for years and years. So, uh, my my soap box on that is I wish that came through basic ed funding and not not at, you know, not the, uh, ready to learn block grant because then at least we'd be guaranteed that amount in the next year. Uh, so we got to be cautious with that and I know we budget
108that way. So, >> that's all I have on this. >> Thank you. Appreciate your work. [clears throat] Uh now, uh are you going to talk to us about this rental fee waiver? >> Yes. Yes. So, in all the years that I've been here, we've um haven't had um requests to wave rental fees until this year, and we've had several of them, three of them. >> These are from groups that we don't usually have participate. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um [clears throat] the West, this request is from the West Euro uh Police Department. They would like to use the Brownstown Gymnasium to have some training uh later on in December. Uh the rental fee for the um West the Fire Police Department would be $65. So we're requesting that we wave that fee. >> This is for
109their own training. >> Yeah, their own training. Yes. >> Any questions or concerns in approving this? >> This is on a non-school day, correct? >> Okay. Yeah, it's >> it's just for one day. >> It's from 3 to 5 and I believe it's um it is December 6th and I that's a Saturday so we're good. >> This is for one day. >> One day. >> Okay, I'll hold that along with our other votes. >> Thank you. The last one is approval for the first reading of district policies that were listed. I I had a concern with 122. Uh that was and it doesn't say that, but that wasn't just meant to be to address uh gender uh issues. It was for any challenge uh to the athletic the extracurricular code. Uh I preferred the uh
110the language we had before specifically talking about any challenge and included the parents and student. I I think that's something appropriate that you know everyone be in there. Uh, it does keep in the concerns that were important to us. >> Can you site specific? I'm not sure what >> policy where your >> I think it's 120. Is it 122? It's the one for extracurricular >> is extracurricular. >> Yeah. And it talks about uh the the superintendent and the athletic director and the principal. >> No, not that policy. Yeah, that that would be policy. >> I had the wrong one. >> Yes, >> that's very positive >> because we specifically left that language in policy 123. >> That's why I was confused if >> but it doesn't include the parents or student if I'm correct. Are
111you talking about where it talks about the PIAA defers to the school district for decisions regarding student participation and the decisions are made by superintendent. >> There we go. >> Yeah, that's where I am. >> Um, >> so it's right there where it's highlighted green. >> This isn't just for PIAA. This is for all challenges >> and I'd like >> Well, it intercolastic sports only refers to PIAA sanctioned sports. That's what Yeah. >> Which is So you're saying 123 is specific for athletic intercolastic. >> Okay. I still felt feel that the parents. >> So I'll defer to Diana and Julie who are on the policy committee. There were that because I want to put you on the spot. But when this was the policy when we reviewed it, we did the the recommended language but
112from from PSBA removed this language because it wasn't PSBA developed language. And that's the one I caught later. We sent it back out. It's because my understanding was the board fought pretty hard and when this was brought up before to keep that in there. So, we specifically we went against PSBA's recommendation to put that back in there for our recommendation. So, there it should not it's it's not different than what was in the previous 123. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Does anyone else have any concerns? Uh if not, I can take a motion to approve uh agenda items 6 A, C, and D. >> Before before that, I just want to make a comment. Um we just within the last several days uh received uh a PNN update from PSBA for several of these
113policies that to be which we knew was going to happen right when we updated them. They uh I think three or four of them have recommended updates. I mean, in full honesty, I haven't had time to really look at if they're any different than what we >> updated. You pull those when it comes to second reading. >> I was going to look at them. If there are significant changes prior to second reading, we would share those out and then pull them, >> but I can't even off the top of my head tell you which three they were. >> Would you highlight so we know what's missing? >> As of now, we're not recommending any any changes to them, but we're going to look at look at those moving forward. So we could make if we
114needed to make changes or make recommendations prior to second reading, we could. >> Yeah. >> Okay. But I will take the motion to approve uh agenda item 6 A, C, and D. >> Motion to approve agenda items 6 A, C, and D. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed or abstensions? If not, they are all approved. We are down to the information agenda. Any questions on the finance and operations report, the curriculum report? Is there anything with federal funds, Dr. Hartman? >> Nothing new. They should hopefully start flowing now. >> Yeah. >> And uh administrative policy review. I'm not sure what you want in that. >> No updates. Okay. Then we'll go on to u board reports. Um the IU again is late getting me any sort of
115report so I'm afraid I don't have much for you. There was nothing really outstanding in that. Um the PSBA report is as it's listed and the Lancaster County Academy. The only thing I wanted to add or bring to your attention, the academy um did did not meet, but I forwarded a a request from them to the district. Uh and I will quote from it. We're building a roster of local employers to host one day, 8 hour in-person job shadows for academy students. This supports our schoolto work model helping students explore real career and they're asking for us to share names of businesses. Uh this pretty well closes the circle between the district's work in uh connecting with the community, the IU's work which is a huge amount of uh of work with business. They have
116200 businesses they work with and the academy. So I forwarded that and that went to uh Mel Optim if I'm correct uh to work with them to help them in any way we can. [clears throat] Well CTC report uh there's nothing we can get from Dr. from Mr. Hurst. Um construction team update [clears throat] >> just what's listed on that report. coming along. It's nice to see the backstream. [clears throat] >> Okay. And as far as other reports, I did have one from CVEF, but Dr. Hartman already mentioned the extra gift that's coming up and uh the grants that they they've sent out. This is usually the smaller grants this time of year, but um and and and if anyone questions, they do not give grants to everyone that applies. They're really very careful to
117see it. And I think they're working with the district now to try to coordinate the kind of grants they look at with the district's needs and uh and goals. Okay. Uh that takes us to public comments. Is there anyone in the public that would like to make a comment in general? [clears throat] Are there any board comments or concerns? Well, I would like to add a few. Uh just to mention what's coming up. Um the senior breakfast senior breakfast is tomorrow. Uh shop with the Buckskins coming up. Um in case you didn't realize it, Thanksgiving is coming up and of course our next meeting in December will be our reorganizational meeting. Uh I want to take this time uh to make some general comments. Um, this is my last meeting as president of the board
118and I wanted to make sure you understood what a privilege it is to have this position and how much I appreciate the support I've gotten from you in it. The other thing I wanted to say is that I have sat on I can't count how many boards, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But of those that are outstanding, I could count in one hand and have digits left over. And I include this board is one of the best boards I have ever had the privilege of serving with. Um, and considering how you got to that point, it's even more impressive. Um, and I have all the all of the um confidence in the future because the board that performs at that level makes sure that everyone they bring in is acclimated to the way
119they do things. So for my last uh meeting as president, I am so anxious to get into one of those chairs. I mean I am ready. Uh I want to thank all of you. I want to thank Dr. uh Hartman for um being so patient with me at agenda meetings as I walk in there with the list of questions a mile long and he can answer them all. Right. >> Usually. Yeah. I'm >> sometimes I just make it up if I don't think. >> Yeah. I always have another question. It's it's my makeup. My My husband used to call me she who always has another question because they never stop. And it's not just my last meeting. We're also losing two board members. And even though Mr. Hurst is not here, I would like to
120read to you uh my thank you to him. Philip Hurst was elected to the board in 2021 as a new school director and accepted the responsibility of learning the roles and responsibilities of board service. I suspect he came to us quietly and a bit unsure of what he had gotten into. The learning curve may have been steep and challenging, but he put in the time and effort to find his place and his voice on the board. It was a pleasure for us to watch his journey, and indeed he became a respected member and contributed to deliberations. Phil was never hesitant to share his perspective, nor to cast a dissending vote as long as it was his true position. He has earned the respect of his fellow directors for his sincerity and honesty. We know it
121was sometimes challenging to juggle his schedule but appreciate the effort to fulfill his responsibility to us and his position with the CTC board through which he always provided timely updates. Phil's presence and input will be missed and if he's listening somewhere we wish him well. Now, Michael Thally [laughter] was elected to the board in 2013 and for 12 years has been an independent and insightful voice, always offering an honest, sincere opinion. He has been diligent about sound financial management, student centered programs and policy, supportive of a well-rounded curricular and extracurricular programs and sensitive to the needs of all students. Never in a bad mood and always cordial and respectful to all. Mike rushes from the train station to attend all meetings whether on time or slightly late. He can always be counted on to take
122the responsibilities of board service seriously. He [snorts] leaves us to continue his own lifelong learning journey. And we have asked could have asked for no better than Mike Tally. We wish both of these men to let them know they are respected. They will be missed and they will be remembered fondly. >> Yes. Great. Thank you. [applause] >> And we have one for Phil as well. But >> yeah, just because not here doesn't mean he doesn't get one. >> Yep. >> And I know you you asked us not to, but we also have u some flowers for you for to recognize your service as board president. beautiful >> and a card from from the board. >> Thank you. I'm not going away, you know, but thank you. That's very much appreciated. >> Okay, we are down
123to um upcoming dates. Those are listed on there. And uh if that said, I will take a motion for adjournment. >> Please. >> I move that we adjourn the meeting. Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> We are ajourned.