001foreign secretary roll call please edward tate present michael thorbert present miriam mckee here joseph hidalgo mr doggo's away on vacation with his family ed solomon here mike roosevelt here bye picky here go to pally here kristen marcel here thank you and good evening superintendent report good evening dr shanko good evening mr solomon board of school directors community and council rock this has been another extraordinary week for council rock as we celebrate at graduation for the class of 2022 and we watched our students in grades kindergarten through 11th move up another year the last day of school can be both joyful and bittersweet but there's pride in knowing that our students and staff worked hard until the very last day our graduation celebrations began with car parades at both council rock north and south followed by
002senior recognition nights for both high schools as well as mbit there are several points of pride excuse me that i would like to share about this year's graduating class on thursday june 9 council rock graduated 916 seniors under blue skies at walt snyder stadium and from inside the council rock south auditorium let me share with everyone a profile of these graduates to give you an idea of just how great this group of students is more than 90 percent of our graduates are planning to enter college or university programs at institutions across the country 14 of our graduates will enter a branch of the u.s military harvard princeton and the university of pennsylvania are among the few of the ivy league schools our graduates will attend and the next statistic is rather impressive in total our
003graduates will receive over 10.3 million dollars in scholarships this is an outstanding amount but not surprising given the excellence in teaching and learning that council rock is known for the parents and families and graduates on behalf of all of us we would like to congratulate you to the teachers and staff who supported the students on their journey well done and to the council rock school board who works to support our consistent consistently exceptional instruction thank you this past tuesday concluded the school year for the final day with students in grades k through 11. we wish those students and their families a happy fun and safe summer we'll see them in august and for some who are excited that the summer just began i'm excited for the school year to begin next year our august opening
004day for students in grades k through 6 and in grade 7 and 9 is monday august 29th and our schools will open for all students k-12 on tuesday august 30th parents and families can view the calendar for the upcoming year 2223 on the council rock website under the school year calendars tab our sixth grade students at all ten elementary schools enjoyed a clap out which included a greeting with their parents before boarding the bus for one final elementary trip home clap outs are a fun and emotional tradition at council rock where all schools have students lined the hallway to celebrate and clap out the sixth graders as they depart one last time this evening before this meeting we celebrated our retirees congratulations to our retirees the teachers and support staff leaving council rock service this
005year there are 29 crea and crespa retirees collectively these people have logged hundreds of years of service to our students and they represent the finest of council rock join me in wishing them all the best in their new adventures since becoming superintendent i've been able to meet with the staff of all 15 schools department staff student leaders association leadership and individual community members these visits were an opportunity to get feedback and ideas from the people with whom i met i would like to personally thank everyone who gave their time and shared their expertise and i look forward to meeting with and listening to more people throughout our community another reason for us to celebrate was our steam night it was refreshing to have council rock return to hosting a district steam night there was an
006impressive turnout of students and their families and art science coordinator mrs devlin shared positive feedback from the community after the event steam night was held at council rock south on thursday june 2nd working with the bucks county intermediate the council rock education foundation kvk and other sponsors the best of council rock steam programs were on display again thank you to mrs devlin our science coordinator the council rock education foundation for supporting uh innovative learning and of course our teachers and staff that made the night possible for our kids thank you for the families in the community who came out to be part of the event prior to this meeting we held a finance committee meeting to take another look at our proposed 2223 school year budget there will be a special meeting of the board
007next thursday june 23rd it will begin at 7 30 pm let me state that again it will begin at 7 30 pm it will be held in this room once again i would like to ask you to join me in wishing dr susan elliott the best of luck in her new position as superintendent in the upper moreland school district and i would like to end this report by wishing our students and families a safe and happy healthy summer be sure to have fun and make memories this concludes the superintendent's report thank you thank you sir from there we're going to go to solicitor report mrs harrison filling in for mr cox this evening thank you good evening good evening the board held an executive session on june 15 2022 to discuss a personnel matter no
008other report thank you ma'am from there we're going to public comment public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board we ask that you limit your comments in no longer than three minutes please consider the fact that it may be young children in the audience are watching this broadcast live on cr tv when speaking it is our goal to maintain a respectful environment so that the members of our community have an equal opportunity to address the board without interruption while the board welcomes your ideas and will consider them in deliberating an issue we may not respond to your comments or questions uh one two three five people signed up two of which have agenda items they will go first first one oh hi i didn't sign up okay i'll give
009it to you i'll slide it down the row give me two seconds is this an agenda item sir or not it's uh how can i say a compliment you've got everybody okay yeah yeah let's let's start it off good i'm on down sir just take your name and where you're from your second dad mr tate thank you am i allowed to talk now yeah yeah okay you don't compliment i'm gonna now i got two you're good enjoy the evening welcome um my name is wayne mills it's going to be hard a little bit tonight to say but my son was scott mills he was a school teacher at council rock middle school it's almost his fifth year of dying in july 2nd i'll tell you about that a little bit but let me say you've
010got a good reporter here for the bucks county courier brett duffy over here he was a a student last year and graduated from council rock south so i think you got the best and at least it's keeping it in the area the second thing hits my heart and it always did my son died scott mills 33 massive heart attack no drugs no alcohol he would get calls from it from my house he lived with me he went to five years of council at penn state but he lived there and he would say dad i'm leaving he would go down ocean city or wherever somebody was almost ready to kill himself and he went down there and saved their life unfortunately he died but god had a reason and he's in a better place but there's
011more to it than this story isn't he died on a sunday july 2nd and it's i might cry but his birthday was july 4th two days later they called me in ocean city he was running a marathon to make money for somebody and i they said come down he's not gonna make it i got my car i didn't know where i knew where ocean city was but i didn't know how to get there but i was on the way down at um near the palmyra bridge i called the andy sanka and i said andy i think scott died he's dying you know what that guy did he says wayne stop i'll come down over there remember that buddy i meant scott worked at the ymca where andy was at holland middle school holland elementary school
012principal and they talked and also i was a judge of election for 20 years at holland elementary school and every day don't every dawn time andy would come and say election day how you doing is it warm enough is it cold enough can i get your water can i do he was always there and even afterwards he gave me a cell number if i needed anything he's such a great guy but that's not the point well that is but not the full thing so i was by um saccone palmare bridge and i called andy and andy said stop i'll come down and take you down there and i said no andy i said i'll figure it out every half an hour he called me on the phone and said when are you okay all the
013way down then when i got down here almost down there he says i my sister can put find a place for you to be put up that's how much he cared that's how much a great guy he is then he even called me later and says i'll get a hotel for you and i'll pay for it we'll get a credit card that's how he is i found out i went down here and i saw my son in the emergency laying there things up his nose arms whatever he passed away so on my way home andy was calling me every half an hour again just because he cared and that's the great guy he is then i got off the attack county palmer bridge and pulled on the side and i called him and i said
014he says how you doing i said i'm tired and i need you know i'm hungry he says i'll bring some food over your house i live in holly right around the corner i live by myself but he's such a great guy and i told him i would never forget that and it's five years now that my son died july 2nd his birthday was on july 4th but he was and and at his viewing he had 1500 people there 1500 because everybody loved him and cared about him and he was he was always out there for everything i'd see him he he left at 7 30 in the morning taught until 3 15. he coached after he coached he tutored kids and did different things then he went and came home i made him a fresh
015dinner whatever but on the weekends he always for the council rock he always the referee six games a weekend almost for mr mills 30 seconds please okay tell him to be quiet because i got a lot of good things you just did no i'm sorry but i'm a big joker and kidder but i you got the best guy in in there andy he can't beat the best you can't beat him he always has his heart in the people everybody while i was in the judge of elections there everybody spoke highly of that guy i don't know what else to say thank you andy and you know what god is up there scotty's up there and he's looking down at you and smiling at you every day and day thank you i'm sorry [Applause] mr mills
016your son was my daughter's softball coach at holland middle school your son was my daughter's softball coach at allen middle school good man you know what he is better looking at me well if you want to have that conversation we can i mean you got the man crying i can't look at him because then i'll start well he's a good man you're a good man yourself thank you very much you good all right here we go again uh next up i'm just going to go down to the people that have signed up for the agenda item priscilla linden i hope i have that name right good evening can you just stay with township you're fine please good evening i am priscilla linden of 50 dylan way washington crossing a retired educator i'm alarmed that two
017books already recommended last month at the education committee meeting are to be singled out for possible removal from the approved curriculum tonight the professional judgment of our teachers and the positive responses of our students should not be censored by a small politically motivated group of adults the giver has been a classic novel taught in middle schools for decades it personalizes the experiences of the main character jonas as he confronts moral dilemmas in his society just as many of our same age children are encountering for the first time in hours today it makes people think about basic character choices they must learn to navigate in the time of the butterflies is a refreshing choice of both author and protagonists which stand to broaden this world literature curriculum beyond white males from britain and the united states
018although fictional it is based on the assassinations of three real characters it is long past time when female characters had their due and real situations from elsewhere in the world were addressed i served for 39 and a half years in the nearby montgomery county school district as k-12 supervisor of social studies world languages and english as a second language and also as assistant high school principal as well as a stint as principal of a k-3 elementary school i also taught and supervised beginning teachers for 10 years at arcadia university [Music] i have experienced similar attempts to assault rational thought and civil discourse in our schools in my decades the double speak attack words were secular humanism and globalization both intended to develop sameness and deny our students the thinking and problem solving skills and personal
019character development required as responsible citizens in a complex and interdependent world i'm happy to say that we persisted and developed curriculum with those very goals throughout please do not remove these two works from the approved curriculum that has been recommended by our professional educators thank you thank you very much next up is misty law flurry from newtown good evening i just want to say how moved i was with mr mill's public comment and um was just going to say congratulations dr senko and that just drove home the point how happy we all are that you're in that seat tonight so tonight i'm speaking on behalf of vanessa smith of holland vanessa um is not able to attend she's had five children in the district one is in college four in the district currently and so
020i told her i would read on her behalf public comment in march of 2022 vanessa smith had concerns about a book in south's library called fun home a family tragio comic tragic comic that contains serious sexual content that she wanted to show during public comment at a school board meeting but was told she could not because the photographs would be deemed pornographic vanessa smith wrote to dr elliott dr senko and the board about her concerns about fun home and provided pictures contained with the books that were most concerning to her she wrote this had me say dr elliott responded to my email that she would look at the book fun home and would be conducting a review and ask for time to do so just today and perfectly in time as we discuss education curriculum
021tonight i received a follow-up email from dr elliot in which she said the following dear ms smith a committee consisting of several members including a librarian from a different building english department coordinator a high school teacher a parent and the district library coordinator read the book fun home in its entirety and met to discuss their evaluation of the book they provided me with their evaluation and at this time i recommend that the book fun home a family tragic comic be removed from the library shelves at council rock south i have informed the building principal and librarian thank you for your patience as the committee took time to thoroughly review the book in the future if you have concerns about a particular book in the library or wish a book to be reconsidered please refer to
022administrative administrative regulation 109 r6 in ending mrs smith says as opposed to these these accusations of book banning that have been floating around on social media and in the news today i appreciate that council rock school district and dr elliott created and worked towards a policy for parents to utilize when concerned with books in our school libraries thank you ma'am that's it for public comment as far as check boxes for agenda items i have three more people that will speak later unless they check the wrong box is that correct non-agenda items were checked right okay from there we're going to go to g and h dr thor would you mind please sir sure i moved to approve the minutes of the meeting of the board of school directors held on may 5th 2022 and i
023further moved to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the board of school directors held on june 2nd 2022 have a second place second second mr hickey any comments from the board any objections hearing none i'll ask secretary mark that unanimous consent from there we'll move to education committee good evening mrs mckay good evening and thank you dr mr salman um the education committee met on may the 19th we had two agenda items the first being the proposed textbooks and curriculum materials uh suggested for approval tonight and secondly um the second item was the elementary enrollment and and some ideas around problem solving to that effect we looked at uh current class size guidelines we looked at projected number of sections as it stood with may enrollment and then we discussed some short-term considerations
024we looked at information that might assist us in long-term planning and on this topic i should mention that there will be a community forum at wrightsdale elementary school on monday june 20th the topic being facility utilization um as i have a number of items to be approved tonight that will conclude my report the next education committee meeting will be august the 25th if i may move on please thank you i moved to approve consent agenda items b through g as contained in the attachments to this agenda second second dr thorbert any comment from the board b through g any objections hearing none i want to ask the board to mark that when you have consent mr mckee continue please thank you i moved to approve the 2022-2023 textbook core resource quote the giver by lois
025lowry and quote presented for approval at the may education committee meeting at a total cost of three thousand forty dollars second second mr tate as the maker of the motion may i just say that i am fully in support of this motion and i hope my board colleagues will agree this is a book of great value it was it was present in my sixth grade classroom and i know is a very significant book for young readers thank you ma'am any further comment from the board dr thorward please go ahead mrs marcel please oh no it's okay i can wait until uh dr forward speaks no go ahead you're on the phone okay i was just going to mention that um i wanted to do a roll call for that particular motion that's correct we'll do
026that do you have any comments man my comment is that um just from reading some reviews that are online i have concerns about incoming 6th graders 7th graders reading this particular book i'm sure that for older students it might be more appropriate i do have some concerns i have a daughter who is that age and um i think about the past few years in terms of what she's been through and the stresses of this the kind of coveted concerns the the amount of stress that those children have been under um some of the themes in the book also just concerned me in terms of some of the kind of more tragic events that have occurred in council rock recently and so um i am going to be a no for this particular text but uh
027but i appreciate my colleagues comment on this and and miss mckees as well thank you thank you mrs morrison dr thurwood please just um a question for dr sanko i i believe you've read this one um and you've you're okay with this i mean i'm we've been deferring to you a lot so so i like miss mckee when i taught sixth grade this was on the shelves in my uh classroom library i am familiar with it though i haven't read it in quite some years and i'll follow up with as i was walking out the door at dinner i talked to both my kids about it and they both read it as well so thank you thank you sir mr belly yeah so i remember my kids uh reading this book and they loved it
028so much that they made me read it and that doesn't happen very often i found the book extremely interesting and it created a lot of discussions at home and also i'm sure we in their classrooms and then there was a movie that they made out of this book and we definitely had to watch it because everybody loved it so much i really don't see anything negative about this i mean it's one of my favorite titles so i would definitely be voting in favor thank you ma'am anybody else mr ricky please uh i will as i've mentioned before in education committees with certain books that are being proposed and are being distributed in our district is the age-appropriateness of the book uh like i said i'm not into if if this was a high school book
029i would be a yes but for an incoming seventh grader in light of all that they've been through in the last two years at this point in time i feel it is an age inappropriate book and i will be enough thank you anybody else mr roosevelt i uh this is a good book but similarly is it appropriate is it good i thinking about the process which is something that concerns me i i agree that we shouldn't have a select few of adults making a decision our role as school board um directors is to represent the community in which elected us so we have to balance a lot of things there are a lot of uh we we're doing to some degree juggling so i you know we are not representing necessarily or i don't think
030we should be representing our own views we should be representing the views of our constituents and we should be able to discuss that with them so i i think that i would like to see this administration come up with a process that's similar that reviews books that have already been put on our shelves and are being pulled off the shelves because of a more thorough review i think a level of review like that before it comes to the board would be appreciated so that we have a wider uh discussion of it thank you thank you miss mr roosevelt mrs mckay please thank you um i i just want to go back and be a bit more thorough perhaps in my reporting each of the items on the education committee agenda were very thoroughly presented a
031great deal of time was taken by not only the presenters our curriculum coordinators teachers um but but time in preparation for that meeting a great deal of thought and preparation went into presenting the materials to us and giving us the opportunity to ask questions and discuss at that time and while i certainly respect the differing opinions of others i wouldn't i would like to remind us that we are here to support education which means supporting educators they are our professionals they are the ones in the classrooms who are recommending materials to us who have taught books or have seen children's enjoyment of books of rich literature that should be available to our students so again with with all due respect let's keep in mind too where the recommendations come from and let's respect the work
032of those educators thank you mrs mckay mr tate are you gooders it's up to you yeah thank you mr salmon yeah um i believe strongly that the perhaps greatest strength of the council rock school district is its teachers besides in addition to well-prepared students and great administrators but we have some of the finest teachers around and um i you know um including retired teachers who taught in council rock and and um you know this this book has stood the test of time and we have a process if a parent objects to a book to to pursue and it's a good thing that we have a process and a one of our speakers from the public noted that after a review of a particular book dr elliott our former assistant superintendent recommended that that book be
033pulled from the shelves the process works i hope we don't get into a situation where this becomes a monthly thing i think that would be a bad use of of our teachers and administrators time but the process is there i think a book that has stood the test of time that our teachers recommend and that is loved by our students deserves approval by the board and i hope we don't go down the road um this slippery slope to use an overused term of second-guessing our teachers and administrators recommendations on a regular basis um so i fully support approving the purchase of this book thank you sir and i'll just add that you know this education committee meeting was also on a date that was in between uh the announcement of dr sanko as a finalist
034uh dr elliott's team uh council rock team put together the the slides and we all sat through that presentation um i trust the man next to me i trust that he's going to put a team in place that that is in front of things um they are not there yet um but as mr tate said we do have a policy um that we can look at and once that team gets into place i would i would just ask dr sanko and the team that that this is an issue that we hear around the country and locally that we just get in front of these things um what may work in one household may not work in another household um but until that team's in place i i you know my my knee jerk is that
035i have no problem approving either one of these textbooks knowing that the man the right of me and his team uh have the wherewithal to to pull back and we just heard a public comment where hey one one got through and we took another look at it and we're taking off the shelves um so that's the only thing i would hope i would hope and and i will keep an eye on that i know our relationship is there um teamwork is is is a standing order with him um so you know my concerns are you know some of the concerns mr hickey has is it in the right hands of the right age kid well let's let the professionals do that let's let the team do that um so i'm here to support the next
036two books uh with some caveats and then i'm sure we are at a point or we'll be at a point with this with this new administration where if there's a problem we fix it and and we shouldn't be ashamed to fix a problem we've got to find solutions so that's where i sit with sir you have your marching orders um get that team in place and and you know let's crank it up for the kids anybody else let's go to roll call madam secretary please edward tate yes michael thorward yes mary mckee yes ed salman yes mike roosevelt no picky no yo to pally yes and kristen marcel no okay so motion carries fight three letter i miss mickey i move to approve the 2022-2023 textbook core resource in the time of the butterflies by
037julia alvarez presented for approval at the may education committee meeting at a total cost of two thousand five hundred seventeen dollars and sixty cents have a second please second mr tate any comment from the board that's different from the previous one unless you want to make one please mrs marcel um i had a question um there was a parent that reached out to me about how there was a like a a handwritten diagram of a bomb or something like that in the book and i was just wondering if there was if that's true and also if there's a like a version that maybe doesn't have that in it um i read the book i do not remember that portion of the book no handwritten document of a bomb it is however historical fiction um so
038there are historical events throughout the story but the story itself is focused on the plot and the characterization so the focus is definitely not on anything inappropriate or violent but that are parts of the book that help drive the plot but no handwritten diagram okay thank you mr president thank you anybody else yes mary mckee yes ed salman yes mike roosevelt no mike uh sorry bob picky no here to pally yes kristen marcel now and edward tate yes okay again five yeses three news motion carries five three mrs mckee keep it going i move to approve the 2022-2023 textbook core resource membing presented for approval at the may education committee meeting at a total cost of eleven thousand nine hundred dollars second second mr tate board comment mr dr thorward i know you do yeah
039i i am responsible for pulling this out i was very vocal at the last meeting i experienced this as a as a pilot with my own child and what i discovered was for good or for bad the better you were the harder it became to get the grades you wanted because it punishes people who excel i reached out to our director of curriculum our curriculum coordinator our director of curriculum services i'm sorry early in the school year i didn't get any response no one wanted to touch it which troubles me in a lot of respects because not only am i a parent i'm also a board member and i couldn't get any traction on this one i don't think teaching vocabulary to kids is a bad thing i think it's a really good thing um
040but i think teaching kids that when they excel uh in in the interest of i don't know what we make life harder and harder for you i don't i don't think that's good i don't think that's educationally sound and i don't think it's good so i'm a no on this i'd like to kill this completely i may be the only no but i couldn't look my son in the eyes and tell him i didn't try because he really did not have a good experience with this thank you anybody else this is mckay please thank you just a point of clarification ms pressman the current vocabulary program should we not adopt this is copyrighted what year um in the early 1970s thank you yeah see that that becomes a problem with a lot of these decisions
041in the next one too we you know we have a decision dilemma which stinky fish do we have to take we're backed into a corner as a board because this wasn't discussed uh there were months to discuss this one but here we are um you know we can either take this program which has whatever flaws or we can go back to the old one you know you pick the stinky fish i i don't like that um and i'm hoping our new team changes that uh a lot so mr president maybe it's not fair to ask you this question but i feel compelled i hear what dr thorward saying um i do see some value or a lot of value in the program are we are we have we critique this enough knowing some of the
042the drawbacks of dr thor lays out um that that can be adjusted moving forward or does our team see what he's saying um because there was there was banner back and forth i i wasn't clear that that we we landed in an area that that i feel that this is the way to go but what concerns me is mike and we just heard you just say from 19 what yeah so i don't know i don't know if you can answer that i mean my my thing is i've done some research on this it seems like there's a huge upside to this i i just wonder if it was just rolled out and then did we catch that um and speaking with our ela curriculum coordinator she let me know that we had five teachers at
043south two teachers at north and then teachers throughout both buildings in grades 9 10 11 and the great part was also in courses from reading workshop to accelerated to honors classes so we did do our due diligence and making sure that students from across the board and in both buildings were using this program we also have some of our special education students using this program and i think the big positive with membeam is that it's differentiated for the student so making sure that we're not using a program where you're just getting the same 20 words every week memorizing them getting the antonyms the synonyms but really differentiating what's being dictated for you so that way it works for what you're trying to accomplish and then the great part about membean is that it then continues
044to review the words as you go through so you're trying to do 45 minutes each week you can do that on your own schedule the teacher can create the schedule for you some teachers have students doing it at night other teachers incorporate it into their day and then those words are reviewed throughout so i think that is one of the positives as opposed to i remember vocabulary instruction of being from these books from 1970 of using the same 25 words memorizing them and moving on these these are trying to incorporate them throughout the school year yeah and and might correct me if i'm wrong i i don't think we're discounting that i think i think it was my concerns continue to not be addressed i mean that's the problem the problem is the graded exams
045the graded pieces are not the same for every student correct but the grades are regardless of the performance so the exam would then depend on what your words are so i think what dr thor was talking about is that if you are increasingly doing well in the program you may get harder words or more words than other students your grade could reflect a difference so you could end up saying for instance a b where kids have not done as much work and they get an a based on where they're going you could but i think um mrs burke i was talking about how they tell teachers that the grading portion is optional it's really for the learning experience of the word so the consistency between how you're graded the emphasis is not placed on the
046grade it's more so placed on the words okay mr pelly i think he had your hand up man uh so when i was visiting uh some of our schools actually i think i was with kristen visiting seoul feinstone and uh she has a ghost guest someone that wanted to be exposed to what of i guess public service and she came along and it turns out this girl is a senior at new hope salbury and i was discussing with her and i asked her about this program because it was soon after educational committee meeting and i asked her opinion and she told me that she and her friends they absolutely love it and it helps them learn a lot of new words and then after a while it becomes a competition amongst them about who is
047gonna learn the more words or who's gonna do better at the test um i don't know if it's graded the same way in that school district as it was in uh in cancer rock but uh maybe it's a good idea to consider this program and at the same time figure out if there is a way to grade it and make it so that is more educational and less of a number for the students that don't get good grades when they excel because you want to excel and get good grades yeah anybody else mr jackie yeah um you had said though is there any way to make this membean not a gradable event or to standardize the test in such a way where the the kids who are working extra and performing better are not being
048penalized for their efforts i don't want to say that there's a minimum standard that maybe you could have for all of them so the kids who have surpassed it will do very well and they'll get d.a in it as well as opposed to going for the education of which they're supposed to but then suffering in their grade which in the case of probably dr thorward's son you know being at the top level it's a very competitive situation there um so if it wasn't graded at all or if it was standardized in some ways you know his son wouldn't be punished for being three levels above the next person is it something that can be done or is correctable i mean it does sound like a real nice program and uh but it seems like there's
049grading flaws in it and hopefully that's something that could be easily corrected yeah mr i'll i'll concur with mr hickey here this is a comment that i i asked at the com at the education committee meeting when this was discussed is is there a way to adjust the grading that's the challenge that i put to this administration um is to is to make this make this right thank you anybody else but doctor oh mrs marcel please sorry no please i was just going to add i i agree with with some of the other folks that mentioned you know how do we make this more of an enjoyable experience instead of a graded one and to a certain extent um you know i i know only elementary because that's where my kids have been but i
050know that a lot of the kids have competitions for first in math and that they enjoy doing it and so if there's a way to maybe try to use that model in terms of you know making it something enjoyable similar to what miss polly just mentioned with the student that was shadowing me you know that that's how they had it i don't know if new hope sulbury does grading or not but um you know i'm i'm okay with moving forward with this program but i would just because we're using such an old version of this but i would say if there's a way to address the concern that dr thorward has and maybe even try to pilot it as more of a an educational resource where the kids can use it in a way that
051is more you know kind of positive as some of our board colleagues have just mentioned i i agree with that i think that's a good way to go if we can thank you man dr thorbert please yeah i'll just end where i started this could have been addressed early in the last school year it was ignored um i'm not convinced we do have a new superintendent so hopefully it will not be ignored um i still have to vote no because i i i it was it it was just ignored um and if you can ignore a board member who's also a parent you know i i don't have a lot of faith that a discussion or a change will happen so anybody else all right let's go to work with them mckee yes ed salman
052yes mike roosevelt yes bob picky yes you're to pally yes kristen marcel yes edward tate yes and michael forward oh thank you mrs mckee continued please i move motion i'm sorry motionguard81 thank you word i'm sorry 7-1 speaking of math wonderful i moved to approve the 2022-2023 textbook core resource illustrative mathematics presented for approval at the may education committee meeting at a total cost of one hundred twenty seven thousand one hundred seventy one dollars and twenty four cents have a second please second mr tate report comment for any objections could i have a role call we're going to go to a roll call um dr silbert i'll start i've got a couple questions for dr sanko i know the answer but i think the public needs to know it too was this program piloted at
053all no and the more i dug looking into this the middle school principals were unaware of it as well that's correct were you aware of it i knew that there was a math program but i didn't know details thank you um this is back to mr roosevelt's process we we went from test scores and instructional issues to we're rolling out a new math program it hasn't been piloted it hasn't been checked or used uh the administrators in the buildings haven't looked at it um it may be just perfectly fine mathematics program but i'd like our very capable staff to pilot it before i can implement it in a school year so that's where i'm at with this thank you sir anybody else mr roosevelt i have another question for for dr senko when how old
054was the previous math program that we had how many years did we have that before we're looking for change i don't know the start date of the last middle school math program sp are you done mr roosevelt unless somebody else has the answer for that okay mr pelly actually i was one of my questions and i just want to clarify or to find out so um do we have bad history of implementing something without piloting and failing and is it common to pilot something um like this program before we implement it is it what is your experience on that my experience is that in council rock we pilot any program before implementation i think i will add that we piloted two programs at the elementary level before deciding on one correct can we change the
055motion to pilot first and then implement it if we like it well that's kind of what i was going to say what what if the board you know dr senko what what would be a perfect world um in terms of of looking at this program um you know there's a lot of good data on it that's been tested elsewhere but it hasn't been tested here so you know i mike and i brought this up at the education committee meeting about the lack of piloting i to me before we spend 127 000 and we just had a budget meeting i want to make sure it's right we know there's we've know we've seen some issues with the school with the middle school math numbers in terms of testing so let's get it right and and again
056dr sanchez team is not in place yet so i would like to see some level of piloting i don't know if you have an idea how dr sanko or anybody uh would roll that type of thing out so typically a pilot means you're comparing multiple products we know that this process began with five or six different products it was narrowed to two and then the illustrative program was selected and i don't want to lose sight of the work that the teachers and the coordinators have have done on this um so if if it's agreeable with with the board i would suggest that we do a trial run similar to what we do in the normal pilot year we would do a trial run with picking a grade level at each middle school and then three
057four or five elementary schools so that this program can be used seen and we could find the good the bad and the ugly out from our our teachers our parents our our our students it's important to note that this is a a program that would be used for sixth grade students as well as students in seventh grade and eighth grade in academic math okay anybody else mrs mckay um hearing the concerns and consensus among the board as the maker of motion i would withdraw the motion if that is appropriate this time we can replace with another motion which satisfies she's good with that okay please shall i give it a go she's writing okay i'm thinking something along the lines of i move to approve the use of illustrative math um for a trial period
058among a select number of uh grade levels for the upcoming school year at a cost not to exceed something like that [Music] any idea what this would cost or give us a number for not to exceed so this illustrative math program that the the cost would include consumable workbooks per student manipulatives for the classroom teacher manuals and then of course teacher training we know that the overall cost on the front end of this was 127 thousand dollars and so i think that uh in working with dr eastbourne on the numbers if we were able to go this way the cost would not exceed um 67 thousand dollars we to 70 thousand dollars maybe a little bit safer depending on the number of students for the illustrative math because we will have to purchase the old
059program we'll have to pay for the old program too for the students who would not be doing the trial run and the total cost that that dr eastburn had figured out for us would be a total of 104th just north of 104 000 because whether whether we decided to go with the illustrative math we know that that's 127 thousand dollars for all of sixth grade all of seventh and eighth grade academic math uh and then the differential would be the number of students that use the new program we have to pay for and then the students who would be in the program that's already in existence we also have to like we do each year pay for that product product as well so ms erins and i would ask would that be two motions or
060should we tie it into one a motion to um for one and one so the pilot would be how much i just want to make sure we're not under spending okay so you want to make the motion withdraw this move to withdraw my previous motion second second mr tate let me roll call madam secretary ed salman yes uh picky yes kristen marcel yes mary mckee yes you had a pally yes michael roosevelt yes ed tate yes michael thorwick yes okay and mr solomon if i if i may the pilot cost for the illustrative math that would include the manipulatives the student consumable books the teacher manuals and the staff development is 67 417.50 the glencoe which is the old program would be 36 683 dollars and 42 cents that total is 104 100.99 and if
061i just may um mr roosevelt the existing program is seven or eight years old you and in in the spirit of a pilot program is there a competitor to come to pilot as well as the illustrative math in this scenario would not be a true pilot because um again a pilot says uh that we are comparing products um we've we've gone this far the the committee has gone this far and so that's the ask is can we do a trial run so the comparison effectively is the new program versus the old program then that's correct marion the dollar amount would be around 110 all in shall i struggle with the language please do i moved to approve the use of illustrative math for a trial period of the school year 2021 2022 in select buildings
062at a cost not to exceed 110 000. speaking of math uh thank you for that correction can have a second second and mrs pelly anybody else want to make a comment mr you're pondering oh yeah yeah uh just just to tie it into what we spoke about at the last bullet point um where we were told as a board that we need to rely on the experts um just as a little point of word a part of our job is oversight and uh not that we're telling any teachers what their job is or isn't and i i've respected teachers as much as anybody however had we not talked about this and discussed this we would have just implemented a program for 127 000 without even knowing the result um so i'm glad that we do
063this kind of discussion and oversight to talk about things as opposed to just relying on the experts 100 percent of the time so may i please please thank you and just for the sake of our public um and in response to your point mr hickey it should be noted that there was a committee of 43 teachers and they looked at five different programs true there was not a pilot of competing programs but this this certainly went through a lengthy process and there was in my opinion sufficient input and i'll add we have training in place for tomorrow i believe right sir yes so we're poised for those teachers who will pilot this dr eastburn we have um several administrators poised to attend part or all of the training tomorrow with this illustrative math program all
064right anybody else i'm secretary roll call please bob hickey yes kristen marcel yes mary mckee yes yoda pally michael roosevelt yes ed tate yes michael forward yes and did solomon yes okay it's zero h motion basis zero from there we'll go to letter l i move to approve the revised 2022 2023 school year calendar as attached to this agenda second doctor thought dr shanko you want to take this there are no substantive changes there was um a color coding error with a professional development day and there was a typo around the july 5th date that had been corrected nothing else to the calendar okay anybody else mr roosevelt dr senko there was some discussion around this of of looking for a survey and having a more regular survey regarding calendars and community input has anything
065occurred on that yeah we have on our cat on our own calendar on my calendar to complete and administer a survey to the community in october we thought that once we get people into schools and settled we would get that survey out and ask parents in the community for their input thank you anybody else any objections hearing none i'll ask that to be marked unanimous from there we'll go to letter m bucks county iu miss valley please uh the last board meeting of the bucks county iu was on may 16th and during that meeting the personnel committee met in executive session to discuss salary increases for 2223 school year and there was consensus we followed the recommendation i can't give out the specifics because it was executive session i think they'll be happy when they
066find out but the final vote will be at the next board meeting uh we also reviewed the budget and um there were some questions i don't expect a lot of discussion at the next meeting that we're going to vote for and also the next meeting which is on june 21st next tuesday uh they will present the comprehensive plan for the 20-25 um for like the bucks county iu so i think it's going to be a very busy and very important meeting next time great thank you from there we go to the mbit update mr hickey uh the mbit graduates was held on june 7th at william tennant high school and it was a very nice affair much like all the other ones um i would like to personally thank dr sanko mr t mr griesbaum
067mr funk and miss gormley for their attendance council rock was very well represented at the meeting and not only was it appreciated it was noticed by others we continue to search for a new director uh in the meantime we have approved an interim director to fill in until what time we can find a replacement um the current director's term will be over in mid-july and we have passed a budget other than that we're looking forward to september with an increased enrollment and hopefully how to fit all these kids into the program things are going very well there like i said there's a lot of interest in the school and a lot of positive things happening thank you sir from there we're going to go to the craft update mr tate thank you mr solomon very
068briefly we have our golf outing on monday and it is completely fully booked and we've done very well with new sponsors our new executive director is doing a phenomenal job and we'll get a full report on that later um i understand steam night was a huge success as dr senko talked about and uh craft plays a big sponsorship role in steam night and and um a number of the programs that get presented are are craft sponsored so that's a real point of pride and you'll be hearing a lot more about craft from craf in in the coming year than you've heard in the past so um full steam ahead no pun intended thank you sir dr thorber can i ask you to do the policy and finance committee if you don't mind sure no movement
069on the policy committee we're we're waiting on i believe it's a wellness wellness policy um out from mr harris he's got bigger fish to fry than that right now that's okay um we want to regroup i'm thinking it's june now sometime in july we'll schedule probably a zoom uh just to do that and anything dr sanko finds and the board had talked about you know looking at some of our discipline policies too so we'll we'll open up the floor and and probably start meeting a little more regularly as as needed here after we get the budget passed so that's the policy finance we just had a meeting right before this meeting so i don't want to belabor updates so i'll go through the motions mr oldaugh can fill us in when he gets back unless
070jason there's anything you want to say from the last meeting no the there are consent agenda items that are on here that were reviewed in may yeah and that's that's what i'll move to approve here now um where is my motion there it is i move to approve consent agenda items b through t as contained in the attachments to this agenda a second second mr roosevelt any comments from the board any objections all right hearing none i'm going to ask secretary mark b through t unanimous please all right i'll continue um we've got a a bit approval here i moved to reject category 1 chromebooks and category 2 chargers from bid 22-34 computers and i further moved to approve category three ssd hard drives to adorama for 55 792.50 subject to budget approval and audit
071have a second please give me a second mr roosevelt thank you mr frederickson mr frederick has any comments sorry i didn't mean to be so aggressive for grabbing the mic from the time we went to bid for the chromebooks to the time the bid was opened uh the chromebooks in question that we were looking at uh availability became almost non-existent there was also a problem in the original bid spec we didn't spec out the correct amount of memory so we will be going out to bid again for the chromebooks um i do want to warn you that there is a significant delay in technology at the moment the uh solid state drives we're going to be using to put into laptops and desktops to extend their life at least one or two more years we
072feel that that's a very good solution given the current environment okay thank you sir anybody else any objections hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary mark that you know as well dr thor continue give me a big one here tonight uh i moved to approve the personnel actions and the personal actions addendums as contained in the attachment to this agenda have a second please second mr hickey any comment taylor or anything okay great any further comment from the board any objections i'm hearing not only secretary mark that unanimous please okay x item x i move to approve the crea collective bargaining agreement amendment amendment memorandum of understanding as attached to this agenda a second second mrs mckay thank you any comment miss taylor no any questions from the board for miss taylor any objections
073all right hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to mark that as well continue dr thorbert okay i moved to approve the edrpp assignments and payments as contained in the attachment to this agenda wait a second mr pally you comment for the board any objections i'm hearing none mark that unanimous as well and finally we did the whole letter here a whole lot all the alphabets here yeah the human resources oh i'm sorry wrong part i moved to approve the 2022 summer program pay rates as contained to the attachments of this agenda second second mr tate any comment from the board any objections oh here or none we're going to mark that unanimous as well from there we're going to move to the second set of public comment i'll go right down the list
074of folks that have signed in first up will be brittany cosin ma'am i'll note that you're not in our district but i'll let you speak this evening yeah i'm not in the district but i do have a cousin and uh family in the district as well um but i'm also um running for state representative which would cover this district okay you have three minutes okay um we are facing i want to thank everyone for letting me speak um we are facing an ever declining rate of civil engagement across the country uh a trend that does start in our schools and persists into adulthood in order to maintain our democratic republic we must begin expanding on the civics programs in our schools according to a 2016 survey led by edinburgh public policy center one in four
075americans cannot name the three branches of government as a mother and an engaged member of my local school district this horrifies me i implore the school board to meet and review and improve the civics program here at council rock if forgotten we are doomed to repeat many of the mistakes of our past i urge the board to consider teaching history in a wider scale giving students the good the bad and the ugly when discussing our history most students are unaware that our founders attempted to peacefully engage with england prior to our revolution or that the united states held japanese americans and in camps during world war ii or that there were countless rebellions enacted by enslaved peoples in the u.s all of these and many more are crucial examples of how our school system is
076glossing over our nation's history once again we must teach the good the bad and the ugly or we will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes of our past i also implore the school board to consider the millage increases the residents of council rock school district had to pay an increase of 2.2 percent which equates to about 105 dollars more in their school taxes starting in the 2019-2020 school year in the 201-2022 school year the school board had a budget of approximately uh to round it to about 250 million dollars with the proposed three percent increase on property taxes educational excellence should not come at the cost of increasing taxes on the families and elderly of the community but rather by the properly managing of the budget given to the school board it is also
077paramount that the council rock school board set an example to our youth by attending meetings in person to the best of their ability we expect our students to be able to be ready for school by 7 30 at the earliest yet there are members on the board who wish to join meetings virtually what precedent do we set we wish to set for our students responsibility and attentiveness or the opposite it has come to no surprise that the families i have talked to found a decrease in motivation and gpa of their children since beginning the beginning of virtual learning so how can we expect our school board members to be motivated when behind the screen i thank the board and their time for their time and hope to see major improvements coming to our students not
078at the expense of the community thank you thank you very much next up is greg beatty from northampton township good afternoon to the board and to our community my name is greg beatty i'm a recent graduate from the university of pittsburgh and an alumni from council rock south i come to speak to you about a topic that is given a lot of lip service today our students mental health but nothing is truly done as someone who teaches students over the summer through in-person learning during the pandemic it has taken a real toll on our students i implore the board and the district to implement and install a mental health professional in our high schools rather than relying on the counseling office this will take away a lot of stress from the counseling office and also
079put in place an individual or multiple individuals are experts in mental health our district is one of the top in this in the state and i wish to see it even further and lead the mental health programs in the state and across the country our students mental health and well-being is paramount and any student must be put for first over any test or any standardized exam thank you for the board any old business mrs marcel uh i just wanted to briefly thank miss paulie for setting up so many of the teacher appreciation visits that we did i know i wasn't on all of them but i just wanted to thank her for her time setting them up i think that it was just a great effort it was nice to be in as many schools
080as possible so i just wanted to thank her for that and for all the school board members that attended that's it thank you thank you very much any other comment from the board mr tate please if i may speaking of thank yous um dr sanko talked about the graduation ceremonies and bob hickey talked about the one at um mbit they really are i remember being told when i joined the board that um it's the best day of the year for school directors and i think that the same holds true for probably administrators and teachers too and the main thank you i want to express is to the support staff who really had to to go above and beyond to prepare the the facilities to handle the graduation because that's a once a year thing that's
081got a lot of complexity to it including duct tape on the on the on the planters outside at north because of the high winds and those kinds of considerations and it was hot and windy and and you know south has its own special considerations so uh here's a thank you to all the support staff who helped make the graduation ceremonies so wonderful for students and family and everybody involved so thank you great great comment sir anybody else hard hearing none i'm calling german have a good evening thank you for coming all right you