001sound of good evening it's july 1st 2021 this is the july meeting of the school directors for the school board or i'm sorry the school district of council rock i'd ask you all pleased to rise for the pledge of allegiance adam secretary are you ready all right first roll call please ma'am ed salman oh yes i'm here thank you kristen marcel here andy block denise brooks here mark barlick uh he's delayed he'll be here joe hidalgo mr dog goes away on vacation miriam mckee yeah ed tate here dr mark thorward here okay thank you superintendent report uh dr frazier is away on family business this evening and dr elliott will be uh sitting in good evening good evening uh mr solomon good evening members of the board and good evening council rock community first and
002foremost i want to wish everyone a happy upcoming 4th of july holiday weekend i hope that everyone here in this room all of my cabinet teammates board members and our community as well those of you watching at home and those of you attending this evening have a safe holiday weekend and a great holiday weekend um as we celebrate our country's independence just to quickly sum up some of our summer programming that has some currently started and some that will be starting after the holiday weekend we have two programs for some of our students with special needs our ccs or covid compensatory services program has already started um prior to this week and the first round of that has concluded today and there'll be two more rounds of that upcoming this summer for some of our
003students additionally our esy program will begin and will start on the 6th of july and run through august the 5th for our students in esy we also have our summer academy which will also begin on july the 6th and our summer academy right now we have approximately 450 students in entering grades first through 12th grade who will be attending our summer academy typically our summer academy we've had about 65 students in the past so we've really increased our numbers uh this summer for this program to really support our students this summer with academics and social and emotional uh skills as well also an update for all the charter school enrollment our pre-pandemic baseline number for charter school students was 70. it increased to 134 during the pandemic and as of today our number of charter
004school students is 86. this means that we've reduced our pandemic related charter enrollment by 80 percent which is a very good number we've gotten a lot of those students back which is which is good to hear and finally just some notes about upcoming board meeting schedules uh there will be no finance committee meeting next thursday july 8 and there will be no facilities committee meeting um in two weeks on the 15th of july and we will however be holding a policy committee meeting on monday july the 9th it's been a very uh difficult and long year as we all know for all of us for everyone on this board for our community as well as my cabinet teammates and today is actually the first official start to the new year july 1 always starts the
005the new school year and it feels feels really good to be starting a new year um so as far as this month is concerned though i hope that everyone can find a couple of thursdays uh to take a break and and just relax a bit as we um ease into the new school year um and that ends my report mr solomon thank you dr elliott fantastic solicitor report mr cox good evening sir mr salman good evening the board held an executive session on june 22nd on a personnel matter and beyond that i have nothing to report this evening thank you sir we're going to go to the first round of public comment again we have changed public comment the first round will be 30 minutes and then the later in the agenda we'll go to
006another 30 minute in public comment public comment is an opportunity for our members for members of the public to address the board we would ask that you limit your comments to no longer than three minutes please consider the fact that there may be some young children in the audience or at home watching this broadcast live on crtv when speaking is our goal to maintain a respectful environment so that 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 first up i have alex from churchville i believe good evening sir can you just state your name and yes uh where you're from for the record please alex enten churchville
007good evening i first want to applaud all of you who voted to eliminate masks and vaccine requirements in our schools this is a great step in the right direction and placed our district at the forefront of common sense and normalcy that we as parents are grateful for there's more work to be done and the following are the items that are of a concern equity diversity and inclusion aka marxist racist critical race theory it's interesting how the superintendent snuck in twenty thousand dollars into a budget at a time when the school board was trying to keep the budget as tight as possible because of pandemic and it sure falls on the revenue yet twenty thousand dollars miraculously appeared in the budget for the upend evaluation what happened is superintendent fraser pulled wool over the board's eyes
008and quietly got twenty thousand dollars into an account for his pet project and if we start looking deeper i'm sure we will find other such things from him and here's more proof on the council rock school district website frazier's deliverable 2 for 2020 2021 school year objective states quote identify an external consultant to conduct a diversity focused curricular audit and or an equity audit end quote so this was all planned from last year i actually want to take the superintendent up on this offer and have him reimburse the school district the twenty thousand dollars this racist divisive hateful ideology has no place in council rock school district yet this school board unknowingly keeps pun pushing the superintendent's dangerous rhetoric which brings me to point two the members of this board should not accept everything that
009is presented to them at face value case in point the books you all approved to be added to the curriculum you never looked at a synopsis on any of those books yet it was presented to you as great novels for current times so i will give you a synopsis on one of these books between the world and me it's a non-fiction book and it is written as a letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings symbolism and realities associated with being black in the united states and it goes on to say that quote the main character is confident that white america will continue to plunder not only black bodies but the environment too the text does begins and then discussing the white assault against the black body end quote i demand an immediate suspension
010of the purchase of all these new books i also demand an immediate end to superintendent frazier's five-year equity diversity and inclusion plan i want to teach our kids and not indoctrinate them but if you want to continue this i'm sure russia china venezuela and cuba would love to have you westchester school district moved on from the superintendent and if he keeps this up so will council rock thank you thank you sir mr solomon uh mr tate may i respond now or would you prefer that i wait to the end of public comment i'd be happy for you to respond now if you would good um i object to about 99 of uh what speaker just said um first of all um the board was completely aware very very well aware of the details of the
011contract that we agreed to support with the university of pennsylvania team to do the analysis of curriculum i think it was a i think it is a very wise thing to do the the thing that jumped out at me was that it's one of the things it's looking at is equity in the way we um track students as in what track students get assigned to and whether or not that's done fairly and equitably and that's not just a matter of race it's a matter of um students backgrounds preparation and so forth and i consider that a really critical matter because that's uh early in a student's career you know in middle school to high school we're helping to determine their potential career track and it's important that we know if we're doing that properly and
012fairly that's just one example of what the purpose of this um the purpose of this study is about the objectives for the superintendent are created in consultation very closely with the board and approved by the board and so we know absolutely and supported absolutely uh dr fraser's um intention to to help create an equitable community in our school district and the board i believe unanimously supported that objective so none of this is happening without the board's knowledge none of this is happening without the board support so i'm proud of what the district is doing i'm proud of what dr fraser is doing i think the review that's being conducted at the cost of twenty thousand dollars which was discussed in detail by the board because one board member questioned that expenditure and then the board
013by a strong majority uh approved that expenditure so um there's nothing improper about that particular study and i'm i for one am fully supportive of what dr fraser is doing in terms of equity and creating an uh community in council rock that's inclusive and supportive of all students um so i i really object to as i said 99 of what our speaker said and i i felt that needed to be responded to thank you mr tate we'll go to the next speaker matthew from upper makefield i didn't get the last name i'm sorry name you can actually state it for a public record name and where you're from sir my name is matthew ayer i'm from upper makefield township um my family and i were quite concerned when at the june 3rd meeting this board
014voted to remove the masquerading mandate with about eight hours notice this decision showed a callous disregard for those families who made school attendance decisions based on the expectation of mask wearing and could not then change that decision due to the short notice in the district's in-person assessment requirements at 6 30 in the morning we had to have a discussion with our children whether it was wise for them to go to school our son pointed out that he had to go to school that day due to a science test our daughter expressed concern for a friend who has who has an immunocompromised family member and might not be able to attend school anymore does the board really think that introducing such stress and confusion was a benefit to the community i failed to see a good
015reason why at the very least that policy change could not have waited until the following monday to take effect school board policy requires that if any new agenda item is added during a regular meeting there shall be additional public comment which did not happen with this policy change if this new agenda item had not been sneaked in at the last minute it is likely that the proper notice and proper public commenting might have prevented or mitigated the effects of this poorly thought out policy change our students and our families need and deserve a school board that respects established procedures and evaluates the risk and benefits to the community as a whole before making decisions that add unnecessary stress and uncertainty to their lives thank you thanks madam secretary terry can you just record that mr
016bilac has arrived to the meeting please good evening mark next up i believe it's jonathan siemens state your name where you're from for the record please jonathan siemens i live in newtown um i'd like to just take a second i hadn't planned to but i want to agree with the first speaker and con and contrast to mr tate probably for the people who know me from coming to these meetings you're not surprising that mr tate and i don't agree on on what the first speaker said tonight i think that one thing that's important to note is that people who agree with mr tate's point of view will frequently as he did tonight use terms like correctly and fairly and equity and equality as synonyms and if you read carefully the work of ibramax candy and
017deangelis and other proponents of critical race theory and diversity equity inclusion uh studies you will find that those are not synonyms inequality and equity equality that our country the founding of our country was built on is not what they talk about when they're talking about equity and i think it's important to to note that what i did want to talk about tonight was just for very quickly i wanted to thank the seven members of the board that voted to give those of us that wanted the choice for our kids to wear mass or not wear masks that opportunity at the last full meeting and there's uh you know subcurrent of rumors out there that there's board members now that are thinking about changing that vote or going back on that and i would just like
018to urge the board and the seven people that did vote for that to to you know kind of steal your spines and and stay with that decision i think it's important we obviously want everybody to be safe but the vaccines are out there people are taking them and and having the choice like that's a decision that families should make it's not a decision that the governor or the state legislature or this board should make for families they should be able to make those choices thank you thank you sir the last one on the list i have is jennifer and can't make out the last name that's all right good evening just for the record state your name where you're from i am john carroll i'm from new town and i have four kids two that
019are in councilwork um i just wanted to be really brief tonight i wanted to say that i do really appreciate that the board was very receptive to listening to our comments and i really appreciated that you evaluated the actual science data the medical data that is coming out daily um and i believe that this is what we need to be um giving our consideration to the most and i do appreciate i feel that you did that and didn't we're not swayed by the misinformation hysteria and you did follow the data so um i want to thank you for that um and we do really appreciate the the vote in allowing the kids to take these masks that are completely ineffective off their faces another point i wanted to make was i and many parents are
020very concerned about the recommendations with the diversity equity and inclusion i think these terms sound really great on paper and they sound like they're very inclusive terms but i believe that they lead to division and indoctrination which i am concerned for my child are my children that are both in school so any day now you'll be receiving the upenn dpce equity review i would please ask that you make sure that these review recommendations are as transparent as possible going forward and let us know when the report is ready for review as well as the as what the board is going to do um to follow and consider the dvc's recommendations um for for the equity plan um and then just lastly i just uh i just started recently at my youngest kid is 14 and
021i'm really sorry but i just really recently started to really pay attention to all the work that you all are doing and i i'm astonished at the amount of time that you put in and the effort and the dedication and i i know that even if i don't agree with you that your hearts are in the right place there you think they're in the right place and that you think you're doing what's best on behalf of the students and so for that i just wanted to thank all of you for all of your time and all of your effort we really do on behalf of the kids and the and the parents who are concerned for our kids we are very appreciative thank you thank you that's all i have dr thor i'm going to
022ask you to read h tonight please sir oh jay i'm sorry i i didn't want to skip it but we can go back to jake thank you there's no motion for g um is there no this is the appointment of delegates to to psba correct yes correct i don't know exactly what psba's rules are but i i believe i recommend just making a motion for the for the two people i understand who are going to fill those roles and having the board a unanimous consent or or voice vote if necessary confirm that just in case psba wants to see a vote in the minutes who are our two dr frazier recommended denise brooks and also don heavenly too who anna heverly okay okay all right i don't have a problem with that you want to
023add an alternate to rob just so that's on the books or is this not the same as the mbit where we have to have a i don't see any problem with that doctor you know neither okay no i don't i don't i think you could have an alternate you want a third then mr salmon are you volunteering sir sure that's what i was hearing sure all right i'll second it i moved to approve denise brooks and donna everly as uh psba representatives for the next school year and myself dr michael forward as an alternate when needed uh hopefully not needed moving forward second second by mrs marcel any further question can't we just make uh dr the third delegate it says up to three it's fine with me i am in my motion that that
024will require dr thorward to to perform that duty regularly oh in years past i believe this board has appointed two i i apprec ms brooks maybe your memory is different than mine well it has always been two and we just approved this at the iu uh where we had two so i'm i'm not sure where this three comes from it may be that that three is okay but um historically our board has not had it and in the five years i've been on the iu it's always been two so that's my that's my recollection too so we can leave the motion as a i i think that's good we have a second already we do any further discussion do you need to roll call on this no mr salam all right so any objections no
025hearing none i want to ask correct it'll be two delegates and then alternate an alternate in dr thorbert okay all right hearing none i want to ask you to record that with unanimous consent thanks now h and i sir sure i move to approve the minutes of the meeting of the board of school directors held on june 3rd 2021 and june 17th 2021. second second on mr bilac any discussion i need the objection i'm going to abstain from item i i was not at that meeting and i have not had a chance to review the minutes you want to take them separately though yes all right we're going to take them separately then read h please i'll do them one at a time a move to approve the minutes of the meeting of school of
026the board of school directors held on june 3rd 2021. second second mrs marcel sorry okay next time relax get the next one uh any further conversation any objections hearing none i want to ask you to record that with unanimous consent please i please dr gilbert i move to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the board of school directors held on june 17th 2021 second mr tate with a second any further discussion mr bilik is going to have an objection oh yeah i'm sorry um i was i am so caught up in the fact that we let that first motion hang out there it's driving me crazy so i'm sorry try to let that go right um but um yeah i'm gonna be abstaining from this um from this one because i was not
027present and have not read the minutes all right madam secretary quick roll call with this please mr barr yes yes mr violet oh abstain yes mr t yes yes mr yes please marcel yes would would it help to withdraw my initial motion to keep the uh rules clean and if so i'd like to withdraw my first motion to combine these two okay sure i i think the record's clear and mr mr violet can uh rest easier thank you sorry okay little change of pace here folks we have some folks in the audience that are a little younger of age and i'd like to move down the agenda we're going to move down to number five h and i i'm going to ask uh mr block to read them please with pleasure i moved to approve
028the personnel actions as contained in the attachment to this agenda i further move to approve the personnel actions addendum containing the attachment to this agenda second second mrs marcel dr elliott we have to vote first we'll vote first okay this will be number five h and i please okay putting you to work tonight i apologize somewhere kapil is laughing denise brooks yes mark barlick yes miriam mckee yes ed tate yes dr thorward yes ed solomon yes kristen marcel yes and andy block yes wishing yes very good dr elliot please thank you mr solomon uh there is a an item on our personnel that want to bring uh special attention to this evening uh we on our personnel this evening the board approved uh the appointment of mr anthony venziel as our assistant principal at council
029rock north high school give you a little bit of background on mr venziel he comes to us from lower moorland high school where he's been an assistant principal there since 2013 and prior to that he was with the north penn school district for about 10 years and before that actually was in fort worth texas with st george catholic school and also landsdale uh catholic high school so mr venzio has his bachelor's degree from king's college in healthcare and business management his master's degree from the university of notre dame in social studies instruction and his principal certification and superintendent letter of eligibility from gwen and mercy university so he comes to us this evening with some great experiences and was highly recommended by the committee particularly for his um student-focused thinking which is something that we
030know is important to all of us to really be student-centered so at this time i'd like to congratulate mr anthony venzio for his appointment as assistant principal at council rock north and then mr benziel the microphone is yours thank you everyone very much i wasn't expecting a standing ovation it's overwhelming i just want to thank dr frazier and dr elliott dr sanko mrs taylor mr triskewicz and his administrative team all the teachers the staff members and especially the students that i had the opportunity to meet with during this process from minute one this process uh proved to me that council rock is a place where people want to be and work excellence is at your core and i really really am excited to hit the ground running i am both humbled and excited to get
031started as soon as possible and i really look forward to working with you all for a long time to come i also have to thank my family my wife christina and my two boys giovanni and mateo who are seated there in the audience they have been unbelievably supportive and we're questioning how long before we go out and get ice cream so i want to make sure that we get them out there as soon as possible thanks again and i'm looking forward to working with all of you that's great [Applause] congratulations mr venziel and enjoy your ice cream i hope you get two scoops or more where you going kids where you going to get ice cream anthony where are you taking them smart man congratulations that's great all right we're gonna move down to 3a
032discussion piece dr elliott all right thank you mr solomon just did a a little shift to another spot um this evening for discussion for the board uh we're presenting to you and also to the public our plan for the funds for the american rescue plan esser funds sometimes known as sr3 that you might hear it right now as a district since the spring of 2020 we and all public schools have received three grants as part of the elementary and secondary school emergency relief for esser funds we see we received our sr1 funds last year in late spring of last year in the amount of a little over 257 thousand dollars and with those funds we use those to pay for two years of digital subscriptions to several uh digital um software that we use instructionally
033for our students and also to pay for some professional development that we did last summer when our staff had to make the sudden shift to teaching in a live streaming environment and online and and understanding how to use the equipment that we purchased for live streaming those funds are will be spent um by the spending deadline of september 30th of this year 2021. we've also received sr2 funds and also arp or american rescue rescue plan s r funds in the amounts that you see here on the slide a little over a million dollars for sr2 and 2.2 million for arp esser part of the arp esser plan requires us to present the plan that we have for the use of the funds to the community and give the community an opportunity for feedback so this
034evening this presentation is doing just that presenting our plan and then um you will see at the end of this presentation there is a way for uh community to give feedback on our plan for these funds i'm talking this evening about both sr2 and arp esser because as we worked administratively to look at how to plan to spend these funds we looked at the two pots of money together and didn't look at them as two separate things so the sr2 and the arp esser funds have extended spending deadlines for those funds which allow us the opportunity to utilize the funds for three years so we can spread out the use of those funds over time the allowable uses for these funds are very broad in scope of what you can do what districts are allowed
035to do with the funds um unlike some other federal funds that we typically get for example title one funds that have pretty um significant regulations of ways you can and can't use them there are two requirements uh that are applicable to the arp esser funds one of the requirements is that we must target at least 20 percent of those funds toward um learning loss resulting from the pandemic and i will show you um in a minute how we are doing that and then the other requirement with the arp esser funds is that it requires districts to submit an updated health and safety plan to the department of education dr lambert is going to be talking about that later this evening so we're not going to discuss that at this moment in time the arp esser
036funds require us to get stakeholder feedback in planning the use of our funds so what we've been doing throughout the past year and several months is continuing to gather feedback from parents from staff from our students through different surveys that we've conducted through conversations and we've used that information to really inform how we best use these funds two things that really stood out in the feedback um that we've received over time is that we need to target learning loss particularly identify those students with the greatest need and make sure that we're providing some support for those students and then the other piece that really stood out with a lot of the feedback that i know board members you've heard this as well you know the screen time with our students and how do we navigate
037now that we as a district are a one-to-one district how do we how do we navigate what are best practices with one-to-one um you know we don't want our students when they're back in school in the fall to be sitting with their screens open all day long that technology is a tool and we want to use the tool effectively but it's not the only tool used so that feedback has really led us to making sure we're helping staff members understand what are best practices for a one-to-one environment as we shift back into this regular instruction so we will use our funds uh the 20 of our esser allocation uh that it has to be targeted to learning loss we are using those funds to expand our summer academy which you heard about earlier this evening
038to a k-12 program for the next three years as well as using some of those funds this year to support transportation during our ccs program then that we're providing for some of our students with um ieps this summer the balance of the funds of both sr2 and the arp esser funds we are going to use to support our six technology integration specialists as they continue to work to support teachers with effective practices in a one-to-one environment this slide just breaks down the budget for esser so as you can see s or two because there are no specific requirements of how you have to spend those funds we are allocating all of the sr2 funds to supporting our six technology integration specialists and we have a spending deadline on those funds of september 30th 2023 and
039then the arp esser funds we are using about a little over 17 000 of those for the transportation for css this summer ccs this summer and also for the next three years for our expanded summer academy which takes us to the uh percentage of our arp esser for the learning loss is just about 21 so we're hitting that uh 20 target that we need to and then the balance of the arp esser funds will be used to support uh the six technology integration specialists as well as per the um requirements for arp esser we need to have an opportunity to get some feedback from the community so we've created an email address uh arp esser crs.org that community members can email to provide any feedback on the plan and then we can begin expending these
040funds as soon as the grant is submitted we'll be able to um get that money and begin allocating those funds and use those any questions um from the board are there um council rock newsletters going out this summer how would the community know about this ability to give feedback so we can um i'll work with miss o'grady to provide some communication to our community about this on the website or something yes thank you all right thank you very much thank you dr elliott from there we're going to move to the education committee uh mrs mccabe thank you i'm sorry to disappoint you but i have no report tonight as the education committee has not met subsequent to our last meeting i do have a number of items up for approval so i ask for your
041patience i move to approve consent agenda items b through k as contained in the attachments to this agenda second doctor thorward any discussion from the board any objection all right hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record i'm passing with you against that please continue mrs mckay thank you i moved to approve the agreement between bucks physical therapy and sports rehabilitation ncr as contained in the attachment subject to audit second second dr forward any discussion from the board any objection nope all right hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record that with the unanimous consent as well mrs mckay thank you i moved to authorize the hiring of additional teachers at the elementary and secondary levels not to exceed five total full-time equivalence ftes for the first semester of the 2021-2022
042school year and five total full-time equivalence ftes for the full school year at an estimated cost of 544 862 in anticipation of possible leaves of absence of current professional staff members at the start during or for the duration of the 2021-22 school year due to the changing and or worsening conditions of the pandemic second second drillwork mr taylor please good evening i do good evening i do have a few slides that i presented uh to give a quick overview of this but um it's so brief that i don't know if it's necessary um okay why don't you put it up please okay i know it's nice to see it on youtube when they're watching it yeah all right thank you sure thanks matt so just to give you a very brief overview in december of
043um 2020 so we had a special meeting and the school board of directors authorized us to hire some additional staffing so that we could have teachers in our classrooms for the reopening of schools and back on december 7th we were authorized to hire 10 professional staff members in a supplemental capacity and 10 support staff members we were very grateful for that approval and it allowed us to have a teacher in every classroom the large majority of the hiring that we did resulted in teachers filling actual openings so they were backfill positions but we did ultimately last school year have only five additional placements as supplemental at for professional and only two on the support side i start out by recapping that just so i can frame the request tonight and make sure that i express
044that as we move forward we will be very prudent and very careful like we were last year so as of today there are only 40 requests for leaves for next school year those are submitted leave applications that you've approved that are in the process of approval that's a very standard number for this time of year during normal operating times the leaves are largely made up of your typical reasons there's nothing atypical about where we are at the moment so while we feel optimistic and we feel good about where we are it's hard to predict if that will remain the case for those that were on leave last year they are either returning to work or they're represented in that total number of 40. right now if the conditions continue in the positive trajectory that we're
045seeing i don't believe that our leave numbers will grow beyond anything other than unexpected illness or family situations however things are are still a bit uncertain should conditions worsen right now there is a lot of discussion i'm sure you've all seen on the news about the delta variant there's also some studies being done around the efficacy of the j j vaccine most of our staff did receive that vaccination as you'll recall so there is a very small possibility that we could see an uptick in leave requests as the summer progresses it's extremely difficult to predict where we could see requests because as of right now it is completely quiet on june 29th i did reach out to staff reiterating that we're all expected to be here on site at the start of the school year
046that generated no new inquiries no discussion no dialogue so i have no indicator at this moment that we will have a problem but there's always that uncertainty that that we are living with in our current times i also touched base with the president of the association on the professional side he also has heard nothing things are very quiet he is not hearing any um any noise or news of people uh holding back on requesting a leave so that leads me to my my next very brief slide is out of an absolute abundance of caution we're asking for approval to hire if we need them five additional professional staff members for the first semester and an additional five for the full school year we're asking for the approval now out of an abundance of caution and
047we would only put these measures in place if they're needed we want to be responsible we don't want to hire people that we don't need we certainly respect that we don't want to have extra staff if if there are not positions we can defer hiring until there's more information available we could also be preemptive and look at the look at our data from last year if we look at the areas where we saw a high number of leaves and in departments where we struggled such as math and science we could make some hires now as a precaution and it but it's important to note it would be a calculated risk because i have no indication of any leave in either of those departments so we're seeking approval tonight to be in a position of readiness
048we don't want to wait until the august meeting and then be reactive rather than proactive so that is pretty much the crux of the motion that you have in front of you thank you mrs taylor opening up the board discussion at this point sure dr forward please i'm fully supportive of this um we got kids back to school because you were ahead of the curve last year um we we granted you that leeway and it worked i'm also formally supportive of hiring a math and science teacher right now we'll find a use for them i i know you've spoken with dr elliot about what we can do if we don't need them in the classroom they're hard to come by on a good day and in a pandemic and late late in the game they're
049going to be extremely hard to come by and we did struggle to fill those last year we absolutely did struggle i'd rather hire them i know we we vetted last year this past school year some really great young teachers i think if you're honest with them and say the worst you're going to get is experience in classrooms maybe not math and science maybe you know we can do i think they'll take the job i mean council rock's a great place to work so um fully supportive and i highly encourage you to hire them right now thank you dr thornton anybody else from the board i just have to follow up to dr thor so what walk me through your process you know using his example there so you're going to um just open up the
050window for hiring in that in those key areas and then start the you know the hiring process so very much wanted to hear your feedback tonight as a school board so that the last two bullets was we can wait until we have a little bit more information or we could move ahead knowing it's a calculated risk so what i heard dr thought say is he would support taking that risk in the math department for example do you have very three very strong long-term substitutes that we would reach out to and see what the interest is and perhaps remaining with us in this capacity in the science area there are also some long-term substitutes that were with us last year that we would initially reach out to as well so that would be my plan and
051my thought at this time i would be apprehensive to open up and hire in other subject areas right now just because i have no information so i would want to wait and see a little longer yeah and i agree with dr thorward i mean we put the tools in your toolbox last year and you know i've had conversations with family and friends that don't go to council rock and one of the reasons we we did get our kids back to school is because we gave you the tools to go out and hire ahead of time um i'm concerned uh in july 1st that we may see some tweaks and some interest to take leaves um i i feel it's short-sighted if we don't go down this road um so my i have full support mike
052and i have talked for the last two weeks about this before um tonight um so i'm glad it's here and we were talking about it um then i'd leave it up the rest of my colleagues to comment so anybody else have a comment there is a very stark difference between this year and last year but things are different so it's been so quiet so i've not heard anything last year it was non-stop called summer vacation as soon as the doors opened people want go on social media everybody's out it's great but no i'm concerned i am because you know you hear rumblings through the community that some some may not come back some may and it's not fair to the kids you know we need to put the educators in the classroom so if we
053have to do this i i think it's money well spent on our end anybody else i can add to to elaborate a little bit on what uh miss taylor and i have talked about and kind of what dr thor were uh was alluding to one of the things that we can do uh with uh math and and science teachers particularly is we can utilize their expertise and their certification to to support our continued work with supporting learning loss with students and and target whether it's particular courses or subject areas or classes where we want to put this extra certified person to really target helping to close those learning gaps for some of our students when we really pinpoint what those are so it gives us the opportunity to utilize them in a really purposeful and
054productive way for students as well great thank you dr elliott mrs mckay did you pull them right down that actually answered my question which was what do we do if those positions are not uh open so thank you for that mrs marcel please um i just wanted to mention um first i wanted to thank mrs taylor for all of her work in this area it's been so important and really has contributed to us being able to have our school year so just thank you so much and then i think in terms of dr thorward's suggestion i'm supportive of that i actually think it's an opportunity for us to get ahead of this and also to potentially have you know some extra bandwidth there so i'm 100 supportive thank you thank you anybody else any objections
055oh doctor mister i didn't know if you were just pulling everybody but i'm in support of this as well i think it's good planning and i appreciate the work thank you thank you sir any objections all right hearing none i want to ask the secretary to record this with the unanimous consent as well better end please i moved to approve the health and safety plan as attached to this agenda second was it mrs marcel dr lambert please good evening sir good evening there is attached to the agenda the uh current version of health and safety plan i think we're all pleased to see it's a lot shorter document and it's a far more friendly document for us that we're required to fill out the in summon substance it asks us to respond to how we
056will support prevention and mitigation policies uh which we responded that we will do so by following the guidance of the bucks county health department the cdc the pennsylvania department of health and uh pennsylvania department of education it requires us to speak about masks physical distancing hand washing cleaning and ventilation of our buildings contact tracing screening and testing and providing information on vaccines i won't go through each of those sections for all practical purposes uh it certainly indicates that we will opening school in september as usual uh we will handle all covert related matters as we would with any other communicable disease we have word policy on that matter the the bucks county health department is no longer requiring any level of contact tracing from the school district nor would be required to provide any type
057of notice regarding quarantines or isolation so that also will not be happening and this plan um should the board approve it would go into effect on july 2nd okay good thank you sir any for any board discussion on this okay hearing none i'm going to ask for a roll call on this please denise brooks yes mark barlick yes miriam mckee yes ed tate yes dr mike thorward absolutely ed talman yes kristen marcel yes and andy block yes promotion passes eight zero letter o miss brooks iu update please ma'am thank you um all our iu meetings include information on how the economy of pennsylvania is doing in may pennsylvania collected 3.9 billion dollars which is 1.6 billion or 65.4 percent more than was anticipated the fiscal year-to-date general fund collections are 36.6 billion which is 2.9
058billion or 8.5 above estimate and personal income tax revenue was 1.9 billion which is 1 billion overestimated and largely due to the extension of the deadline for filing 2020 personal income taxes on june 8th was the beautiful iu graduation ceremony they run a program like our achieve program so council rock students do not participate but there were 40 students from 10 districts who graduated it is a beautiful emotional ceremony to see these students walk on the stage and get a little insight into their families at our last meeting we also had a summary of work of from the 2020 2021 school year going through all the supports that the iu provided to all the districts within council rock the iu this past year supported school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports implementation the implementation of a
059classroom diagnostic tool and data analysis and also provided resources for digital citizenship the iu team also participated in the quality equity review and then as a public service announcement the iu is running three-hour steem interactive sessions for students free at local public libraries this summer if you are in uh entering grades k to eight you are eligible to participate there's information on the iu website uh that you can find about the location's times and dates thank you great thank you move the letter p uh mbit update mr marcel you're doing that i am thank you thank you thank you mr salomon um the mbit executive council met on june 14th and in that meeting we received a presentation from dr hoffman from the bucks county iu regarding its review of mbit's business operations facilities and
060technology departments there were two executive sessions held that evening one was for the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement the other one was for presentation on mbit school safety and security practices following the executive session the executive council approved a four-year contract with the mbea the middlebucks education association and finally we've received an update which is good news there are currently 910 students enrolled for the upcoming year and 43 students are on the waitlist so that's it thank you when's your next meeting oh sorry i believe it's not next week but the week after which would be july 12 12. we'll be voting on a health and safety plan for mit at that point um i believe so there are a number of things that are coming up at that meeting so we will definitely
061be having a july meeting great thank you thank you better cue craft update mr tate please nothing to report thank you wow that was a good one yeah we'll move down to finance uh mr bilac please sir counselor we were just talking about uh miss marcel and i were talking about the number of enrollees from council rock and it's 100 it's 160 this year which i think is uh a higher number than what we've had in the past so that's very good am i right about that it feels like a higher number i believe so i don't want to put you on the spot which i've already done 160 kids attending mbi too yeah next year council rock will have 160 students at mbit and mr bilik was just suggesting that that's an increase from
062previous years i believe so mr bilock i'm not sure without checking the actual numbers but it seems to be an increase it feels like more and i i also can check the number i've um asked mrs strauss for some numbers recently so i'd be happy to share that with the board we did not have a finance committee meeting in june and we do not have one in july so um i'm just going to move forward and make the motion i move to approve consent agenda items b through f as contained in the attachments to this agenda second second dr thorbert any discussion any objection are you hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record that the unanimous consent as well keep on going mr biology move to approve the korea collective bargaining agreement
063amendment memorandum of understanding is attached to this agenda mrs marcel ii any discussion any objection is it appropriate to just give a brief description or is that i would be happy to when we when we reached the extension of the crea agreement last school year we collectively neglected to address the rates for extra duties workshops and homebound so in order to rectify that the association and the district met and discussed and are asking for a 0.5 increase to those rates for this school year okay thank you any further discussion any objection hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record that but if you have some consent so we did h and i okay yeah please i moved to approve the 2021 summer program pay rates is contained to the in the attachment to
064this agenda second second mrs marcel any discussion from the board any objection from the board all right hearing none i'm going to secretary to record that with unanimous consent from there we're going to move on to six facilities mr tate sorry about that thank you mr solomon um the facilities committee meeting this month was cancelled and it's being canceled for next month because the agenda's light and um we've had consultation with the board on a number of items um we'll move forward agenda item a i move to approve consent agenda items b through f as contained in the attachments to this agenda second dr thorwitz second any discussion from the board on these any objection all right hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record that with unanimous consent too that concludes the
065report of the facilities committee great job mister thank you tremendous uh i mentioned it doug before the meeting just for the rest of my colleagues i'd like to uh take a visit over to the star center so if anybody else has an interest just give me a reach reach out and see if we can coordinate a time that we go over and it looks great doug i go buy it almost every day it really does i can't wait to see the inside uh mr fredrickson any uh public comment is there anybody in the audience who wants a second round of public comments you good all right very nun we have uh any new business from the board i have a question i don't know if it's going to fall under a new business or old
066business did you want to give this update okay well i have a question i was um i i've been contacted from a couple parents about use of lockers at some of the schools and that some of the there was discussion about kids still being restricted to use lockers do you know if that's going to be an issue going into the it fall be a it won't be an issue related to any restrictions we had for covid this past school year i don't know if there's any other i'm not aware of any other okay that shouldn't be it all right very good that's all i have thank you anybody else uh mr salomon ma'am mr bilik mentioned it um so i looked up the numbers for mbit so last year council rock had 135 students and
067this year it's 160 and last year overall at mbit there were 847 students which increased to 910 great and i actually just emailed everyone an enrollment overview that mrs strauss shared with me and it just has some additional statistics about north and south and programs um there are i think there are nine programs that are at full capacity right now so it'll just list which ones those are so just let us know if you have any questions yeah that's great good news to hear them yeah i think my last year on the with mbit it was we were at 110 or so so the growth has been really great and that was always an objective so nice i uh give marianne and kristen all the credit for that got to go somewhere right any old
068business from the board yes if i may um hello yeah mr taylor our director of operational services corrected me we did have a facilities meeting on june 17. it was so smooth i forgot all about it but that's but that's an opportunity to bring up a point i noticed some parents were discussing on facebook they saw activity going on at south and they wondered what that project is about and i didn't want to jump in and get it wrong off the top of my head but mr taylor would you just remind us what that project entails they were asking for example if they're going to be bleachers sure so and by the way i text you so that i didn't bring that up publicly so you didn't have to um yeah the the uh the
069work at south is the new synthetic turf field which started in ernst this month and is planned to wrap up around october it does include the new synthetic turf field it includes four 90 foot high led field lights it has a flagpole and illuminated flagpole so you can pay your respects before any events it does have an area of sidewalk with movable bleachers in this first phase so there's 100 seats of uh movable bleachers to get us started um there is uh power and and uh we're putting in fiber for matt in the event that there are any events on that field down the road we have the ability to set up four events on that field and it is master plan for a stadium project down the road that you or some other board
070may consider moving forward with and that allows us for 2000 seats at the home side and a thousand seats at the visitors side should we move forward it will be enclosed with a fence around the entire perimeter and we have an internal drive that's connecting the two sides of the building at that at the athletics end right now if you uh not for public but for pedestrians to walk around it would be gated so cars cannot drive on it only maintenance vehicles could or emergency vehicles so there's some nice improvements coming and it's exciting yeah thank you i didn't want to chime in off the top my head on on facebook but the lights was the thing that was sticking in my head i thought we put in lights and i think that's a just
071such a marvelous bonus too it is thank you in my compliments i ride by there every day too that there is a lull there for a little bit for whatever reason rep work i'm sure it's lulls uh but they were out there today in force uh getting getting to work and now and my compliments on that facility in general um that has come a long way doug those those softball fields are phenomenal uh we're going to have a conversation down the line about the basketball courts um but that that field is going to be a nice addition to that complex and proud for those kids and the staff to go to that school to see that it's really good stuff for the kids thank you you await some nice title nine improvements between north and
072south yeah absolutely without a doubt anybody else all right you're done i'm going to adjourn the meeting thank you you