001foreign good evening folks it is May 18 2023 this is the May meeting for the Council Rock School Board of Directors Dr Sanko please I may ask maximov to please lead us in the pledge everyone please stand under God indivisible with liberty and justice foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] middle school thank you for having us this evening this is the Hollow Middle School string quintet made up of 7th and 8th graders and we would like to thank the Council Rock School Board as well as Dr senko for having us here this evening and also for your support of the Council Rock music program we are going to play one more selection this evening entitled Avalon Rising by Doug sveda [Music] thank you [Music] factions [Music] foreign [Music] the matters [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]
002[Applause] thank you to Mrs rudat in our middle middle school quartet I just whispered over to Mr Solomon and said and they're just in Middle School pretty impressive another round of applause for our students and I think my comment was that was amazing absolutely stunning that was wow I want to watch that again uh Madam Secretary grab a roll call please Edward Tate present Michael thorward here Mary McKee here Joseph Hildago president Ed Solomon here Mike Roosevelt here uh picky here you go to Pally here and Stephen Amos Sonoma is in Doylestown Hospital in a family emergency from there I for those keeping score at home we're actually going to flip uh letter enf the retirement recognition Dr Sanko we have a lot of talent graduating retiring this year some of which we're going to
003say no to tonight um but uh let's get these folks uh that do uh Applause that they need and the respect they need as they are retiring from Council Rock uh we just had a little ceremony before the meeting so Dr senko please take over thank you thanks for allowing me the moment to recognize some very important people uh thank you to everyone here tonight to help us celebrate the hard-earned adventure that several of our colleagues have or will soon begin in just a few weeks retirement from Council Rock moments like this are bittersweet and while the retirees with us tonight are moving on from their work in the district one thing is certain they will never leave the Council Rock Family tonight we acknowledge 32 retirees who have dedicated a combined 650 years of
004service that's one thousand 117 school days 1117 school days spent putting our students first always these folks have served the district in various capacities and are now poised to move on to the next chapter in a New Journey because retirement is not the end of the road but rather a bend in the road that is filled with endless possibilities to quote Fred Rogers often when you think you're at the end of something you're just at the beginning of something else with the retirees in attendance here tonight please stand and be recognized [Applause] thank you [Applause] to each of you on behalf of Council Rock School Board Administration staff community and most importantly our students thank you for your years of service there's no more noble calling than the work on behalf of students and for
005your years of dedication and commitment we are very grateful remember your years at Council Rock fondly in May the years that lie ahead be filled with laughter happiness and more dreams this is our wish for you as we say so long but not farewell congratulations to each of you there's one retiree that I'd like to personally acknowledge and ask her to join me at the podium Sue casergis [Applause] foreign [Applause] ly represents the best in Council Rock she's poised polite discreet and a consummate professional Sue has been my right hand and taught me endless lessons in this job Sue I'm forever grateful congratulations to all of you on your well-deserved retirement you have ensured that the board the office of the superintendent or Administration and or District run smoothly you truly are a Treasurer in
006Council Rock thank you and congratulations to all of our retirees [Applause] so I did work the board and I have the votes to turn that retirement down this evening Dr Sanko has assured me that it's time for you to take the next chapter and you know dealing with you over the last several years has been been tremendous and and there's some folks in the audience who have had my kids and I'm sure you've had some of the board's kids Through The Years uh we wish you nothing but the best never forget where you came from and thank you for always putting the kids first because that's the number one priority Nothing Else Matters it's the kids so thank you enjoy the summer enjoy your life and don't forget us because uh we'll be here doing
007what we're doing best for the kids so thank you from the board [Applause] from there we're going to go down to the craft grants Mr Tate would you like to say a few remarks before Mr Wash comes up as I will um and um Ms dobash has a full agenda so I don't want to take up too much time but these craft grants are exceptional um kref has been able to overcome the the challenges presented by the pandemic and raised enough money that this year we're going to be making a substantially greater number of Grants and a greater amount of Grants and they're really some novel projects that include I think at least one district-wide project while most begin as projects at individual schools they all have the potential to go District wide which has
008indeed happened in the past and I'm excited to let you hear a little bit more about Innovation grants good evening retirees must have known that I was going to ask them to volunteer for craft so they are out of here good evening everyone thank you for the invitation to share some exciting craft news this evening I have the honor and privilege of serving as cross-executive director for this past year and it's been wonderful on behalf of the Council Rock Education Foundation board of directors some of whom are here with us this evening I am pleased to share that we'll be supporting several grants totaling forty thousand dollars for the 23 24 Academic Year this would not be possible without the generosity of our donors thank you many of you are here tonight as well so
009thank you and also special thanks to the Council Rock School District administration and staff that worked tirelessly to put students first always and innovate year after year we are honored to help bring your ideas to life through this process I know the agenda is quite full so this evening without further Ado I am pleased to introduce Jennifer fansteel krep's Grant committee chair to continue with the presentation as well as offer my sincere thanks there she is sincere thanks for all the hard work and commitment she has dedicated to this role in this process so thank you Jennifer good evening members of the board and the Council Rock School Community I'm so excited to be here to introduce you to the nine different grants that we're awarding this year totaling as Beth Ann said over forty
010thousand dollars so we'll soon be writing a check to the Council Rock School District to get these grants going for the next school year um as I call the grant name and the recipient if you could come forward our our craft president Mary malicious is going to hand you a certificate and we will um we'll um introduce them now our first grant is called switch on and it's with Patrick Costello who unfortunately cannot be here tonight but switch on will provide students in the multi-disabilities program with switch activated toys and the toys will improve the students range of motion hand-eye coordination visual targeting which also provides additional sensory input and that is also a special winner of the Chuck Lampert Grant um Mr Lambert retired last year and he um some money was given to
011craft to award to Grants and the special education department and this is one of them so we're excited for that one the other one that's also part of the Chuck Lambert Grant is Samantha Julian and it's called North autistic support supports and um she is here so if she could come forward we're excited this grant is um to strengthen us existing classroom project called dog treats and the students um this enhances the students functional reading and math skills Communications social skills by learning the steps to produce homemade dog treats that will benefit the local pups and we're just giving some equipment to keep it going our next three grants are very special they are they are district-wide grants so each one of these is going to represent a level of our school's elementary middle and
012high school and the first one is is um called Vox books and it is for all the elementary school libraries Vox books are interactive rechargeable books that students can independently listen to and read and every Elementary School library will have a collection of these books and they will be rotated throughout the district and here with us tonight is Kristen topley Lisa Weiss and Ann mckernan and um also part of the Granite Hillary Adams Keith Crowell Bonnie Quran Megan curac Rebecca lichner and Jennifer ventresca this is a pretty exciting Grant so congratulations [Applause] the next will benefit our middle school students at both Holland and Newtown middle school and it is a district-wide suicide prevention program and Kevin Donnelly is with us tonight and he wrote that along with Dr Casey black and this program directly
013benefits 7th grade students district-wide as well as 10th grades 10th grade students and the grant supports the training of 10 additional Council Rock District School staff members for suicide prevention and awareness congratulations thank you [Applause] and at our high school we have the grant called awesome autoclaves and it is Megan mull is here tonight to represent the group it was also written by Ben Roberts Tim Baumgardner Teresa grateful and Megan virick and this program directly benefits the students at both Council Rock North and Council Rock South and is to provide new autoclaves it's an exciting opportunity for both schools to enhance their science departments and provide students with top of the line equipment for their experiments [Applause] thank you and our our last four grants are just for a classroom or a school only and
014we're excited about these two the first one is called calm confident active learner minds and that is with Stephanie Rothrock Melissa sablowski and Lauren pescucci all students at goodnote elementary school who are experiencing dysregulation will have an opportunity to learn regulation and coping skills with the calm project this project will provide three movable movable cards spread throughout the building with resources and tools to help students fully participate in their classroom congratulations [Applause] and our next one is with Richard lockren it's called effective environment where history comes alive and Mr Lachlan locker room plans to create a year-long government simulation to recreate Independence Hall in the Constitutional Convention in his eighth grade classroom I can't wait to see it when it's done [Applause] our next is all I need to know I learned in kindergarten it's
015with Jamie Sager and Lauren mccusker The Kindergartners at good know Elementary will learn new social skills to build confidence kindness and resilience through award-winning picture books for the classroom congratulations [Applause] foreign is with David Curry and Mary Jo Troxel and David Curry is with us tonight this is the NASA Globe outdoor stem weather and climate citizen science project it's a mouthful all seventh and 8th grade students at Newtown Middle School will use new iPads to collect real world scientific data to better understand the science curriculum in relation to weather and climate [Applause] we're so excited for these nine new projects that were that are going to be started next year of the school year and I cannot wait to see them and be looking on social media and other places in the school communication for
016pictures from these projects and past projects with pref thank you so much for taking the time to write the grants for these projects that Inspire children to be better students leaders and Learners congratulations and thank you to their Community for your continued support thank you [Applause] invite any prep board members foreign [Music] thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] Summers over once I make a comment about the craft grants typically donations that are received by the board in excess of five thousand dollars have to be approved by the board so I would like if you're we're interested in doing this someone to make a motion and second and vote on acceptance of these donations I'd be happy to make that motion so we're going to approve all of the Innovation grants at a total of forty thousand
017dollars in one motion pardon me I think it might be in excess of forty thousand forty thousand yeah very good thank you all right did you get it out all right do it again please just I move that we accept the Innovation grants from the Council Rock Education Foundation in excess of forty thousand dollars for the coming school year second Mrs McKee with a second thanks is there any objection or any comment from the board at this time just one comment Dr thorberg please pause that I've been looking at the policies the last couple of days because of some of my experiences on Tuesday I was going through the policies so um I noticed this and um I think it's just right to be transparent with the public and do it cleanly um I would
018also ask not for this one I guess but for the next one this is also curriculum and that's governed by state code um we really should be careful and do this cleanly and discuss them in a public meeting because they are curriculum but not not it's not something I want to do tonight so yeah Mr State please I I should point out that um all of these grants have been reviewed by the administration and and vetted and approved I would say approved is the fair word Dr senko we certainly reviewed them at the central office level there is an internal process that kref uses for application selection recommendation and coming in front of you that the process they used this year is the same practice that they have used and if we should change that
019or talk about that I would respectfully defer to miss Summers on on that because she made the comment about the policy and five thousand dollars is what I'm referring to the donation under policy 702 but Mr Thor work brought this to my attention uh I was there is no way she can answer it right now any other comment from the board is there any objection from the board on this all right hearing none I'm going to answer secretary Mark Mark that unanimous please thank you from there we'll move down the letter the original letter G Mr radic are you here there you are hey buff good evening you have your team with you good evening I do great on behalf of Council Rock South students and staff I'd like to thank you for allowing allowing
020us to join you this year so for one final time and you notice how much I smile when I say that it's not because we don't want to be here with you it's because June 9th is very close for one final time I'm going to ask sophomore Jamie gockman to come up and announce our speakers for this evening Jamie evening thank you for inviting us to join you tonight members of the Council Rock South student Advisory Board are here to update you and the community on various hap events and happenings at Council Rock South High School overall it has been a pleasure meeting with you this year we appreciate the opportunity presenting this evening are 12th grade rep Mallory marsan 11th grade rep Isabella Thomas 10th grade rep Stephen belder 9th grade rep or tour
021kiss and mbit rep Ryan Scannell good evening school board members I'm Mallory Miracle on the 2023 representative if you notice if you notice a new glow about me it's because I went to the Disney trip in Orlando Florida we spent a week exploring both Disney and Universal Studios creating lifelong memories with our class we'll continue the trend of making memories tomorrow during our senior prom the event will be hosted at the national Constitution Center in Philadelphia from 6 pm to 11 pm later on during this month in June we will be wrapping up our high school careers with some end of the year activities organized by South we'll be hosting a senior Car Parade where any senior is welcome to drive around South and say goodbye to both the staff and students I've made our
022four years hero special and the building that has hosted our learning and friendships over the years on to the most important date of all graduation which is in 20 days of my ad is on June 8th senior class of 2023 will be signing off from both councilwalk North and South to continue our postgraduate studies and careers personally I will be studying I will be studying English politics and government on a pre-law track at Temple University also I'd like to thank the teachers especially my English and social studies teachers of course for providing me with a great education that helped bolster my decision and my college path also to my club advisors who gave me the opportunity to engage in my interests after school I thank you as well and finally as a graduating senior on
023Sab there is a tradition of either a song or a dance at the final meeting and lieu of that tradition and for the preservation of all of your ears and eyes I'd like to show you all why considered to be one of my greatest accomplishments while studying Council Rock over the course of this year I took the AP art 2D design course where I studied hair and social effects and how it affects black people specifically as a student in this district for the past 12 years I struggled not only with accepting my identity as a black girl but also accepting what it comes with it here has been a large part of my identity and I'm happy to have been happy to have been able to study under the guidance of my art teacher Mr
024Catalano so now I'd like to say goodbye and thank you for allowing me to update you all in the happenings of the class of 2023. have a good night [Applause] good evening School Board I'm Isabella Thomas the class of 2024 representative and today I'll be informing you on the upcoming events that are happening at Council Rock South on Saturday April 22nd at Valley Forge Sheraton from 6 30 pm to 10 30 PM the junior class had their prom and it was a great success on May 16th 17th 18th and 20th Council rocks Golden Wings put on a rendition of while the lights were out their final production for this school year so far it has been a great success and is helping wrap up this year very nicely on Wednesday May 24th Council rocks junior
025class is holding our class elections for our senior year student council each candidate will be presenting their speeches at the assembly during the first period also later on the 24th we have our blue white and gold night that celebrates the 20th birthday of Council Rock South each student will be rewarded a piece of birthday cake commemorating this there will also be a pep rally during period 9 that day before transitioning outside for the event thank you for listening and have a great night [Applause] good evening Dr Sanko the school board of directors administrators and those listening at home today I have a little update for you on Spring Athletics and on recent news for the sophomore soon to be junior class of 2025. in the spring season starting off with boys tennis the team had
026a very successful few months in the spring ending the season with a record of 12-1 they were led by their two astonishing singles players Alex starn and Mikhail zinder both boys went undefeated the entire season and they will be competing at States for the third consecutive season with the girls track team They too had an amazing season ending the year with a 4-1 record with their only loss being to Council Rock North they had many newcomers show out to track this year and they have left a lasting impact on the team they ended the Sol Championship meet in second only to North with a score of 151 to 150 overall the girls gave a great fight and had some big PR's they are ending their season with the district one Championship meet tomorrow at Coatesville
027with 10 District qualifiers this is the greatest number in many years they're hoping to end the season strong with the boys track team a new band of coaches took the reins their big goal for 2023 was to lay the foundation for the future by creating a culture of hard work and building a love for the sport a big chunk of the team graduated last year but a huge population of young freshmen and sophomore Runners jumpers and throwers quickly filled that absence the underclassmen even more so than others outperformed their competition this season this just went to show the immense potential that this team was is building on the majority of younger athletes are being led by a smaller group of dedicated upperclassmen who continued the qualities of leadership determinate season was their most successful one
028yet from day one the coaches had the pleasure of working with an incredible group of young student athletes that understood the importance of supporting one another as the season went on the amount of personal growth both on and off the track enjoyed by each of the athletes was a testament to this commitment the greatest highlight of the season was culminated in a first place finish at the league championship hosted by Truman growing anticipation for next year's unified track season is continuing to build for girls softball the ladies had a very successful season as they will be competing in The District 1 playoffs next week for boys baseball They too had quite the season and will also be competing in the district one playoffs next week for boys lacrosse the team ended their season with a
029record of Nine and Nine after graduating 17 players last year a young team took on the responsibility to play exceptionally well in their competitive conference this season the team barely missed the playoffs both the varsity and JV teams had a number of new players join on and both teams ended their season playing with great passion and dedication and they had a ton of fun doing it finally for girls lacrosse the regular season took them to the playoffs where they gave it their all but unfortunately lost out in the first round of the District 1 playoffs nonetheless this concluded a great season now the sophomore student council has just completed their annual churro sale which did amazingly well all of the churros were sold out within the first four lunches which gave the student council extremely
030high hopes for future sales next year looking ahead they are excited to accompany the other classes and helping to set up for the annual blue white and gold night additionally they are preparing for their annual donut sale and getting ready for the new officer elections for the 2023-2024 school year lastly in just two weeks Council Rock South will be hosting the fifth annual Travis Manion Foundation character does matter 5K run on June 4th at 5 pm at the south track we are inviting athletes families and community members to join us for a great event to raise money for an even better cause I want to thank everyone for list for being a listening ear this year to our reports and we are looking forward to coming back in the fall [Applause] good evening school board
031members I'm martorcus and I am the class of 2026 representative tonight I will be updating you on the class of 2026 radio club and Orchestra last week the class of 2026 had a fundraiser at the High Tea Bar Bubble Tea in Newtown with 20 of the earnings going directly towards the class of 2026. the fundraiser was a huge success and the funds will be used for future events and activities as some of you may know Council Rock Style's amateur radio club had their contact with the International Space Station on May 1st for 10 minutes students asked 17 questions to American astronaut Stefan Bowen aboard the ISS as it flew over 200 miles above us at over 000 miles per hour the event was a huge success and we even obtained a local news and media
032coverage of our event the students got to see their dedication and hard work payoff and to those who came and watched us we thank you for your support in addition students in the radio club will have an opportunity to receive their tactician class ham radio licenses following a course and passing their radio license test for more information about our club please visit our website at crsarc.org as for orchestra on May 5th we had our pyramid concert where Elementary and Middle School string instrument players had an opportunity to perform with the South Orchestra the event was a success with over 200 participants that attended on May 12th we had our Orchestra Festival where Orchestra members from Holland Middle Newtown middle Neshaminy High School and a shrink group from Temple University came to perform came to perform
033at South they were evaluated based on a panel of judges and given Awards by the judges for upcoming events there will be the spring concert on Thursday May 25th at 7 pm in the South Auditorium please come down and support our players thank you thank you for allowing me to update you tonight thank you for listening I hope you have have a wonderful night and we'll be back in the fall [Applause] hello School Board my name is Ryan Scannell and I'm a senior at Council Rock High School South I'm also a level 300 student in the networking and operating system security program at meadowbox Institute of Technology this year our work based education coordinators placed over 125 students with local businesses in our community the work based education program connects classroom learning with employment experience
034that strengthens relationships between students families employers Educators and Community leaders students from various technical schools throughout Pennsylvania including metal bucks competed in the 2023 skillsusa State competitions our mbit gold medal winners will compete at the national skills USA leadership and skills conference in Atlanta Georgia in June in June 2023 our engineering related technology students celebrated technical school education day at the Pennsylvania state capitol students were proud to show their recent partnership with the Ornithology Lab at Drexel metal box multimedia students came in place for three awards at the Greenfield youth Film Festival and representative Fitzpatrick visited little bucks little Buck's Partners in learning to see the Keystone star 4 preschool and toddler classrooms our students in the early childhood education program were able to share important facts about Career and Technical education ECE programs and
035advocate for high quality child care students from our Horticulture landscape and design program are hosting a spring plant cell starting Monday May 8th the sale is open Monday through Friday and you can find out more on the mbit website skillsusa hosted an ice cream social and raised 1125 for Saint Jude St Jude Children's Hospital such a sweet treat and supporting a great cause our annual senior recognition ceremony will be held on Monday June 5th at 6 30 PM in the William Tennant High School auditorium please mark your calendars and plan to attend this event to acknowledge and congratulate the class of 2023. there are still spots available in our summer career exploration program for students entering 7th 8th 9th or tenth grade during the week of July 17th students are invited to register for 10
036courses offered during the week-long program additional information and registration can be found at www.nbit.org we would like to remind everyone that you can learn more about the latest mbit happenings by following us on social media or signing up to receive our monthly newsletter metal box happenings thank you for your time this year to keep you informed about what is happening at mbit [Applause] Mallory somehow I remember you in elementary school you weren't shy at all to sing hey hey seniors we'll see you Nick on June 8th it is also the happiest day for a School director too so I'm looking forward to it be sure to say hi to us when we're up there thank you guys great seeing you again enjoy your summer [Applause] foreign superintendent report again good evening Dr senko floor is
037yours sir good evening and thank you Mr Solomon board members Mr raddick and the Council Rock South student advisory for their report Bravo and thank you one more time to our Holland Middle School string quartet Mrs Lauren rudat for their performance finally welcome to the community members here with us tonight and those turning in on our tuning in on our CR YouTube channel for our community early this morning we were informed that our phone service was interrupted throughout the district impacting our ability to make and accept calls and at this time I'd like to call Mr Matt Fredrickson to give us some detail as we are going to experience a phone outage through tomorrow the way it seems at this moment Matt so the phone service that we use um goes through several different circuits
038one of the primary circuits that's used is located on a building that experienced a fire this morning the fire department is notified the carrier that they will not be able to access the circuit until 12 midnight tomorrow evening so they will not be able to make repairs until tomorrow evening tomorrow morning myself Don bauschen Engineers from the carrier are going to try to see if we can figure out a workaround to get phone service back up at least temporarily in the building we just won't be able to do it this evening because we don't have enough people in the right places so we'll do our best to get it back up but ETA for service being restored is sometime late Saturday night and for our community we still have internet capability parents can still communicate
039with our schools principals teachers counselors central office through through email correct Matt yes sir thank you um earlier this evening the kref grant recipients were announced on behalf of the entire District we'd like to thank kreth for their support of these grants and that go directly towards supporting students in the in the classroom as you heard these grants included everything from awesome autoclaves to NASA weather devices it's always an exciting time of year for the grant recipients and it's more exciting when we get to put them in front of our students we applaud their commitment to keeping students first always last week was teacher appreciation week and many parent students and ptos took time to honor teachers and staff that work with their children every day there simply are not enough words or ways to
040thank our Educators for all that they do day in and day out to support students the best evidence of the power that you have as the adults working with students is to shape the lives of the students in their Readiness to move up to the next level in school you make a difference in the lives of your students every single day and we thank you for your dedication and hard work the Council Rock comprehensive plan is available for review by the school board and the community the draft and supporting documents are linked on the main page of the Council Rock School District website and will be available for review until 5 PM on June 9th the plan will appear on the agenda of the June school board meeting for discussion and approval as a reminder
041the comprehensive plan is a blueprint for growth and success that is revised and renewed on a three-year cyclical basis the documents were developed over several months and the fruits of that labor resulted in a plan that positions Council Rock for Success now and in the future last night we proudly hosted our ninth and final form of the school year it was held at Newtown Middle School The Forum included students from both Council Rock High School North and Council Rock High School South as well as our secondary principles from both high schools who highlighted the programs and services that support our high school students if you've missed the broadcast you can reply watch a replay of the event on our YouTube channel I'd like to thank the community and staff for supporting these forums throughout the
042year which were based on important topics identified by the community in a survey administered last year in our first year we covered a lot of ground we held a total of 11 forums nine forums specifically related to different topics on that survey and we're proud to say that we have nearly 3 000 views on our YouTube channel surrounding those forums next year we plan to refine the format and continue to provide the community with continued opportunities to see and hear what is taking place in our schools throughout the year today our district art show began at Council Rock High School South and runs through Saturday May 20th the show opens to the public tomorrow Friday May 19th from 6 until 8 pm and Saturday May 20th from 10 a.m until 2 p.m this annual exhibition
043showcases our Visual Arts curriculum and highlights the creativity and talents of students in grades one through twelve each Year's show is better than the last with over 300 pieces of student work on display this promises to be a spectacular event please stop and see the incredible work of our talented students and teachers next Thursday May 25th is our annual District steam night it's an event for families to experience some of the Innovative steam programming taking place in our schools in in community steam night will be held at Council Rock High School South from 6 until 8 PM the event is popular with families because our teachers and staff have chosen engaging activities demonstrations and devices to Showcase a variety of steam related Concepts a special thank you goes to both kvk Tech and the Council
044Rock Education Foundation for Contin for continuing to generously support our steam night and for keeping students first always I invite all board members in our community families to visit steam night Council Rock South on Thursday May 25th some key dates in the weeks ahead Wednesday May 24th is the sixth grade track meet that is for all sixth grade students it will begin at 3 30 pm and held at Walt Snyder Stadium at Council Rock North Thursday May 25th the regularly scheduled education committee meeting has been canceled but we will all be at the family steam night at Council Rock South at 6 PM once again Thursday May 25th the education committee meeting has been canceled board members should expect a memo from our directors regarding topics related to the education committee and we will be
045at the family steam night at Council Rock South Monday May 29th is a Memorial Day holiday all schools and offices will be closed Monday June 5th mbit senior recognition will be held at William Tennant High School located at 333 Centennial Road in Warminster Tuesday June 6th nine o'clock A.M at Council Rock South we will have our seniors car parade and 10 a.m at Council Rock North we will have our seniors Car Parade as well both on Tuesday June 6th also on Tuesday June 6th we have senior recognition nights Council Rock South 6 p.m in the auditorium and um Mr Funk I'm going to ask you to help me here Council Rock South at 6 PM in the auditorium and it's 6 30. Council Rock North in the Auditorium thank you Wednesday June 7th special services
046information session will be held 7 pm at the Star Center in Richboro once again Wednesday June 7th we will have a special services information session at 7 pm in the Star Center located in Richboro this event will be open to the public topics covered include transition services and initiatives for next year once again this is open to the public and finally information regarding the last day of school is as follows remember these dates and additional information are available on the Council Rock School District website or in the district and school Weekly Newsletter graduation graduation for the class of 2023 will take place on Thursday June 8th as in the past Council Rock North commencement takes place at 4 pm in Walt Snyder Stadium the Council Rock South commencement takes place at 6 PM in the
047Council Rock South gymnasium June 8th is also the last day for am kindergarten students to attend let me repeat that for our kindergarten parents June 8th is the last day for am kindergarten to attend the following day Friday June 9th is the last day of school for students in grades K through 11. June 9th is an early dismissal day for students and PM kindergarten students will be attending on June 9th once again kindergarten PM students will be attending June 9th our next school board meeting will take place on Thursday June 22nd 7 PM right in this room and as a friendly reminder you're able to find the most reliable information about our district by looking at Council Rock created resources and individual schools for the most accurate and up-to-date information as with this and all
048information regarding the district we encourage the community to be cautious about relying on information from social media platforms not maintained by the district the most reliable source of accurate District news and information is from Council Rock School District supported platforms this concludes the superintendent report thank you thank you Dr sanco from there we'll go through the solicitor report good evening this summer you have a copy of the written solicitors report that reflects the things that we handled over the last month great from there we'll go to public comment I have two signatures that are both non-agenda items is there anyone else in the audience that wants to make it is it an agenda item okay we'll get to the second half anybody new onions has an agenda item they like to speak about seeing hearing
049none we're going to move to the education I'm sorry letter K approval of the minutes Mr Tate this is your Forte yes thank you Mr Solomon I move to approve the minutes of the meeting of the school board directors held on April 20 2023. second Mr Roosevelt with the second any objections or comments from the board on this hearing Nano ask the secretary Mark that unanimous from there we're going to move the education committee good evening Mrs McKay good evening and thank you Mr Salman um there was a a very efficient meeting of the education committee on May the 8th at which time we received presentations about textbooks and curricular resources uh all of which are contained within the agenda for approval tonight as mentioned by Dr senko the previously advertised May 25th meeting of
050the education committee is canceled as that concludes my report I move to approve consent agenda items B through L as contained in the attachments to this agenda have a second please second Dr thorbert is there any comments from the board Mr Roosevelt please yes um regarding the approval of textbooks and other materials that we've got I think that we have reached a time in which we can provide greater access to the community to come in and review books so I would eagerly ask and look forward to a a new and more inclusive process to allow parents and members of the community and even future students to come into either this building or review it online I think that we at a minimum should be able to provide a list of the books and materials that
051we're providing and I I guess I'm put in a position where I would vote no next year to to something unless there is additional and greater access for our members of the community to come in and review stuff thank you anybody else I would just ask if nobody has anything else Mr Devlin the bayata contract can you just is that for additional nursing services uh yes Mr Solomon so what that is is we rely on a few contractors to provide sub nurses when we're in need we do have a current contract by Ada we rarely use them but it's always good to have somebody in our back pocket just in case we have a need yeah it's a tough job to fill as always yeah anything else from the board all right hearing none no
052objections secretary Mark all them unanimous consent please from there we'll move down to I skipped it last time just want to make sure I'm right this time Bucks County IU Miss Pally good evening good evening um the last IU board meeting was uh Monday May 15th and it's usually a Tuesday but it was Monday because of the election day the big news is that the board meetings will now be live streaming and archived and the first time that happened was in the last meeting and this was just a test time so from now on you can watch all these meetings at your list for entertainment they're not as entertaining as the Council of school I have to say but they do have nice presentations um so they presented the draft or their annual 2023-2024 budget
053which is balanced at 212 million dollars and um value seems to be doing well the rest of the agenda was routine items I just want to bring some dates your attention the graduation of the class of 2023 will be on Monday June 5th at 6 30 at the Central Bucks High School South this is just the host um for there for the event there is a caring Community Awards event in the evening of May 25th and there is also a project search box awards banquet in on May 30th let me know if you're interested in attending any of this I think you'll be very welcomed and uh the next board IU meeting is on Tuesday June 20th great thank you Miss Pally from there we'll go down to the mbit representative Mr hickey but I'll
054tell you what Bob before well good evening we should bring Mr Scannell back uh he does a heck of a report you got to top it good luck to you he's graduating though we can bring him back on retainer or something yeah I'm very fortunate because like I said I have a little agenda you know the things I want to talk about and between Dr Sanko and Mr Scannell basically everything is covered I was going to beat the dead horse about the graduation he did mention the skillsusa competition we do have three students that are competing in Atlanta in June he mentioned the Greenfield Film Festival competition as well which was a multimedia event we had seven narrative film winners five sound design winners and four Public Service Announcement and funny film winners uh in
055addition the big item that we had that we've been talking about for a while is we had a presentation on the welding lab update um we had a couple engineers in there discussing the plans going forward um hopefully things will get started soon uh it looks if things go according to plan they would be able to expand that room from 18 booths to 36 basically doubling the size and with the morning and an afternoon class you'll now be able to have 72 students hopefully this would be able to get done during the next school year with an opening date of 2024. it would also probably require the hiring of a teacher but like I said things are looking bright in that regard one thing that isn't budgeted for what was discussed and presented which was
056pretty interesting was The Culinary Department uh they're they were looking at moving the massive freezers and refrigerators around to a different location which are gonna which would really expand the room in that area and in addition um they were looking at um also putting some outdoor cooking space in there and and closing it and the great benefit about that is other in addition to being able to teach the students how to do like you know barbecuing and things like that it would be an opportunity if it would be approved and going forward is it's something that where you could hold events at like showers and different Gatherings and stuff um like I said strictly in the planning stage it was just discussed nothing even even talked about as far as budgeting but something to look
057forward to um one thing that wasn't mentioned by anyone uh as we go to graduations and awards there were 37 students inducted into the National Technical Honor Society so like I said a lot of good things happening there and uh if you do get a chance to go to that graduation um it's a really neat event I went last year and it's uh so like I said the students ought to be very proud and go from there thank you if I could add one other thing is Dr Silver the auto tech awards are just astonishing the the amount of money those couple of gentlemen are pulling in for school and tools and um it's it's insane it's really it kind of made me feel good when I saw all that up there if if I
058may a couple meetings ago we spoke about one of our own students Patrick gallelli he with his mom's promise will join us at the next board meeting on the 22nd of June uh with his trophy he's one of the students that won three scholarships and over a quarter of a million dollars of uh tools and scholarships from mbit so we're looking forward to Mrs gallelli coercing Patrick to get here so we could celebrate him at the next board meeting Bob if I could not to put you on the spot do you have an update or anything on the budget up there that we've tabled for last meeting and if you can't say that's fine I understand no I I don't have a phone okay all right well thank you sir from there we'll move to
059the Cref update Mr Tate you have anything else sir not much to say other than of course he's plugged the golf outing of course I know um and thank you to miss Pally for passing around these flyers um if you didn't get one we have more up here um I was at Jericho Monday for another fundraiser and and that place is just spectacular the course is beautiful the food is better than ever and um it's a scramble format which means that very weak golfers such as myself are able to have three people carry them along you know and um it's really a great event it's June 26th and there's information on the Cref website thank you very much great thank you sir from there we'll go to policy committee Dr filbert anything sir dad yeah
060a couple of things if I could please um first off policy 249 which is our bullying cyber bullying policy is required to be voted on by the board every three years um it's up for a vote the Administration has recommended no changes I'm looking at the folks here are nodding um do we want a policy meeting for that or do we want to just put it on the June 22nd board meeting and approve it again no changes this is the policy that's in effect now I don't want it to get out we're changing anything it's the same policy um do we want does any board member want to have a policy meeting on this or should we just approve it at the June 22nd would you just send it to us for review and then
061you have access to it and board docs oh okay and yeah then it's fine yeah thank you I would just only ask Mr Funk put Jonas pottery any cause of concern I know we're addressing policy policy changes as needed as we're seeing things develop in our schools I apologize uh We've made a few policy changes this year most notably to policy 227 but I think I speak for Administration in saying that we're comfortable with policy 249 as it stands that's how it got to me was the administration saying except for Renewal so and I'll just stipulate as we've done it this year more than ever if something develops something's not right we need to change it we're going to do it immediately okay and then I'll leave my second uh policy talk for new business
062okay great from there we'll move to finance welcome back Mrs Paoli hello again the finance committee met several times we've been very busy because we're working on the budget for 2023 2024 a preliminary budget is on the consent agenda this is not the final budget I will come to the board for approval in June this preliminary budget needs to be approved and posted according to regulations so we have to approve this budget tonight I would like to talk about the budget and I don't know what would be the right time if after we make the motion or um after Mr Rob make his presentation maybe you can let me know on the agenda we have several items including the approval of the cancer of North and South senior trips for next year also the extension
063of the memorandum of understanding with a new downtown ship in Northampton Township police departments for up to 2025 to provide the school research officer for our high schools various financial statements and updates are also the agenda for review and approval and I assume Mr Tate will cover the facilities update thank you Miss belly um facilities we met also on May 11th at sort of a joint committee meeting and got an update on various proposals and bids for routine kinds of things and updates on the Richboro project and Saul finestone project such as purchasing furniture and I'm happy to say that we also are moving forward on the agenda with five-year agreements with crusa the soccer club and Patriots FC soccer club for five years and they've been valuable Partners in the district and they've agreed
064to a significant steady increase in fees and a five-year agreement will make life easier for them and for us so thank you so you want to read the motion we'll go to and then and then you can have sure the conversation before we go to uh I moved to approve consent agenda items B through v as contained in the attachments to this agenda give me a second please second second Mr Tate is there any objections you have objection or you have a comment comment Mr odago please um so I would have liked to have seen the the proposed budget be separate from consent agenda I know we've had two special meetings since the last Finance meeting I would expect that Mr Rapp would want to discuss it and sort of make things cleaner I would
065like to have seen it pulled from the consent agenda and talked about because some things that we talked about uh should be added back to the to the and put on public records since 30 days starts today okay so let's I don't have a problem doing that you want to remove it from it from from now just think for future meetings we'll just talk about it under consent is fine with me you can talk you can certainly talk about it as part of of the consent or you can um withdraw your motion make another motion to approve um consent items be through D and G through V and then leave the other one out it's it's up to you how you do it I mean if there's if there are people who do not plan
066to vote for this preliminary budget then we should do that otherwise we can live it as it is sure I would just say that's fine I don't think we sometimes we pull it if it's not going to be uh unanimous but just for discussion purposes it would have been good to have it separate but I think we just talk about it under consent agenda and I'm fine with that just wanted to make that point no that's a surprise so when we put the agenda together we put it in consent based on the majority of the feeling coming out of the committee and and I have no problem pulling anything out of the consent if there's no we'll just have the discussion yeah part uh part of my Interruption when you're speaking through objections comments so
067comments are open so you want to make your comment please so I wrote things down because I just didn't want to lose my train of thought okay so I want to talk about this preliminary budget and it has a two percent tax rate increase and it shows a 2.4 million deficit that is expected to be covered by our fund balance in 2024 the fund balance will decrease to 18.8 million dollars if we assume that the tax rate will stay at two percent over the next five years our fund balance in 2025 will decrease to 10.9 million dollars because we will have to cover a deficit of 7.9 million in 2026 if we assume again a two percent tax increase our fund balance will decrease to 3.1 million and it is projected to be depleted and
068in red territory in 2027 and going forward as you can see digging into the fund balance has a downward domino effect and this is these projections are very alarming for cancel Rock I don't know if you know but school districts need to have a fund balance at about eight percent of their revenue which means for us is about 21 million dollars this help us have savings to pay for expenses and salaries to keep our schools open if something happens and we run short of our projected Revenue it also help us maintain our credit rating of double A so we can borrow money at competitive rates to build or innovate buildings and let me remind you that we need to borrow money against next year for the renovation of Richboro Elementary so a two percent tax
069increase is projected to have a detrimental effect on the well-being of cancer Rock and I personally consider it fiscally irresponsible to support it many people think that we run surpluses every year so things will not be as bad if down the road we uh because that because we budget conservatively well this is not really the the case and I think Mr Ted will add to that a little bit later so it was true the surpluses were true during the pandemic primarily for three reasons number one people work from home and the income tax increased was much more than anticipated number two artists gave back Millions to the district thank you our teachers and number three the transportation expenses were significantly lower because students have stayed home and buses were not running now that the pandemic
070is over we do not anticipate these extra revenues and Savings in our budget actually our budget this year may have a deficit because our transportation expenses and the expenses for the substitute teachers were under budgeted it is too soon to tell but my concern is that we will end the year in the negative this will affect our projected fund balance even more so in summary I will vote for the two percent increase right now because we need to pass this preliminary budget but I cannot support the two percent increase in the final budget because I find it fiscally irresponsible we'll need to look at the numbers more closely but I believe that at 2.5 or a three percent increase is needed and it is well below the Act 1 index of 4.1 percent which is
071in part with inflation as a school board director my priority is to keep the district strong and be fiscally responsible this budget includes a rebate to our fixed income residents and the 2.5 to 3 percent increase will support the good standing of cancer Rock now this doesn't mean that this isn't always this come true budget the administration found efficiencies and made cuts of 6.5 million from its original budget and I I maybe I'll make some more comments later but at this point I would like Mr take that looked into this and the Surplus deficit history to um add to my comments Mr Taylor thank you Miss Pally I just I wanted to look at um the past few years particularly starting at the point where I joined the board um because there have been conversations
072about budget surplus and we really haven't if you look historically um had significant surpluses we've had um year-end balances um in the range of 0.7 million dollars point eight million dollars that was um 2019-2020 2018 2019 I found those on our website um and then if you go back in the audit books you can find um we actually in in the first three years that I was on the board um we ended the year with modest balances and transferred before the year end to the fund balance so on on paper we actually ended the year with a deficit three years in a row but the point is we traditionally in this District have done a very good job of conservative budgeting which means as we've heard many times we have exceeded Revenue projections slightly on
073an annual basis last year was a big exception and that was a fortunate thing and we've traditionally and historically underspent by a slight amount every year so we end up with a balance at the end of the year of about one percent or less which I think is the responsible thing to do and I think Mrs pelly's point is is a good one which is if we increase taxes two percent this year we will be fine this year if you look at the numbers uh we would have the last time I'm looking at the uh slides from May 4. um we would have a balance at year end if all goes well according to projection of about a half million dollars however immediately one year later if we're looking at a two percent increase as
074Miss Pally said we're looking at a deficit of 4.3 million and that immediately comes out of the fund Reserve which is down to 17 million a year later and I only go out two years because I think the further you go out the less reliable the projections of course but 2025 we would have a net operating deficit of 3.6 million and our fund Reserve would be down to 13.3 million which is below I believe the district's five percent minimum for fund Reserve so we can get away with two percent this year if all goes well but it is not sustainable um and and what one of the things we've talked about um is to have a budget that provides some predictability for our taxpayers and for the community and we are not going to be
075able to sustain a two percent tax increase we can do it this year if all goes well but I'm concerned that that we're cutting it awfully close I thought you're going to you're going to Cuts don't because you yeah you mentioned the the figure of 6.5 million um from the original budget we looked at that the administration put forward I believe it was in February and the board asked the administration to go back and find efficiencies find places in the budget that could be trimmed and the trimming was very significant to the to the extent of 6.5 million so I just want to say that the budget is a lot of numbers and it looks pretty dry but there's so much work that goes into that and so many different people so uh independent of
076whether we agree on the tax rate increase of two or more or less I just want to thank Mr rap and his team and also the administration for doing so much work because I know all the Departments that had to get together and find efficiencies over and over and over to bring it down from the original number and um uh Mr Rob thank you for getting up to speed on the job so quickly and I thing I'll stop here maybe you guys have more comments anybody else need to comment can I talk sure Dr Ford please a couple of things the teachers gave back money we didn't need it I offered to give it back everybody up here knows that and I got crickets so I'm not uh you know I got crickets so the
077teachers gave money that we didn't need it was a knee-jerk reaction to covid I asked should we give it back and no board members wanted to talk about it so that's number one number two you rattled off a whole lot of scary numbers with deficits can you tell me your projections year to year for Revenue tax base uh this is the this is this is what Tony Mr Rob send out that's his projections for the next five years can you tell me the the the the accelerants you use for Revenue you know earned income tax um all those kind of things because a model is is just that a model does exactly what you tell it to do um generally the the model showed the point zero one percent increase in assessments and a two
078percent increase in taxes um uh we generally make it it's a lot more difficult to project revenues on on those projections than it is to project expenditures and so they were flat uh mostly flat yes there there was no increase in state revenues um earned income tax revenues um several other other items like that that would make some really scary numbers wouldn't it so um regarding the last 2015 2016 2017 year I was elected on the 2015 year two the board before us had decided to build two entire middle schools simultaneously exactly the same size I would have done neither but we got stuck with the bill so some of the money on the 2015 deficit was the bill for deciding the previous board deciding to put those in um the other budgets where we
079showed a negative number we did what we should have done which was transfer money to Capital Improvement projects because our fund balance was ridiculously high so we transferred money to capital projects because our fund balance was ridiculously high now that shows as a red number on an accounting spreadsheet but it really was the right thing to do for the district it was using one-time savings for one-time expenses so I I have a little trouble with scary numbers that say we're going to run out of money in five years because we don't know that and the model is just what we told we told the model to run out of money in five years so it did um so I'm real comfortable with where we are and um I I I I really think if we're
080going to Rattle off scary numbers we should put the whole model up and take it apart so that's just my opinion Mr hickey please uh just a couple things uh you know as we discussed in committee you know I said I would prefer a two percent tax increase I guess my first question I hate I'll ask the superintendent is the first thing when you hear about either low tax increases or no tax increases everybody says oh programs are going to be cut we're not now we're not educating students I would ask with this have we did we cut any programs from this current budget no and I thank you and your staff and the whole Administration for the work that was done with that um Mr Mr Tate referenced uh generally in budgets passed or
081budgets history we tend to overestimate expenses and underestimate revenues and maybe only one percent but if you take that one percent that is two percent and over a 260 million dollar budget that would more than cover the deficit that is expected with a two percent increase this year which is I believe 2.3 million and we still don't know what that final number will be because there's still Revenue coming in for this year and our expenses haven't been paid but generally the last two years that I've been Associated I wasn't even on the board but the last two years the Surplus was 18 million dollars total I believe and to tax seniors and those on fixed incomes anything more than we have to and when we are not taking away Services I think you could say
082it was risky to do it the other way but for the taxpayers who represent with no kids in school the 65 percent of the people out there I think that's doing a disservice to them and I am willing to take a chance that we will cover that 2.3 million dollar difference this year with that marginal one to two percent error in our budget um I had another thought but for there I'll stop like you said so there's no way that I'm going to be uh you know voting for anything over a two percent increase I'd love to see that number in the one but you know I understand you know they say that pigs eat and Hogs get slaughtered so Mr Roosevelt yes thank you this is always a difficult time I believe for both
083this board this community and this Administration uh it's particularly difficult because we do need to have a predictable uh increase and or rate that taxpayers can can look to and that requires this District to have our expenses close to our Revenue but as some of the as some of my colleagues have indicated our Revenue hasn't come in all the way and there's elements that influence that up and down so as a result of that we do have this conservative budgeting technique to overestimate our expenses and underestimate our revenues to ensure the fiscal ability of this board to meet its this District to meet its obligations so it is a little delicate at this time to figure out um when we don't have all of the elements so I agree that that we do need to
084have a predictable rate for our um for our taxpayers to look to and I I agree with with Dr fallwart that the model does what the model says and if we look at our model and we look at those scary numbers that we heard that's based upon effectively a very flat increase and an expanding expenses based upon what we've got it's very important once again for this District to have our expenses be similar to our Revenue which we can't always control because sometimes we've got contracts with third-party vendors that put us effectively in Iraq in a hard place so the only thing that we can really control to some degree is our revenue and as Mr hickey pointed out that is at the benefit of tax increases potentially significant ones so I'm concerned that if
085we get into the habit of keeping expenses uh unchecked and raising taxes to balance we're quickly going to be in a situation where we will have to rely on tax increases just to keep ourselves and that is not sustainable so um I I think that we've got a little bit of work to do and that's why this is a delicate time of the year to figure out what the rate should be and what is a fiscally responsible thing to do but I I highly doubt that we're going to be in the Doomsday scenario and the future will point that out thank you all thank you everybody else Mr Del please thank you Mr Solomon I appreciate I appreciate the finance and and facility chair for for putting together their concerns and and put you know
086expressing it to the to the board here uh for pushing for 2.5 to 3 increase it was only a few years ago that it was me and Mark bylick that were sitting here and looking at a five-year projection from Bill Stone and very concerned about what those numbers would see so I've been in your shoes before and I I still have have those concerns I'm going to take it a little bit more advanced because everything you know you kind of mature and stew when you're up here in public service and what I what I find is like last year I think it was the same thing where people wanted more of a tax increase last year okay and we tried to push back because you want to control the the purse strings and I'll give
087you an example had we went last year and raise taxes by three three and a half four percent um that would have made it a lot easier for the administration to get the six million dollars extra that they were asking for and you know because we'd have the money for it so if you keep raising the taxes we're going to spend it and we're going to spend it on good things but um you know at what expense to all the stakeholders so it's a fine and delicate balance so that what we're trying to do by holding on to the two percent is to say hey we are raising taxes by two percent and we were thinking I think we even discussed at a slow steady tax increase is what we're going to need to do
088because of inflation and the cost of things going up um and then again I say I've been scared by five-year projections myself and I totally understand that but I also know the fact that next year we have an opportunity to change and and and and right to ship if things get off course so a five-year projection is a great tool to kind of get that roundabout number if we can keep it at two great um but as I said if we keep raising taxes more than what we really need to um it's gonna it's gonna burden some of the people in our in our in our district and we're going to find ways to spend that money and those those will be reoccurring costs so we want the best education for our children at the
089best possible fiscally responsible budget and so my point is just like I said last year if we get it wrong we could adjust it this year Well we ended up pretty good so good that we transferred almost 20 million dollars to the capital but it got back down to the eight percent which is responsible as everybody said so um next year if if it lands in a deficit then we'll be looking at a higher tax increase and justifiably so but again I'll just reiterate you got to control the purse strings if you loosen it up and just keep taking more money we're going to find ways to spend it and then we're going to be looking at making cuts from things that we got used to so we're looking for efficiencies and everything else I
090I think I'll just stop there but the reason I wanted to pull it from the agenda because I was very excited and thankful um that we that you know I asked a question about the the senior tax what can we do to help the relief of the senior tax uh the tax relief for the seniors and not only did I get answers from the solicitor but the administration put forth a plan to integrate it into this year's budget which is a super super super cool thing and so Anthony I wanted to ask you one question about where do I find that line item inside of the the budget you sent out on Monday I'm sorry yes right now it's under expenditures in um in um uh refund of Prior year Revenue okay thanks and we'll
091probably discuss it later someone else might have a detailed question thank you anybody else please no good um so I know we said we didn't really cut anything but one areas that I'm very very concerned about is because we live in a crazy world is the security and the original in the original 6.4 million dollar that was cut it was several security new security positions and I think we need to increase the security in our schools and although it's not we did not cut a program I think we compromised in something that we should not compromise so second with regard to the models I agree the models will tell you according to your part the past when you make predictions and also your assumptions so just looking quickly at the model that Mr Rob sent
092I think he has a three percent increase in revenues uh from year to year and it's the revenue is not flat is increasing but I agree we have to look at the numbers more and work on this model so they're all feel comfortable with the projections and um do the best we think we can do for um to keep cancer rocks strong you looked at me like you had something to say Tony anybody else just I'll just couple things and I just I want to ask pointy questions you can't answer it that's fine Tony in those in those years that you've done a study on on fund balances in those five or six years that you did it and I'm not sure if the entire board saw that workup sheet how many years didn't we
093have extra money at the end of the year um I'll put one and how much was that year did you recall cost of about six hundred thousand so every other year we had Surplus yes okay and then the other comment I don't know Dr Sanko Anthony you guys can chime in here um this conversation started last week with cuts six million dollars in Cuts if if my memory serves me right you folks came to this board with everything on the table of what your wants were and that was a dollar amount that you were able to reduce by saying we don't necessarily we want these folks we realize we can't afford it we looked at it we reduced some of those asks and we reduced that number by six million dollars is is that my
094record my recollection correct there yes we we presented you with um information and then during the second presentation we talked about the wants and then we talked about things that we needed to function yeah I've had a week of narratives and I'm just I want things clear um Mr Pally you know where I stay on security you can load the school with security you can put more police officers out there you look at the mou contract that we're going to sign tonight we're signing tonight how much that costs um there's things up in Harrisburg that's working in closing looking at the Sterling act to find some more money to come back into our townships um I want to find more resources and revenues including looking at EIT and get rid of our occupational taxes I
095think that's a study worth having in Mr Tate I think you agree with that um I said this last week I'll say it again I have absolutely no trust in last year's budget we've had two CPAs spent countless hours ripping that budget apart and finally fixing it because it was improperly done it was trash and these folks have done their job and then some costing costing us ways different ways of looking at where we are now this for me is the Year this is the foundation year this is the foundation to build budgets off of I have no trust in last two years budget if I did we'd be probably having a different conversation whether it's two percent two point five percent um the difference is about seven hundred thousand dollars of fund balance being
096used between two and two point five when you have fund balance and we've seen a a recent report come out of the state where school districts have over taxed had extreme fund balances and they got they got hit and they got called out including a neighboring District um to tax somebody and have a fund balance at the end that's a hard sleep that night when you find out that there's extra money and you tax these folks for for in my opinion something you didn't need to do so my my take this year is the recommendation the conversation that started many weeks ago which I thought most of the board was interested in was around a two percent some use of fund balance Tony introduced last week that he found the additional savings somewhere or found
097money that came in which would have reduced that even more um that's where I want to be I think that's smart and and this board can come back next year under Tony's uh conversation which will start in September and he's on the record saying that we can talk about budgets then and and fix a real budget if it needs to be fixed by someone who has the wherewithal and the knowledge to create a budget and do a good budget so for me I had no problem doing this and I have no problem having continuing conversations like security guards uh finding a way of getting additional security especially at our middle schools and now I think you would attest to that as well um but that's that's a type of conversation I I'd like townships to
098buy into a little bit and put their money back into our schools as well so I'm good with this I want to still talk I think we that's what makes us good when we have these conversations but I I I've lived through these these these you know screaming fire in a movie theater we're going to run out of money over the last couple years and none of it's ever come to fruition so if anybody has any more comments Joe please I I appreciate your comments very much and when we talk about security it always makes me think back to a um my original notion when I got on the board which was what about volunteer Corps you know we have PTO and all that stuff so not that we could make this a policy there's
099there's a lot to think about but how about the fact that there might be people out there willing to share their time and commit like the people on this board to to help our community and if that means being a don't give much so much Authority but somebody that can help monitor if they're willing to help if they might be parents whose children are where are in these facilities in the evening maybe there's something there to be done you know and that's you know not for tonight's conversation but I'll put it out there great thank you if there's any other oh Mrs McKee thank you uh pull the finger I'm sorry thank you I've I've spoken about my position at uh prior finance committee meetings and I'll just take the opportunity tonight to express my
100support for a budget that includes a two percent increase it is uh for a variety of reasons that have already been referenced I am grateful for the work done by Administration by the business office to uh bring down what was initially at 16 deficit down you you managed to cut 6.5 I'm grateful for that for your work on that I'm also confident in what Mr Rapp has presented to us as being reasonable and doable for all of us um I share concerns about what do we look like in the future and it is the future and none of us know for this year for this budget I am satisfied with the two percent I'll be supporting the motion tonight did you have something yeah yeah um and I'll pay you backing off what you said
101Ed um we're about to approve a memorandum of understanding you know we want Security in 2025 an officer in one of our schools going to cost us 106 000 a year plus overtime so we have to figure out how to find and fund that and I like your idea and I think the IU and other people could Lobby the state to fund those or the townships because we pay police officers Township police officers to do this and they do an amazing job and they're wonderful and and it's perfect but um we pay them it's not the Township police force we're paying for them and it's expensive so we need them and I really think we do need them especially at the middle school we need to State the pony up I really think if security
102is something if you want an officer in every school it's as simple as delegating the funding no one in Harrisburg would say no to that if someone had the wherewithal to actually pitch it so good anybody else oh I'm not sure if we had the second on my emotion I did Mr Tate I believe uh okay second is you made the motion Mr Tate the second we've had conversations is there any objections to the motion that's on the table all right hearing I'm sorry Mr rep did you want me to present the numbers or are you prepared sir yeah I have I have a presentation oh let's go oh we held you up I apologize okay um just to show you the the these are the numbers um for the for the budget for the
10323 24 school year um we're budgeting to have 265.5 million dollars of Revenue um 267.9 million dollars of expenditures which brings us to a shortfall of 2 million 404 841. um just before I go any further I want to I want to make sure that this this budget does include a two percent tax increase real estate tax increase it also includes uh a rebate of 75 of the tax rebates that our seniors would receive from the state of Pennsylvania for the 22 calendar year so we would be giving 75 percent of that or the remaining amount of their taxes whichever is less it also includes we on on the May 4th uh finance committee meeting where we talked about the budget we did increase we did add some positions back that were removed including um
104the the two security guards some some gifted teacher positions and two ELD possessions um so again this budget brings us to a 2.4 million dollar shortfall um we do plan to use 336 thousand dollars of the educational initiatives fund balance to fund um new white boards throughout the schools and that is a project that that you know an appropriate use of that fund balance for educational initiatives and then the use of assigned fund balance would be uh 2 million to to about two million dollars um so that's or 2.1 million dollars so that's where where the the budget numbers that I'm asking you to approve uh in the proposed budget which again will be it will be tomorrow it will be um put up on our website and will also be available for inspection in
105the um in the atrium or in the lobby here for for anyone that wants to come in and look at it or wants to look at it online it'll be on on our website um so that's that's you know where we're at with the proposed budget uh as of right now any other questions on that or thank you Joe do you have a question I'm sorry no just saying thank you appreciate that Anthony is there any other questions from the board at this point is there any objections after all this okay when it's secretary to mark that all unanimous thank you very much from there we're going to Personnel actions Mr Tate do you want to take them or doctor forward one of you guys flip a coin Dr Philbert thank you I moved to
106approve the personal actions as contained in the attachment to this agenda and further move to approve the addendum to the Personnel actions as contained in this agenda and the second please second Mr Roosevelt second any comment from the board any objections from the board on these yeah can we have a roll call vote I'm going to have trouble with some of these vote no you want to roll call on these it's not too courageous is it no don't she's already planning her next stage she's got her flowers all prepped up yeah are you I'm sorry you want to roll call you combined Personnel actions all right can I have a roll call please Michael thorberg no Mary McKee yes Joseph Hildago yes with gratitude Ed Solomon yes Mike Roosevelt yes Bob hickey yes you go
107to Pally yes Edward Tate yes okay good all right from there we're going to move to the second set of public comment uh oh you got one more you go why I'm ready try to get through it are you ready I'm ready I go to the Erp I'm sorry all right thank you all those people are home saying wait a minute goes by Wildwood vacation I moved to approve the edrpp assignments and payments as contained in the attachment to this agenda second second Miss Bally and he comments on the board Dr Ford I reached out to you earlier Dr senk when when you um get all these job descriptions for these and everything else done um I'd like to ask that I mean I'm assuming you're going to group these so um number of heads
108per per grouping if you could give us that um which should be simple and then I I don't know about edrp but all the other Personnel stuff you know how often you review performance on them too so you know because I'd like to think our employees see a performance review so we can tell them how good they're doing or not so they know so thank you thank you Christine can I just ask a question I I don't think I've ever asked this question how do we arrive at these dollar amounts per position I guess is the fair term yes I'm sorry the unit value is determined by the collective bargaining agreement and the unit values have been done by committees over the years so the sports and the clubs each have a specific unit value
109and the very quickly and high level summary is like the amount of time spent energy the amount of meetings individuals involved there is a edrpp committee that is run by the Association that meets frequently that we'll meet with Administration this year we have not met but we've met in the past is that consistent through most school districts as they worked it the same way yes very consistent yeah and I think it's important just to highlight that I mean I wanted to know personally but people do read our agendas and they read dot board docs and when you see the dollars I as a taxpayer I'd like to know how they come up with those dollars because they're it's not like just point zero zero it's it's change involved and and it's kind of wonky to
110some degree yeah districts are very consistent as well with job descriptions across the county um the way that jobs are categorized and how job descriptions are written across Bucks County very similar for coaching and Club activities there's not a specific job description for every club or every sport there would be one for Club leader one for Coach the same for Teacher you wouldn't see a job description for say science teacher math teacher you'd see secondary teacher special education teacher So within school districts there are a lot of similarities in how we operate and then there's a lot of collaboration on you know let's look at each other's materials we'll look at one another's edrpp breakouts and you you won't see great disparity when you look across districts well thank you I appreciate that any other
111comment any objection from the board hearing no noise secretary Mark that unanimous now I'll move down to public comment uh public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board when speaking to the board we ask that you limit your comments no longer in three minutes please consider the fact that there may be young children in the audience or watching this broadcast live on crtv slash YouTube your ideas are welcome and will be considered in deliberating an issue the board may not respond to your comments or questions in real time first up uh welcome back Miss Lyndon from upper Mayfield at this time okay next up is Rachel Christian from Northampton thanks for hanging in hi everyone Rachel Christian I live in Northampton um and I just wanted to have four
112quick questions they all relate to each other and Dr senko's piece was really great right at the end there we said only trust uh Council Rock platforms right and I cannot find the answer to this on any of your Council Rock platforms so I'm here to ask you guys the question um Hot Topic came up a lot this week and I did some Googling and could not find the answer banned books in Council Rock are there any banned books in Council Rock did this come up if so what are they um third question if there are banned books what's the policy and how does it relate to the board for how that would happen or if there are none hypothetically how would that occur and where can you find that in writing and can we
113make it accessible because I just sat and Googled during your meeting a little bit too can't find it anywhere um so understand you might not be able to live answer me but if you do have an answer that would be great and I would love to hear the answer to those four questions ma'am sit tight that was my new business thank you Miss Lyndon I'll go back to you are you good for the evening I thought you said pass for now okay until the next meeting we'll see you at the next meeting um there's nobody else on there from there we'll go to new business of the board any comments from the board yeah Dr Fort this was the one I was going to bring up in policy but it probably deserves to be new
114business um I went to the polls on Tuesday when I got to the poll to vote and I deliberately went in shorts and a t-shirt and sneakers I didn't even tie them so no one would recognize me and I got asked about why I was Banning books on the way home I stopped at two other polls who have traditionally had problems with the school district you know scheduling things like big events at the same time so I stuck I always stopped to check in they're on the way home and both those polls asked me the same thing um and this came up it's policy 109 that somebody attempted to do this with before um policy 101 doesn't talk about banning books it's just we we tweaked it to have a responsible party for um uh
115who who Who's responsible for resource materials you know and before it was every High School principal School principal we made it the superintendent um so I'm I'm gonna as as policy director I I looked at these people and I said we aren't Banning books we don't do that people that banned books usually aren't the good guys so um I was a little taken aback by it um so I'd like to ask the board do we want to have a policy meeting on on Banning books does somebody want to be on books um because if so speak up we we can we can I'm not going to support you but I'll open a policy discussion but the fact that it was Universal at every poll I saw and then heard from afterwards I'm a little concerned
116we we don't do that um we didn't do that when we were working on policy 109 either but we had hundreds of people showing up saying we were so um if we need a policy committee on that I'm happy to entertain it you aren't going to get my support for it but I I thought I'd throw it out to the board does any I mean Mr Tate you were policy director for a couple years before me you you didn't see any policies doing that did you no okay so does anybody I'm throwing it out there okay I'm hearing nothing um so ma'am we aren't Banning books is is the the short answer long answer only answer um policy 109 was the last time people got an uproar about it when you see it it's a
117nothing policy but please read it so you know it's a nothing policy anybody else from the board new business anybody for old business Mr tape please I uh failed to mention um I wanted to include in the facilities report that the subcommittee of facilities committee for Safety and Security met an executive session on May the 11th um and had a discussion with District leadership about various Security Programs in development and underway and I just wanted to share that so that the public knows we have a Safety and Security subcommittee and it does meet with the administration yeah thank you for catching that Ed anybody else all right going around hearing none meeting is adjourned thank you folks