001[Music] here christian marcel here and solomon i am here superintendent report dr frazier good evening good evening thanks mr sullivan good evening to the board to cabinet members and to uh rc or community out there thanks for tuning in allow me to start please by acknowledging uh the outstanding musicians that we have here in council rock we uh had the great fortune yesterday to learn that we have been named a recipient of the 2021 best communities for music education award by the name foundation this is now the 10th the 10th consecutive year that our cr music programs have earned this outstanding distinction so congratulations on behalf of all of us to our student musicians to our music educators and to our music parents as well knowing that you provide so much vital support and continuing
002the good news this week has seen the return in council rock of five days a week in person instruction for all grades k to 12. this is interesting i i just read a report yesterday indicating that nationwide only 34 of students across the country are engaged in in-person learning and our registration right now for the fourth marking period here in cr is 80 of our students uh which we think is fantastic certainly this has been a tough year to say the least but i do want to thank everyone in this room and many many people outside of this room for your role in getting us here to this point and i'll say that things are looking up as we begin to look ahead to the fall as well you may have seen that the pfizer
003vaccine trials for children's ages 12 plus have been going extremely well just this afternoon i heard dr damsker express optimism on the call the children ages 12 plus will be we'll have the opportunity to be vaccinated before the school year begins in fact he thinks it's going to be well before the school year begins in the fall so we hope that that's the case for all of those folks who want to and choose to get vaccinated and finally here before we get too far ahead of ourselves i also want to announce this evening to our entire community that this year we are able to hold and we will hold in-person high school graduation ceremonies that was a major loss last year and we are thrilled to be able to hold these ceremonies this year for
004the class of 2021 both ceremonies will be held at walt snyder stadium taking advantage of the outdoors on thursday june 10th the north ceremony is set to begin at 3 pm with the south ceremony starting at 7 pm should we have some rain we do have a rain date scheduled for the next day that following day which is a friday because it's a friday we would move up uh in the daily schedule each of those two start times so we're really thrilled happy for our seniors and especially because with capacity limits we were concerned that we might have to split one or both of those ceremonies into two parts our seniors really didn't want that they've been together uh the past four years and many of them more than four years they want to graduate
005together they will graduate together and that is a fantastic thing so lots of good news things are looking up and again i thank everyone for your role and help in uh and getting us here to this place thanks mr selma yes thank you dr fraser and i'll echo that you know on behalf of the board and the administrators the staff the teachers the kids the parents you know we were all in this together since last year this time and and there's been some bumpy roads to get the kids back but i can speak on behalf of my two darlings at home that they were thrilled to go back to school looking forward to five days and the the vast amount of kids have returned and it's it's it's a it's a really good thing uh
006to see the light at the end of the tunnel and and some really good things around the corner senior trip uh i know the kids are getting excited and then obviously like you said it's great to be a part of the graduation ceremony and i missed that last year so good stuff mr cox solicitor report please mr salomon as you know i circulated a detailed report to the board earlier this week reporting on various matters that have come to my attention beyond that i don't have anything to add and the board has not held an executive session since my last announcement so i don't have an executive session to announce either that's all i have thank you sir mr frederickson public comment great thank you come to the mic sir good evening could you state
007your name roy rexowski and what township you're from and just please leave your mask on you have three minutes to speak thank you i live in churchville northampton township uh good evening everyone and first i want to thank all of you for your dedication to the difficult work that you do as directors knowing that you are faced with many difficult decisions i trust that you will do your due diligence and include the many different viewpoints expressed in this community as you proceed as you make decisions on facilities projects i understand that the cost and impact on taxpayers is an important factor never to be taken lightly however please also consider the cost of not doing these projects just like in each of our houses when it comes to maintenance and repairs you can choose to
008do it now or later sometimes putting off important work brings additional costs and pains down the road i know from my professional experience that a budget projection is not the final answer an employer i implore all of you to utilize the budget projection simply as a compass to guide your careful decision making while also considering essential and urgent current needs of the district i am optimistic and confident that working with your administrators and with input from the community you will arrive at the best possible decisions that identify shared priorities and balance our current needs with the financial stability in the long term thank you sir good evening hi good morning have a good afternoon or good evening good evening here uh my name is mehta uh thank you for again doing this this public comment
009greatly appreciate you have three minutes by the way oh thanks i better hurry up there you go um so i'm apparent from seoul feinstein um i obviously want to move forward with the renovation uh but i had some concerns as a taxpayer so i want to talk about my concerns as a taxpayer one i started looking at the structural issues that we had and i realized that this was actually caused by harrisburg this was uh our our pension program the employer pension program is now up to 33.99 that's 42 million dollars per year of that 42 million dollars i mean 42 million dollars according to pisa's 32 33 million dollars of that is an unfunded liability and the state harrisburg has been very kind to give us 21 million dollars of that that leaves us
010locally with a 12 million dollar gap per year now because of act one we can't raise our taxes past five million dollars so we're left seven million dollars each single year as a gap now the choice we have is hey let's get bullied by harrisburg let's let's harrisburg say to us you know what we're going to raise your taxes and we're going to help you cut your services so dr frazier can't deliver on his strategic plan or we can decide we're not going to get bullied we're going to invest in our strengths and we're going to tell harrisburg hey this is a budget we're going to figure this out we're smart enough here this is financial engineering we can figure this out and we're going to invest in our children we're going to invest our
011alumni we're going to invest in our teachers and our local businesses so i'm asking you do not get bullied by harrisburg vote yes to do this sfe renovation so we'll find all the renovations and we will figure this out i am a new person to this whole mix i just learned about this two weeks ago and i promise you i will learn more and i will get all the parents i know in upper makefield to figure this out and one thing i can promise you and it's not to be insulting to anyone please do not ask upper midfield to raise their taxes to cover five million dollars of an unfunded liability if you're not willing to invest into us we will listen to you if you want to raise our taxes but only if you
012invest in us and my children i also i'm sorry i'm getting upset about this but i also want to make one more note kristen you are not responsible for 200 000 deaths i apologize for parents who have said negative things to you okay this was a crazy year as a soul fine stone parent i will let you know whatever decision you make tonight we have your back okay i just want to let you know that all right thank you very much everyone thank you okay go to letter g approval of the minutes of the meeting of the board from february 25th mr black would you mind yeah it looks like i have to make something up here um so i'm going to make a motion for the approval of minutes of the board meeting on
013february 25th 2021 as well as the special meeting of the board on march 4th 2021. second any discussion any objection i'll ask the secretary to record the motions passing with unanimous consent from there we're going to go to items of discussion the draft of the 2022 board meeting schedule yes sir uh we do have uh board members uh located in board docs and as well as folks at home we have a draft of uh school year 2122 board meeting schedule the cadence of meetings that you see there uh pretty much follows the same cadence that we have in this year's schedule meaning first thursday would typically be our board business meeting followed by finance committee facilities committee and then education committee uh the two exceptions in here one is in april uh and we always
014have that exception in the month that we have our spring break and then the other exception would be in may and that's because as you all know we've needed here to call a special meeting on april 22nd and that's just a harrisburg timeline requirement from a budget approval standpoint so um so as to get out in front of that for 21 22 and not need to call a special meeting we have resequenced the month of may as well and then lastly we do have a policy committee meeting on the books here on a quarterly basis once every three months uh beginning in the month of september if uh if that's satisfactory to start that's great if we want to make any changes in that regard or any other regards uh we're happy to make those
015changes as well any comment from the board if i may sure and and this is basically what we're doing now so and and and and that's fine um we will have new board members come december we aren't tied to this we could have new board members that would rather a different day i know your team is all kind of coalesced around thursday so i'm i'm loath to change it but do we have flexibility i mean uh i i would say yes um i i i can only speak for myself with dr fraser i don't i don't want you that would not i'll tell you this mike i i have never liked thursdays um but that's just me so if we want to look at a different day at some point down the road um you'll
016have one you have one person yeah it's fine i i just you know knowing there there will be turnover um and and i'd like to lay that out there we can absolutely have that conversation this isn't even board approved that's why it's on here as it says oh okay so we can we can make any changes that we want and and i'm not suggesting at this point but yeah but we'll leave that door open yes okay thank you and chris and i can follow up with you folks on the side and see if there's more interest in that yeah there's been a tradition thursdays yes we tried once to change it yeah there was conversation at one point tried once yeah fridays mr old dog i'm sorry good i mean if i remember we talked
017about this before it was probably some of the administrators and their timing and everything thursdays worked for them i don't see if it's not broke don't fix it i i hate to switch things i'm a man of tradition and um should i say uh consistency i don't see a reason to unless there's something glaring why we would even change thursdays i've kind of built my whole new life around it until until this next two years are over thank you anybody else okay all right we'll get it posted and uh invitation sent out and if there is any feedback uh that someone sees following the meeting just let me know or let board leadership know and uh we'll be happy to take that thanks go to letter b expanded reopening planning i assume dr sanko actually
018uh we have reopened in a fully expanded way at this point so uh there isn't a whole lot more to report on besides what i had in the uh in the superintendent's report so we i you know for the sake of uh you know one more time keeping it on the agenda we chose to do so since this is the week of the expanded k-12 reopening with elementary wednesdays now being back in cycle so uh any questions any comments any uh you know discussion that we want to have we figured we'd leave this on here one last time any board discussion are you saying yes mr boss please sure just curious we've heard about a nationwide surge in cases are we seeing any of that here we are yeah we have been dr lambert can
019speak to that uh probably more uh more eloquently than can i but we've we've seen the same trend here and i know that we're not alone we've been talking about it in county-wide calls as well yes we definitely have seen the same increase that started a week or so before the holiday increase in both positive cases and um contacts it appears to me from the past couple uh we get daily reports from the department of health it seems to me that they're starting to come back down a little bit at least within the district so that's a good sign good and the flexibility you have in terms of the quarantine procedures you use is working and everything it is as smooth and safe as it should be it really is uh yeah i feel like
020the board has given flexibility i feel like the state has given flexibility even with that attestation form that we weren't quite sure how that was going to play out at the beginning there's enough flexibility in there i know dr damsker said also on today's call that statewide yesterday there were 100 000 vaccinations administered just yesterday alone so we're really getting to that point across the state where you know supply is actually going to outweigh demand here pretty soon and that's that's a great thing as far as the whole pandemic is concerned excellent i just got a quick question mr maybe dr seiko happy birthday by the way um he's so happy you broke him you can see him smiling i know it's only a couple days but have we seen an increase at the high
021school level in terms of population in terms of enrollment our numbers are pretty consistent with what we shared and posted on our website now i will tell you i i did not check enrollment today to see if we had anybody else make any changes but um what we just had uh provided for mrs o'grady to post on a website um that they're the consistent numbers with the fourth marking period enrollments okay thank you sir anybody else yeah miss someone one more yeah mr block please so now that they're opening up vaccination to anybody who wants it 18 years and up right on the 19th is there any sense in trying to coordinate something for the 18 year olds in the district with with the health department have you guys talked about anything i i can
022tell you there's lots of parents who are trying to figure out how to do that there's tons of websites to get signed up for if you want to do it um i don't know if that's appropriate for us to be coordinated or not but you know i know a lot of people are asking about it yeah so dr damsker again on today's call with the clinics that they're running he said they're already taking anyone ages 18 and up um and then dr lambert you'll know this better than i do clinics that aren't being run by uh the county but within the county uh where they're offering the pfizer for ages 16 and up um are also available dr lambert can you speak to that piece just quickly here no i would agree with what you're
023saying um it's from what i've been hearing anecdotally from people if they're going um and trying to sign up they are being successful i don't know what's going to happen with the younger group of kids yet you know we'll have to wait to see where that goes with the county but i am hearing people being fairly successful and getting appointments yeah and i know this and you all know this dr damsker wants to see our schools open and functioning you know to the maximum extent possible so um i i think he's he would love to see a bunch of 18 year olds uh you know students in in county high schools uh signing up and and getting in there if they if they so desire i mean if we can't play an active role in
024supporting that maybe at least on the on the website or friday folder or whatever you know provide families with resources who want to do that so they know they're there if if that's appropriate i'll leave it to you guys but yeah i think it is we can do that yeah thanks we're good thanks anybody else before we move on seeing none we'll move to the education committee mrs mckee please thank you mr salmon the education committee met on march 25th and as was just referenced by dr frazier we reviewed expanded reopening update and reviewed daily attendance numbers we also reviewed achievement data which was included it had included grade distribution across midland high schools and various benchmarks assessment data for elementary students and this data was helpful in both designing support and intervention for students
025currently during the current school year but it also assisted in helping us design the programming for the council rock summer academy and this year summer academy will be offering remediation for both elementary and secondary students credit recovery for high school students and enrichment programming for all levels and next we reviewed a proposal for an equity review which is on the agenda tonight and it ties in with one of our strategic plan goals and then finally we reviewed and discussed learning models for the upcoming school year which resulted in a survey that has gone out to our community and that is also on the agenda for approval tonight the next meeting of the education committee will be on monday april 26 and that will be the parent advisory council meeting and that concludes my report if
026there are no questions then i'd like to go on to move approval of consent agenda items b through e as contained in the attachments to this agenda second mr tate any further discussion any objection are hearing none i asked the secretary to record the motions passing with the united's consent mrs mckay please thank you i moved to approve the health and safety plan changes as attached to this agenda second mrs brooks any discussion i have several dr thorward please um uh for the record i'll be making several motions after this um it's through no fault of the administration but i think it's time that we switched like many of the local districts to modified quarantine i instead of throwing kids out for 14 days because they sat next to someone who tested positive i'm hearing
027reports from parents at the middle schools that you know kids are we're losing kids i i i if mr or dr lambert has the numbers how many kids have we or do we have out right now at middle schools i don't have that number in front of me but there's a fair number we have i know even as of today we had a fair number of students okay so we're back five days but kids aren't benefiting from it so i'll be making a motion to move to modified quarantine i'd like a vote on it if it fails it fails but i think it's time so that's number one number two is i'd like some formality to when we let kids eat in school i know we left it up to teachers i know it was
028with altruistic ideas i don't think it's happening the way it's supposed to so um i'd like to codify that kids shall be allowed to eat you can figure out when but it shall um and then lastly i had one more and i've lost it those were my two big ones modified quarantine and uh and eating throughout the day i will just note on the eating if if we were employers at five hours we would have to give miners a chance to take a break drink and eat um they're in school for more than five hours and while they should have one and again i'm not faulting anyone here other than to say there's growing chatter it's not always happening it isn't happening for me and and i'm seeing chatter from other parents as well so
029let's figure out a way to fix that and i think this health and safety plan is the place to codify it so it's right so i don't know if we want to amend the motion mr cox if you wonder or um if you vote on the motion that's on the table yeah that would be my recommendation of a vote and then dr thorward has as has been the practice here uh you could have your emotions considered fair enough so we're voting on it the way it's currently written yes and that's my recommendation okay and then dr thorwald would submit a motion thereafter it sounds like dr thorwart is an addendum is looking to have the uh health and safety plan reflect uh bucks county department of health a modified quarantine protocol and uh some formality
030with respect to meal breaks and i guess um th those motions to my mind would be motions directing the administration to incorporate those concepts into the plan and then perhaps that could be considered at the next board meeting that would be my thinking dr thor ward although uh you may have a speedier timetable in mind the next board meeting is the end of school basically so i i just so but yes good go on mr odago please um i just wanted to note that i won't be supporting it again because in the beginning we were we had a draft i think at some point that the language was really leaning on the guidance from the local authority bucks county department health and i've been consistent in trying to get us back to that and i
031hope with the work that dr thorward's doing maybe by next meeting we can have something set up for next year uh we can always change but um that's just i think it's much simpler to do it that way and uh so i will not be voting for this motion thank you anybody else so we'll we're going to vote on the way it's right now and then dr thorward you have the floor mrs mckay i believe the motion was made and seconded i'm sorry do we have any objection to this motion take a roll call madam secretary roll call please i made the motion miriam mckee seconded i seconded it andy black yes yes no sure mr cox correct me if i phrase this wrong i move to amend the health and safety plan to have
032the following two items number one that we follow the modified quarantine procedure as specified by the bucks county department of health another two we direct the administration to come up with a formal policy to guarantee that all children get a scheduled or formalized lunch break without accommodations as part of the health and safety plan that suffice before we second i don't understand that second part we have kids i understand what you're trying to achieve the way you've worded the motion i don't how did we want to understand it mr cox what about just taking those two issues one at a time okay and and then we can talk because yeah and and the board can have discussion about each each concept and hopefully give the administration clarity as to whether uh give me clarity uh
033for one thing about about this question dr thorward i'm i'm i'm not sure i understand whether your emotions just simply add on language to the health and safety plan as the administration has proposed or whether you're deleting certain portions of okay let's break let's break them up in other words like the when i reviewed this health and safety plan uh earlier in the week i don't believe it addressed either of those issues so what i'm assuming is that your motion that that the board is okay with these changes but wants to have two more changes or at least some members of the board want that so that's what i want to understand and then i also think that the if this if these if one or both of these motions pass i think dr lambert
034who will take the laboring or uh needs to have clarity as to as to how he's going to revise this fair enough let me should i just rephrase why don't we why don't we take the modified quarantine issue first fine i move to change the health and safety policy policy to specify the modified quarantine as described and implemented by the bucks county department of health second thank you mark on a second any discussion on this further discussion i have a question mr bilox while i have the floor if you don't mind please so mr cox every every month we're directed to come back um we so we've allowed for dr frazier to have uh some latitude on the quarantine uh and that's to be renewed every at every board meeting and here we are at
035a board meeting so um this is a timely discussion so my understanding of the health and safety plan is that it originally followed the bucks county department of health and then we then we created a portion that allowed dr fraser to have some um some flexibility there if we just did not continue that would that achieve what dr thorward is trying to achieve and that's just relying on the guidance from the bucks county department of health which says modified quarantine that makes sense my question well we're i'm i'm trying to uh we're going back some some months now but my recollection is that the health and safety plan was based on the cdc recommendation for quarantine but provided the administration with discretion to implement the bucks county approach on a case-by-case basis am i right
036about that is that does that track with everyone's memory doctor i i believe so yes i'm looking at the doctor right that's correct so mr bilik i i interpret dr thorwart's motion to say to sort of flip it that the bucks county approach will now be the council rock approach directing the administration to implement it is that okay yes yes it does thank you anybody else mr odago please quick question of clarity um what was what were the changes because i'm looking maybe it was in an email but what what it's not highlighted in the document on board docs what exactly were the changes from the previous to next if you could it is are there any changes or we're just doing a standard review no there were there were changes um but that those
037changes were just voted down by the board but he's saying that if we go forward with his are those changes included or not you know that was his question i i believe dr thorward's motion includes the changes the administration is recommending and now dr thorward has added the bucks county quarantine that that was my intent so what were the changes that were stipulated in this they're in there on my screen mr hidalgo aaron yellow okay i mean i see that but it doesn't look like okay thank you good job yup thank you anybody else i have a question mrs brooks sure so in practice um we've been using discretion and how we apply the quarantining can you just give some insight like how strictly like are we in practice actually using more of a modified
038quarantine approach or is it more cdc or like how how is that in practice being used now in practice it has been more of the cdc approach um while looking for opportunities and at times fielding opportunities requests from a student who has been uh you know exposed as a direct contact or the parents who have made a certain request that we've uh entertained those requests and uh we haven't had too many of those but in the vast majority of cases when we have we've allowed modified quarantine because the circumstances made sense thank you you're welcome anybody else is there an opinion from the administration on impact this could have uh dr lambert you want to start i don't know how you're gonna how you're gonna gonna make that switch and how you feel about it
039i i can share that um i hesitate to speak too much because we have not had conversations about this at any great length but i i will say that in in i do not have i don't disagree with the construct of moving in that direction i think it's there's it's it's time to start moving in that direction my only concern is the practical implement implement implications of carrying it out so for example i would want to be able to come up with some you know guidelines of what that looks like i personally i would think that um for example i would have some concerns about two students one of whom has been an exposure sitting next to each other on a school bus for any period of time i would i would want to make
040sure that we have the ability to direct our building staff how they're to handle eating because the the even the bucks county requirements indicate that those students should eat separately and at a minimum of six feet away apart so i i we can work that out i just want to be able to make sure that we have guidelines in place for how we're going to handle that the other issue would be that the the department of health when they when they do their contact tracing they will issue a modified quarantine for an exposure they also issue a full quarantine for an exposure so for example if they have what they consider an ongoing contact usually an exposure that happens within a household they will recommend a quarantine not a modified quarantine we don't always get
041that information quickly so i would need to put in have ways that we can know who is ordered which type of quarantine by the department of health in order to know what we're carrying out within school so i i i think it's something that we can do and i i actually have sent out to a representative group of principals to start needing to talk about what would those implications be and how do we carry it out in school so it's the concept i think you know is a good one it's just how we do it on a day-to-day basis i want to be clear about before we say so i guess my response to that answer would be is is there a way to honor the spirit of that because i don't disagree but as
042opposed to springing on you tonight word the motion and that's probably best mr cox to provide for a week's worth of work to implement as opposed to figured out tomorrow that that of course is fine with me i think dr thorward's you know the spirit is being met this is this is within the board's discretion and i dr lambert's uh rationale is not lost on me but this is an issue that's within the board's discretion and as somebody who made the motion if you need two weeks i i i we we definitely need time we actually just had a conversation this morning a cabinet about motorbike so yeah and i didn't know this was coming this evening um so a couple weeks would just be greatly appreciated dr lambert two weeks enough dr sanko i
043know we have a lot of coordinating to do i i feel cautiously optimistic that two weeks might be sufficient i i will strive to make that happen if that's what what the decision is that absolutely about an update on the 22nd ish uh to make to give some leeway in that do we have are we able to implement it without having to re-vote on the plan if that makes sense mr clarks yes i i think the current health and safety plan gives the administration the discretion to to implement the the bucks county approach as as the default protocol sure could i make a suggestion mr violek please if what if we had a start no later than date for the change of monday the 26th of april that gives a little bit more than two
044weeks for the administration and if they're able to get this done beforehand we reaffirm the flexibility of the health and safety plan tonight so that dr frazier carries out that flexibility as he has that sounds reasonable to me mr pollock thank you i need to amend that dr thorward i would just yeah i'd ask you to amend it to reference that 426 date sure um assuming there's a there's a consensus here i'll wait but oh so dog i'm sorry i just personally wanted to assure dr lambert and dr frazier that i'm not going to hold you to a deadline here we're just getting the spirit and moving in the right direction moving forward and i don't think it's a we're voting on it today just because you vote on something doesn't mean it has to
045be tomorrow like well sometimes but i mean i think we're all here very very supportive i know you guys will make your best effort when and if we want to it's smart to make a deadline but it's not like you're going to be uh penalized or penalized for uh if you don't make it so i know you guys are doing the best you can and as i said i think we're heading in the right direction for me anyway and take some of the pressure off your shoulders and leave it to the department of health to guide us through this pandemic i think they're doing a good job and i think they'll continue to do that and and you've done a great job with the uh with the authority you've had dr frazier i appreciate thank
046you we've been through this uh your school year pretty smoothly thank you thank you anybody else i i did have another question or dr lambert please i just want to be clear when the the author the department of health is usually behind us in identifying this so we we will be just i just want to be clear and i'm not it's not a problem but we will be the ones that are notifying people what what their quarantine is in those in most circumstances my main question was there there are five areas of change in what we recommended for this evening am i implementing those tomorrow or not the spirit of my motion was they were fine i just want to make sure before that was my but i'm only speaking for myself there in the
047spirit of my motion they were fine that's the way i i'd love to get some clarity on what it is that we're voting on because i mean we need to approve a health and safety plan sounds like the group is good with his changes i think everybody is kind of with the spirit of what mike is doing is it worded appropriately to give the administration the flexibility to do that consistent with what mark was saying i'm just not clear because i thought i heard rob say that the way the plan is written right now allows for it to be implemented and executed the way the will of the board wants anyway so why can't we just approve the the original motion again well that's a board call uh i'm i've i i just want clarity
048on whatever the board decides and a vote gives clarity i know but i'm just saying if but i thought that what i heard was the language of the plan allows dr frazier to follow modified quarantine it it does and i and i think it would support a decision by the administration to make that the default approach to quarantine but i'm also hearing from dr thorward that he wants more formality in the document and there's a motion on the floor so unless dr thorward is going to withdraw that motion i think there should be a vote to address mr block's point the way i understand this motion is if the board approves dr thorwart's motion the health and safety plan with the revisions that the administration is recommending would take effect tomorrow and dr thorwart's tweak
049with respect to the bucks county modified quarantine protocol would uh the board would like to see the administration implement that piece by april 26th is that all accurate that that is fine i didn't never i never stated the 26 but will if that if that helps with the motion mr cox i think it just the board needs that clarity okay so i'll i'll amend my motion to uh a no later than april 26 implementation date you need a second on that whoever seconded the motions i'll amend my second as well thank you mr breitling official to miss brooks uh point yeah i think that the default now would be modified quarantining and so there wouldn't really be an administrative need to have the ability to defer to that i think that's the main change right
050we're just going to be modified quarantining with the department of health actually going and offering the higher level which i see where you're where dr uh lambert suggested there you know that's going to be a day or two lag in understanding if that happens if if it might be a problem right for you so we're going to work it out as we go i think we're moving in the right direction it's really the same process that we've been going through because the health department is always at least a day or two sometimes more no fault of their own just we get a phone call or we you know we have to our contact and then the health department has to wait for it to come through their system so it's just a matter of which
051kind of quarantine we're communicating at the outset so it'll be fun you know i think as any plan rolls itself out you know we need we may need to take a look at it so let's not lose sight of that if you need more time or whatever you know i just i think mike hits a lot of nails in the head with this i think it's smart we have a lot of kids in these schools now um you could lose a half a classroom it's a quarantine yeah and and that's my point we went to great lengths to get kids back in school and the current quarantine ejects quantities of them and i i also spoke with dr dansker today and he's still saying [Music] those quarantined kids the exposure kids he's not seeing them
052getting sick after the fact so we're just keeping them out of school where we can maybe treat them more carefully so um i want to move in that direction so and i just for the sake of i guess thoroughness i and i certainly respect dr damskur and i respect him saying that and generally um i'm sure that is true i did know in a recent update that i sent to the board that we have started to see uh some of our quarantine students testing positive here recently um i don't think that needs to change anything here but just for the sake of thoroughness i want to i want to make sure that i put that out there and it hasn't been most and there were extenuating circumstances to some of those yeah okay and school
053closure guidelines don't don't change so you know if if this creates a separate bad situation then we're going to be in a position where we have to close schools right for everyone so let's just hope that uh you know hope this this works out and you know we'll look forward to over the next couple weeks hearing how you can do it yeah we have a lot of moving pieces right now there are other states states you know entire states who have moved to modified quarantine so it is it is something that has picked up as this pandemic has gone on and right now from an attestation standpoint once we have a sufficient number of cases for the size of the school to to warrant closure the state says if you can case investigate contact trace
054and do the deep cleaning that's necessary then you don't need to close and that's typically what we have been doing um and now you have the cdc who recently said that deep cleaning isn't really any better than you know soap and water um but the state hasn't followed up with that yet but at some point probably will so then does it become two seas so it it's been evolving and changing from you know from this time last year practically and i'm sure it'll continue to so we'll uh as always uh be happy to implement the wheel aboard anybody else roll call madam secretary roll call yes dr yes denise brooks yes marion mckee yes joe hidalgo yes kristen marcel yes excellent yes motion passes at nine zero this is mckay uh i've got one more
055oh i'm oh i apologize no no no no that's okay um i i have spoken with robert on this one um it is my sincere opinion that the fact that we don't serve lunches in school is hard on kids um we give them a bag lunch if they get there in time or snack breakfast whatever and then we go throughout the day with more and more kids coming back there aren't six foot distances for kids to take off their mask in schools there aren't um so they can't um so my opinion there is being mindful of the health and safety plan that we just did we have to come up with a way to let teenagers 12 year olds through 18 year olds eat something in the five six hours they're they're in the school
056and we have to come up with a way to formalize it because leaving it up to individual staff is problematic too because my class is full no you'll get a class where it's not full you might not get a class where it's not full we need to come up with a way i will not make a motion the administration can come up with a way to codify this we i don't i i need you all to recognize that this is happening and and and i need some assurances we can fix it somehow it isn't an easy task and and and i know that but it's a long day even even with a shortened period to potentially not get a chance to eat anything um and this plan really does not allow you to eat anything
057because we can't achieve the six feet of separation so we have to come up with something um dr fraser i'll leave it up to you if you if you want it codified if that helps you with staff or or or if you want time to work on it but um we i i'm good either way on on this one so i'll make a motion if if that it facilitates board discussion or can we just discuss i guess is certainly just discuss okay i want to give leeway there so thank you i i appreciate that i know that we appreciate that we we spend a lot of today as you might imagine talking about this topic dr sanka i'm going to ask you to talk here in just a moment um we have looked um aggressively
058at this issue in the past with our high school principals in particular um it's it's more challenging at the high school level than it is at the middle level um and you know we're certainly not the only school district who's dismissing early and not eating lunch including a couple there that are next door neighbors to us so um we we like i said talked a lot about this today um we do want to go back and have conversations with our high school folks so if it is just the same uh to you and and to your board colleagues uh we would appreciate time to be able to dig into that without codifying anything this evening at least um you know certainly we have had those conversations and there are as you said there are no
059easy answers but at the same time you know we certainly don't want any of our students going hungry and or thirsty um you know this is maslow's hierarchy at its most basic level so dr stanko can you uh speak to what is happening uh some of the challenges etc um and then with my preface here that we're we are going to go back and uh take another deep hard look at this yeah thank you dr frazier so if we take a look at this issue k to 12 you know that we have been able to reach resolution k to six uh in terms of the formal lunch we're feeding the students every day with the uh the traditional lunch in grades seven and eight students upon arrival received a bagged breakfast as well as a
060bagged lunch and based on the way that the schedule works at the middle school there is time built in during the day for students to have the 10 to 15 minute snack break so that occurs at the middle school understand please that the driving force behind all this is the six feet of distance when masks are off and students are eating so we're able to achieve that k-8 more formal more formally at k-6 level like work accustomed to pre-covet eating during a regular regular lunch period seven and eight it's a little bit different because the the students aren't getting that entire lunch time that they would typically get but they do get a time where they can remove their masks and eat and they have the space and the time to do it within the
061schedule we get into grades nine and twelve nine to twelve our intent when we began this discussion was to be able to do the same thing at the nine to twelve at the two high schools that we're doing in grades seven to eight and provide that that time for students to to be able to eat that snack so the uh when students arrive at the high school each morning they receive if they so choose to take it they receive a breakfast those breakfasts stay out in the hallway um in multiple locations at both high school students can access them anytime during the day up until such time that they're replaced with the bagged lunches and then when students are on their way for dismissal they grab their bagged lunch and and take that with them
062because of the stratification and the the cross-pollination of classes differing grade level students like for example you may have a 9th grader and a 10th grader sitting in algebra 1 or an algebra 2 class we have not been able to find that common time like we have at the middle school where we could take the number of students who were in the building and spread them out at that six feet of space to provide one formalized 15 minute 20 minute opportunity for kids to eat we do have at both high schools opportunities for students to eat and and that is predicated again on that six feet so some of the teachers are taking students outside for them to to eat during the day some teachers are able to allow it to be permitted in classrooms
063because they're able to achieve that six feet of space those opportunities will increase with the nice weather as kids will be able to get outside to do it so so again to dr thorward to your point the short answer is yes we can do it we can find that time in there there will have to be a trade-off of sorts but but we can certainly do it and that trade-off may include things such as instructional minutes it may include things such as bell schedules it may include things such as transportation so when we when we tried to develop this plan for the high school we knew how we were going to provide the food to the students we knew we would provide opportunities for students to eat it but could not formalize it now by
064comparison we've heard a lot about what central bucks is doing and has what central bucks has done they have built in a 20-minute period at their high schools and we even tried to look at and investigate what they do but they're they're different they're a different animal than council rock they're operating on a block schedule and they are running during their period two or the second block during the day they're running a 20-minute break where students spread out across schools across the school campus so currently um currently our kids are doing that but we're not doing it at one uniform time at the high school so we could certainly go back and revisit that uh one thing i want to make sure we're clear on i read at least one email that said students aren't
065able to have water or access water all the way since beginning pre-covet our students have had water bottles and have been able to have water bottles we have filling stations at all of our buildings in fact mr taylor and his team installed water filling stations so i just i want to be clear with making sure we get we're getting the right information out to the community and certainly to the board so we will go back and revisit with with the high school principles in the team but i i do want to be very very clear that we can certainly put in a time for this to happen for kids but there will be trade-offs and as i sit here tonight i don't know what what that means exactly but we will revisit it if i
066could just since i started this to to dr fraser and dr sanko i i believe you um and i believe what you implemented at the beginning of this was altruistic and and and well-meaning but i also believe kids will slip through the cracks and not get opportunities because of this um if if if a formalized period is is is not the option some formality that ensures no kids get missed needs to be i i i don't again i i this is one where i we tried it it didn't work um it worked for most but it didn't it it's not working for all let's make it work for all that that that's what i'm looking for if it's not a formal period um what can we do to ensure nobody slips through the cracks because
067a lot of these kids are in classes that will never ever be six feet or less and frankly i i i'm thinking about the ones that are taking ap those teachers aren't going to take them outside for instructional minutes in an ap class or an honor so we it sounds terrible to just say figure this out but that's what i'm asking for and and i'll help but i i i i that's what i'm asking for so um so i think we agreed i'm not going to codify i won't so i i i'll leave you my comments are over we'll take it from here thank you all right here we go uh sorry oh i got another comment yeah i'm sorry to lay this on but i did ask real quickly about this this we already
068have a policy where children are allowed to eat and drink right we we already have a policy where the where they're able to eat in in school right now that's correct so we're just trying to maybe i don't know about formalizing a period would be the right idea but more of just making sure that that's understood across the board we have a pretty good policy that just needs to be implemented maybe a little bit better yeah i think the issue is the six feet without a mask on and i even went to dr damskur this morning after dr thorward and i went back and forth yesterday on this topic um and you know was just looking for his advice not for next year because we think the calculus will be different next year and i'll
069share that email with with the board but um you know just what's what's your advice as we try to get through these next two months um while we're in this state and and part of his answer was i'm comfortable with a little bit less than six feet but a little bit less than six feet probably doesn't help you much um so dr saniko talks about trade-offs the trade-off really can't be the distance you know and that's according to dr damskur um so it may come down to just carving out a 15 or 20 minute chunk of time each day for this to happen similar to what cb is doing the difference is as dr sanko said is that they're on a block schedule so you're talking about longer period of times so taking 20 minutes
070out is less of an impact than it is taking 20 minutes out of out of our courses so we'll uh we'll have these conversations and uh explore a variety of options but that being one of them and uh come back to dr thorwerk and the rest of the board with uh with our best thinking on this thank you um one quick question would we be able to expand the day by 15 20 minutes or is that going to mess up busing that would definitely uh impact busing yes yeah i'm sorry if i missed it during dr sanko's presentation but just explain to me what's happening now so somebody wants to have something to eat or drink and we've been we've been hearing from parents that some teachers allow it some teachers don't so what what
071happens if i'm a student and i i need something to eat or drink do i raise my hand or how's it work now okay um thank you for the question mr bilox so this example i'm going to walk you through is if you were a student in grades 9 through 12. so if you attend council rock north or council rock south you get off the bus you get dropped off by a parent you ride in because you drove your own car you walk into the building there are tables set up with breakfast bags on tables at multiple entrance points at each high school students can choose or choose not to take one of those bags and just as a side note we have been tracking the number of breakfast and lunch being taken by our
072students and the breakfast have been increasing so more students are taking the breakfast so the student walks in they take that breakfast bag and they put it in their backpack or carry it along with them they have an opportunity to eat that food at any time during the day where they could achieve six feet of physical distance so if they are sitting in a classroom with three three other students clearly our classrooms uh with the square footage would allow for food to be masked to be removed and snacks or breakfast to be consumed at that time if they're in a room with 22 other students then we cannot achieve the six feet there are some other situations where it would not regardless of the number of kids where it would not be appropriate for a
073student to be eating in a class maybe if it's a science lab and you're working with acids and bases or a biology lab or a specialized class like that there are also if if a student is hungry at any time or needs a mask break at any time staff has been reminded repeatedly at faculty meetings at department meetings at team leading team leader meetings that students they could raise their hand and ask for a mask break they could raise their hand and ask for a snack break we know that that some students are that's not favorable to some students students can also work directly with their teachers or their grade level principal to to create or find a time where they could they don't have to raise their hand to do that to ask for
074a break so during the course of the day from the time the students arrive in the morning and grab their their snack bag and we have some students that are bringing their own snacks with them any time that they could achieve six feet with the exception of some of those specialized classes like i gave you for example if you're working with assets and vases or something like that students are able to eat in that in in that space as long as they achieve six feet so um when the student is on their way out of the building they then grab their lunch and they get into their ride home whether it's their car their parents car or the bus did i answer your question yes i just wasn't sure if you were finished i'm i'm
075glad that you mentioned the um students who may not want to ask um you know i i i do get concerned when i hear these uh read these emails and hear from parents about kids not feeling as though they're getting the basic needs right just water and food and there seems to be some differences in how teachers are approaching this so it would be good and i understand that you're reminding staff during staff meetings but it would be good to codify it in my opinion as a shall staff shall allow at a certain time so that would be my preference but i was reminded from a mental health professional that you know we put a lot of mental health strain on these kids and and there were kids who it would be devastating um whether
076they have eating disorders or other food issues to raise their hand and bro bring attention to themselves about food so i just want to keep that in mind while you're having this these discussions um and it sounds like you are so that's that's good i was very pleased to hear you say that but something i hadn't considered um so it was just please keep those things in mind thank you mr bilock if i may just add one more thing um again just as by way of example every student is unique and every student is special and every student has differing needs so it's no different when it comes to this topic so across the schools we have and continue to make modifications and accommodations for students for example students who may have diabetes we certainly
077have to provide opportunities throughout the course of the day for those students the students in our low incidence populations we've made accommodations so we have been and will continue to work with with all those kids and and families it's important it's important for our parents to know and for our students to know if there is a unique situation and we don't know about it you need to tell us about it so we can help very good thank you very much dr senko anybody else thank you we move to approve the athletic health and safety plan changes as attached to this agenda second mr tate second any discussion on this i just have a question dr lambert i didn't know when or dr frazier or anybody in the audience if this was the proper time to
078ask or was it during health and safety plan uh but there's a there's a line in page four when it talks about the students will not be required to wear face coverings and i'll get to the yellow part or when due to exertion levels wearing a face covering may be reasonable create a safety issue i wrote this up at the last meeting kids of recess in may running around does that fit an athlete it doesn't currently under our thinking and i would suggest the reasons would be somewhat different in in in an athletic competition they when they talk about contacts they talk about pods who's your group of people so a softball team is a small group of people a lot of kids on the playground there's a lot of kids on the playground so
079there's a lot of opportunities for more exposure the um the concern on the playground also is while the kids are wearing massive and we have a difficult time having the kids maintain distance as it is so there would be a concern that whether the whether the youngsters would um would maintain distance to the extent that they're able to but um to answer your question we had not been considering recess or gym classes for that matter as in the same category and i just wonder if if it brings a conversation at what temperature is it too hot for a kid to to be involved in gym or in outdoor recess um but one would one could argue the kid could have the same issues we're discussing here as the quote unquote athlete i know that in
080our phys ed department the phys ed teachers have greatly reduced the exertion level they're expecting of kids in the activities that they're doing so they're not engaging activities to the same degree of exertion as would a uh you know a student playing a more competitive sport so that does come into play the other thing with the recess is we if if if we were to go in that direction again we would need to work out how does that work on a practical basis so you will have a group of kids that are running around playing a game where they're fleetingly passing each other you're also going to have four kids are going to sit on a bench and talk to each other entire time so we would if we would have to have again parameters
081as to what that would look like i just think it needs to be on the radar i really do i'm i have concerns you know every kid sweats and and their level of exertion is different um it's only going to take one kid to have a problem on our recess fields or whatever so i just thought it was an opportunity to bring it up tonight anybody else doug mr dog yes we look at what other school districts are doing if it's you know if they're already somebody's already offering that around especially in the south southern states where it's always warm we could kind of look at it i'm not here or there with it at this point kind of be interesting to look at thank you well i would just add the southern states aren't
082wearing masks anymore but that's neither here nor there um i i agree with you mr solomon um we need to think about it i mean it's getting warm in a hurry i couldn't exert myself with a mask on so um yeah so keep it on the radar anybody else any objections you need to roll calling this rough okay hearing none i'm going to ask the secretary to record this uh motions passing with united's consent rh mrs mckay please thank you i moved to approve the attached equity review contract between university of pennsylvania delaware valley consortium for excellence in equity dvc ee ncr not to exceed 20 thousand dollars subject to audit and solicitor review second second mr block any discussion on this mr solomon if we could uh dr ali i know is prepared to
083uh make some summary remarks sorry dr elliott dr elliott dr elliott please yes uh thank you mr solomon thank you dr frazier and um miss mckee so as miss mckee said at the very beginning of the education committee report this evening she explained that this particular item this evening is linked to our strategic plan particularly it is linked to our goal our first goal of student wellness and and that strategy related to student wellness is to embrace and incorporate diversity in all of its various dimensions and continue to build an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students and district stakeholders so one of our goal for continuous improvement is to really look at equity for all of our students and to clarify by equity we're not just talking about race but we're talking about all
084forms of equity including race gender religion and we want to really be able to start to take a good look at how are we providing equitable access and opportunities for all of our students so in order to do that one aspect that we want to study is our secondary leveling and recommendation practices to really understand how those practices affect access and opportunities for students so for example how do the practices that we currently employ impact access for girls in mathematics and computer science courses as an example so we are requesting this evening board approval to bring a team of outside expert experts from the university of pennsylvania's delaware valley consortium for excellence and equity to study our leveling and recommendation practices as part of this study the team from penn which will include also representatives
085from surrounding districts that are also members of the dvce consortium as we are as well the team that will come will study through an analysis of our longitudinal data they'll review documents and artifacts such as our program planning guide or other other documents and they will also conduct focus group interviews with various stakeholder groups to really gain an understanding of how our practices work and what the impact of those practices are as a result of this study the team from penn will provide us with a report that will highlight our strengths our areas of growth and suggestions that will help us as we continue implementing our strategic plan and continue our path of continuous growth to improve equity and reach excellence through equity for all of our students thank you miss mckee any further discussion
086from the board mr lago um i appreciate what we're doing what we're looking to do here and it'll probably pass i think i mentioned at the last meeting um that i believe this kind of work is something that that we can do and i would think along more along the lines that we may maybe give a donation of a thousand dollars or something and just take the reports that are already out there and implement those bullet points because we're going to get to the same basically it's going to be roughly the same information like mr block had said if there's already work been done uh in other schools maybe we could take that because i'm looking at this from fte points it might be a 0.2 fte every little bit counts and i'm trying to
087change the way we're thinking uh coming into the next few years so um as much as i think it's not like a huge uh drop in the bucket uh every little bit we have to start managing at this point and this is something i think clearly that work we can achieve um with the resources that are already out there and i appreciate the experts and it is a a big bang for the buck and i don't discredit the the professionals and experts at the university of uh pennsylvania i appreciate it but at just at this time i'm going to have to uh you know ask for a roll call vote thank you any further discussion madam secretary roll call please sorry mr barlick that's okay uh i need a second to mute uh or unmute
088uh i have the same concerns i i just i know this is twenty thousand dollars but i'm thinking you know this this uh huge budget deficit and and um future deficits and and i don't want to be um pennywise and pound foolish i guess is the term but uh i where's this is this already in our budget for this year where's this coming from the funding for this yes this is in the budget for this year mr balik okay so it's not something outside of the budget and it's just for this year are we committing ourselves to any further commitments well at this point uh what's up for approval this evening is uh just this uh no further commitments that said um as dr elliott had indicated there this is a pretty core part of
089our strategic plan and we had talked as a as a board and cabinet previously about having a uh equity-focused curricular audit done and um i desire to come back to the board at some point uh that would be a separate motion and a separate board vote but i see a need for that work to be done and also uh an equity-based policy review so in all transparency i do want to be clear that i do intend uh not anytime in this fiscal year again but next year perhaps perhaps the year after to come back and uh expand upon this work i i do view this work as foundational and exceptionally exceptionally important from an equity and access standpoint but certainly not comprehensive enough to address all of our needs within the arena of diversity equity
090and inclusion i appreciate that um good points so uh if if you were to bring this again next year it wouldn't be a situation where we're we're you're saying all right well we've already uh spent this 20 000 we might as well spend the remainder of it it's not that kind of situation like like we have with the building discussion sometimes these are separate discussions right yeah exactly separate and disagree yes okay very good thank you anybody else hi dr forward i had some of the same concerns mr hidalgo had around head count you have an ask for hit count i did read the examples that were sent to the board and correct me if i'm wrong but one of the recommendations was higher and and i don't like that in outside recommendations so as
091long as we're not going down that route right now anything that improves our environment and you've already budgeted for i'm good so um yeah um dr forward if i may um respond to your yes please question uh so the sample report that was provided to the board just to clarify the level of that report that was provided that was a full comprehensive review of all aspects of the particular school district sample that you were given so it was not just looking at leveling and recommendation practices but it was looking at policy at recruiting and hiring at multiple aspects of the district so i can't speak to what after the study uh the team from penn is going to recommend but i just wanted to clarify that what you saw was actually a much more involved
092and comprehensive report than than just one aspect of the entire system of the district thank you anybody else mrs brooks please to balance out some of the comments i um i want to thank the administration for bringing this forward i think this is a fantastic creative innovative approach to looking at how we deliver education by the very nature of trying to address these issues this is not something that we can do ourselves we do need the benefit of expert objective professional people who have an area of expertise to look at this and make sure that we are delivering our recommendations that we are approaching program planning in the most equitable and inclusive way um if we could have done that ourselves we would have done it already i mean we we are putting forth our
093best efforts this um i realize it's you know it's not pennies here this is this comes with a price tag the return on this investment in what it brings potentially to our students and how we look at program recommendations is worth something that you cannot quantify so not only will i be supporting it i support it with pride i think this is a wonderful thing that we are bringing to the district mr adago please um i just want to respond because when we were trying to open and close schools we kept saying that the experts we have in education are right here in our school district it was meant many many times that we have the experts we have the experts here and we have to utilize them and i know there's only so much
094time in a in a uh in a day but what i'm worried is we're going to go through this we're going to come back and are we going to be obligated to implement all of these uh changes that are that are are that were uh you know going to be proposed and without understanding the the how diverse this panel is it just drives it causes caution if i don't want to go down a path of uh let's say one one spectrum or another i'd like to make sure that it's a diverse panel you know oh you know i'm a little worried anybody else block please yeah i just think we we need to be careful i think what we've been really good at i'm going to talk about a little bit later is planning in
095every element of our business whether it's facilities or finance and now academics and one of the things i've been most proud of recently is a strategic plan that we've put together and this board approved that and i think it's incumbent upon us this board who approved that plan to let the administration are experts and we should be consistent if there are experts listen to them you know most most of the time and have debate when it's warranted but we need to be prepared to let those folks do the things that they need to do to execute that plan that we approve so i'll be supporting this anybody else right madam secretary roll call please yes i moved to approve the elementary learning models for 2021 2022 to include a traditional in-person model and a separate
096district cyber model with a possible mid-year transition point for students to shift from cyber to traditional second mr dr thorward any discussion on this dr thor please um we had discussed commended kim a commitment for a full year you decided on and i'm fine with that mid-year switch we can we can do that logistically we can do a mid-year switch logistically as i said at the ed committee meeting we don't have strong feelings on this we see pros and cons both ways but we would be most happy to allow a mid-year transition point okay it's not a hill i'm gonna so with the way it's written with a possible mid-year if it's the board's will to have that mid-year transition point i would suggest that we amend that motion with the uh retraction of the
097word possible yeah i can't support with a possible i i think six months is a long time let alone you know no real end here so i i would fully support this with a mid-year trans transition point put into the words administratively we're very comfortable with that okay and so as the maker of the motion i would accept that as a friendly amendment do i need to amend my second i will getting thumbs up here yep so yeah i will i'd say we're all calling this rob can i just ask a question mrs brooks please on the assumption that this should pass so what what would be the timeline of how things get firmly communicated and when will families have to register so we talked about this in cabinet you asked uh a very good
098question as i recall at the ed committee meeting about the typical june first date so we have i would say that we have not uh solidified anything yet but our best thinking coming out of this morning anyway from a cabinet standpoint was to stick with that june first date because it helps us so much from a staffing standpoint and staffing is going to be even harder this year with having separate virtual teachers with uh with classroom based teachers and then obviously our budget is getting approved a week after uh june 1st so certainly it it's been very helpful in the past in that regard so our best thinking coming out of this morning is to have a registration deadline of june 1st with an allowance that hey should the should the pandemic significantly worsen from
099what it is today as the summer progresses which i don't think any of us anticipate but one never knows but should that happen then certainly we would want to allow for uh you know some some avenue for folks to uh to re-register at some point there over the summer but we have a lot of implications you know hack hack needs to roll over internally first in the summer and then for parents that second week of august so we can really from a practical standpoint only go so far anyway um and we know as i said at the ed committee we once we lose those folks over the summer that's true from a staff standpoint and certainly from a parent standpoint it's it's hard to uh to do something like a comprehensive registration process so as
100of this evening our thinking is june 1st although we have an edge that is down thank you anybody else this is marcel please thank you mr salomon um i just want to take a moment to thank you dr frazier because i know this is something that mr solomon and i have talked about previously um it was interesting to see how many people participated in the survey that you sent out um and i it sounds like you guys have a solid plan for moving forward so just wanted to thank you for that thank you one more dr thor please just a quick one we talked about it i want to reaffirm you don't have enrollment you're not running the classes right i mean we're going to put us a floor on on these classes right yeah
101last last or at committee rather we talked about 15 kind of as that general benchmark i will leave it to you what's effective and economic so but you have a floor so yeah and based on that survey and we didn't have 100 participation i if i recall was somewhere around 85 or so percent participation but based on that survey we actually would only have one one class one section at each level at most and one of those only had nine nine students i may have been third grade i'm not sure those survey results are online but one of them only had nine students now do we pick up more once we get the other 15 who knows uh bring back some some cyber charter kids maybe they go online but uh so we'll see how
102it all shakes out but as it stands right now with that survey anyways it's actually only one one cyber section per grade okay that was going to be my question but we didn't we were not able to capture people that left that's right for cyber charters so so how are we gonna what's your sense with that uh well with approval this evening if we walk out of here this evening knowing what our models are going to be next year then um our job is to really have a strategic outreach uh platform to those families that is is mostly informative in nature so they understand hey this is how we did things in during the pandemic and this is how it's going to be different in 2122 um with you know probably a persuasive element to
103uh to that outreach as well and uh we believe in the in the programs that we offer and the quality of uh pedagogy that we offer and then the outcomes that we deliver and you know we'll stack them up with anyone and uh certainly stack them up with uh with any of these places uh that we're currently paying tuition to that uh we think we can do a great job and we will do a great job next year with those kiddos so we want them back yeah it's smart it really is and that's really the advantage uh we're we're kind of a lone wolf right now in april getting this approved in fact we had that conversation today as superintendents on the county-wide basis so i know that we are out in front of this
104uh relative to the other 12 bucks county districts but i really think it's advantageous for internal reasons as well as the kiddos that we lost and we do want them back and and you know we're we're optimistic and hopeful that they'll want to come back we're giving families time yes that left exactly just to see what we're offering and i think that's important absolutely it's good to be a leader really is can can i ask one follow one sure dr thuber we're approving one year of this this is not a permanent addition to there's no intention of making this a permanent addition to council at this point it's a one year one year okay thanks yeah and that's another reason why i i had a hard time with the whole year because who knows what
105a six months from now changes into yeah i'm optimistic yeah i have to we sold them it's fine mr alago please right thank you uh last education meeting i'm generally supportive of these these these two proposals i think they're really good i still have a lot of questions and we're coming to the vote right now and i just wanted to one i want to make sure there's flexibility going forward we may have to change or tweak the plan going forward generally as i said i agree with things that we're doing when we're talking about children having the opportunity to go from cyber to in school are we saying that was a mid-year just want to make sure that's clear for everybody so it's one time mid-year and that's you know it is what it is
106i can't say i would like more flexibility i always like more flexibility for everybody if if possible when it's manageable um and then the other question i had is would we need at one point to implement are we leaving the live streaming on the side as a possibility to the guts of that there if need be because things may change and we may have to jump right back into a model like that are we somehow keeping that as a contingency moving forward it's last on the list but yes it's uh you know we we have the we have the equipment we don't want to use it we don't think it's good frankly you know after having this whole year we don't think it's good from a learning standpoint for kids in the classroom or kids
107at home right we think we can do better by them and we don't think it's uh really sound from a pedagogical teaching standpoint either so um if the pandemic warns it then yeah absolutely i mean the one the one constant this year has been changed right right and so uh we have to be ready to uh to pivot at a moment's notice just like we have this year but uh yeah it's uh it's it's it's down the list of okay well i just want to make sure it's there because we need it we may need it very well sometime in the future maybe not next year but you know we have we invested in it it should be there uh even on snow days we're gonna want that i would think with those five snow
108days if we're going to enroll for that we still need that infrastructure and then the other thing i was going to ask and you can comment on that but before i forget if somebody's absent from the elementary classroom then that's just treated as a regular absent day there's there's not the benefit of what we have now so as i said i'm thinking we may have to keep this actually last on the list but very close to the to the hip thank you the only over ask i would have mr frederickson is that the folks that are in her cyber academy that they get the best or the latest or the best we can get them in terms of chromebooks or whatever they're going to need at home we went through a lot of bumps this
109year with broken equipment and things that needed to be fixed you know let's try to get in front of those folks and ensure they get the best that we all have to offer okay anybody else is there any objections i i would feel good voting for it just because a roll call just because this feels good sorry no that's fine uh madam secretary roll call please denise brooks yes gary mckee yes joe hidalgo yes yes thank you for indulging me thank you motion passes 9-0 mrs mckay i moved to approve a secondary learning model for the 2021-2022 school year to include a traditional in-person model with no district cyber option second is mrs marcel word discussion we're we're shedding the hybrid and the the we're shedding that is that what i'm hearing here there is
110definitely no hybrid uh we did talk at education committee about um you know the the opportunity for students uh grade seven plus to be uh vaccinated at this point we're operating on the assumption that that opportunity will be there and so we've written the motion accordingly um and i feel pretty encouraged by what dr damser had to say today in that regard so if that's the case then our staff has already had that chance our students will have that chance certainly not requiring or even encouraging anyone to do it but we know that some folks really want that opportunity so yeah we want to we want to be back to business as normal so no no live streaming no hybrid uh just always we know it i i it was heartening to hear your statements
111and the last one that you think it's better to be back in school so i i without a doubt yeah yeah so all roads lead to the classroom right that's fine yeah full day lunch that's the plan thank you anybody else yeah i have a question so i i wasn't at the education committee meeting and i'll admit that i haven't had a chance to watch the meeting um as i usually do but um there is no um there's no desire for the community for a cyber option for the secondary students well with a community as large as ours there's always going to be a segment that would desire that we did put out that survey and um you know the survey the survey came back as it did probably more information in the qualitative comments
112the open-ended comments than anything but um again the the that that survey was prefaced with uh our kiddos having the opportunity to be vaccinated uh plus two weeks before school would begin so i i don't see enough of a desire in that uh to warrant offering a separate cyber option and and really and this is part of what we talked about at the uh at the education committee meeting mr balik is just it's a different beast at the secondary level having a cyber option cannot be done the way that we're doing it in-house at the elementary level and that's just because uh secondary schools of course are departmentalized you have leveled courses you have electives you have teachers even who aren't qualified to teach every subject area or course that we offer so it really
113becomes pretty much an impossible puzzle to put together so what we would be left with if we wanted a secondary cyber option would be using a third party provider and um the the price tag that comes with that is is awfully heavy so getting back to your original question around uh want or demand for it i i'm not seeing the one or demand being commensurate with what the price tag would be for this okay that's fair thank you you're welcome mr radaga i don't i don't see a in a second in the elementary learning model i see that that's posted on board docs but i don't see anything posted for for the secondary where it's actually bullet pointed out for everybody to see including myself uh that's right so we um what once we became
114more confident in the vaccination timeline what we originally had in there was based off of the education committee meeting but because we uh did not preface anything in this motion from a vaccination standpoint um i had that removed from board dogs going back to normal school next year that's right okay thank you that's very important for people to know indeed it is anybody else madam secretary to do a roll call with this as well yes brooks yes mary mckee joe hidalgo yes ocean bass is 9-0 letter k bucks county iu mrs brooks mr president point of order uh before we move on to the uh the other reports i think we missed a vital uh issue during the health and safety plan every at the business meeting we're required to continue the um the allowance
115of the superintendent to have the flexibility for the modified quarantine and since there's a timeline there's a time difference between this meeting and whatever we said the 26th i think it was do we need to continue that for that period of time mr cox no because i understood the i understood the board to renew the health and safety plan as of tomorrow with the administration's recommended modifications and then on the 26th with the addition that dr thorward made so from from my seat i have clarity that the health and safety plan uh with the administration's recommendations goes into effect tomorrow with dr thorward's tweak on the 26th and then that would prevail until the next board meeting does that answer your question uh uh it does i i don't know if i uh agree but
116i'm going to just defer to you so that's fine thank you sorry to interrupt that's fine mr butler thank you mrs brooks uh the cadence of how meetings go there is nothing to report the iu meeting is i'll get you next time letter l uh nbit mrs marsh or um i'm sure mr mckay are you doing it you all take it thank you um the mbit committed the whole met on tuesday um and as it was a lengthy meeting that covered a lot of topics i will just try to give you the gist of it we were updated and discussed various capital improvement projects and under program policy and personnel the conversation continues around possible restructuring of operations at mbit which i believe we have reported on previously in addition negotiations are ongoing with mbea
117along with their act 93 group and then there was a great deal of discussion around returning mbit students to five-day in-person attendance and again to summarize the the difficulty that we're experiencing right now has to do with each of the sending districts running slightly different schedules so we're asking the districts the superintendents to go and have a look at that and see if we can come up with a solution and ways to resolve this to get kids back five days so that is definitely on our radar and being discussed and a similar topic was discussion around allowing students to the opportunity to work on with live instruction in other words uh students in the dental program being able to work with actual people instead of mannequins or models or people in cosmetology being able to
118work with actual people rather than mannequins um again the the sticking point there has to do with some of the restrictions placed on us uh with with covid however that will be a discussion item our executive committee meeting will be next week on monday that would be a discussion item so just wanted to bring you up to speed on the number of things we continue to to to look at at mbit i have a question doctor thorpe um statement question the statement is i find it appalling that after all the work we did to get our kids back to school five days a week mbit is not so that that's my statement um we need to get those kids back along those lines this board [Music] well was split about getting the kids back to
119school a great deal along the way [Music] we have two votes at mbit correct that is correct um who which other sending districts are back five days a week now if if i could i want to make sure that this board is represented there um and and we aren't splitting our votes we have two votes i i i want to make sure we're we're carrying the weight of council rock and and council rock is back five days a week so uh if i may respond i do believe that mrs marcel and myself do our very best to communicate fully with you and receive input from you so that we do in fact represent the will of this board i can also assure you that mrs marcel and i are very consistent in our approach at
120mbit to give you maybe a little more detail that might help explain the difficulty with mbi team moving from their four day to five day model as i referenced the diff the differences between uh schedules not just when the buses arrive which is not consistent among the four sending districts but additionally as we heard earlier tonight from dr sanko two of those schools have block scheduling that looks very different than council rock so students are arriving from the sending districts at different times causing mbit teachers to begin their day earlier and as a result they're actually losing one of their plan periods every day so it happens on that wednesday in addition to deep cleaning the building which again is a very unique situation different than our buildings as you can imagine on that wednesday
121that's also time for teachers to take part in their planning which they have relinquished as a result of the change in schedules for the students arriving and departing every day so that's there's a bit of explanation and on that wednesday there is asynchronous learning that goes on where students and i know at least in council rock they are provided a specific area in which to do this students are preparing for their certification exams students are doing the book work related to their classwork so um that i hope fills in the picture a bit about what happens on that wednesday when they're not in school but i do want to assure you dr thorward not only mrs marcel and myself but my sense from the executive council is everyone wants their students back five days and
122and i would just add thank you uh miss vicki for a great report and for helping to add some detail to that um i believe i don't have the dates in front of me but i believe that centennial is about to happen um i don't remember the date that they mentioned to us but it's it might be within like a week or so um and so i think that all i mean essentially all of the boards from the four setting districts have said they want to do five days and so the will of all of the boards is five days i think that it's like an operational issue based on what miss mckee said and i know that a number of executive council members have said that they want to get this figured out so
123that the students are in the buildings on wednesdays and i there have been conversations in the last few days since our meeting on tuesday to try to push to have the district speak to each other about this i know in the in our uh committee on the whole meeting i had said you know we have to probably figure this out for the fall anyway because this is probably going to continue to be some type of you know some just impediment it's going to be an issue so we have to keep talking to each other because we have four districts that are operating in slightly different ways and so i am hopeful that we will either be voting on this on monday to set a date where things will start moving forward um if not i've
124heard from some executive council members that they want a special meeting so that we can move forward and so i think that there's a commitment from a number of board members to do that i think we just need to maybe give a little bit of time for the different districts to communicate with each other but i'm personally you know i'd like to hear from the board about their feedback for us so that we can represent council rock adequately but i personally as kristin feel like um i'll i want to give room to make it work but not that much room because we're in the fourth marking period so we don't have a lot of time left and so time is of the essence and so the the faster this gets resolved or you know that
125we send the students back before we get it resolved you know and try to smooth out the wrinkles um so whatever that is i would like to figure that out as as this chris said at health rock but i would be um curious to hear what my board colleagues think well i i just note that we have a subset of our student population that is not back to school five days a week oh yeah and and that's a problem so mr mckee can you just explain just so the parents are clear about the the issue with the buses again is and was that is that an issue prior to quote covet as well no because we've seen our bus schedule change and our high school schedule change uh every other district has as well so
126mrs marcel i don't have those times in front of me but for example one school will arrive at 7 30 one will arrive at 7 45 one will dismiss at 1 30. one will dismiss at 2 15. so the instructors at mbit are receiving their students at different times for their block of instruction and they may be leaving earlier and some staying later so that's what i mean uh by that yeah so so essentially um uh mr strauss sent us a schedule central bucks is beginning their a session at 7 30 and departs at 9 30 and the other districts are there at 7 and then two districts are departing at 10 15. uh council rock is departing at 10 so a little bit early so it's just like very choppy for the teacher and
127the students and you know it's not the best but at least necessarily all they're mostly back um but we we can fix this i think it's worth something that we can do and then the b session centennial um council rock and new hip silver are all 11 30. central bucks is 11 so it's like so they're shifted um earlier so it's just i think it's just a matter i don't have doctor for your view of any comments but i think it's just a matter of trying to sync up this the schedules a little bit more based on the way council rocks periods are operating and the other districts and transportation a lot of operational kind of pieces i think the two of you have summarized it really nicely obviously as kristin just went through we
128have one district who's on a bit of a different uh you know schedule than than the other three so we're off by 15 minutes on the departure end uh for am uh with new hope and centennial um in the afternoon were completely aligned central bucks and and they have a different a different deal a because of their proximity and b because of their block scheduling and unlike us and new hope which are also like central bucks dismissing uh an hour early and not serving a traditional lunch uh central box is making sure that their kids their mbit kids are leaving in time to be dismissed uh that full hour early whereas we're allowing our mbit students as is new hope to be there for the traditional school day so um i think i think much
129of the onus right now is resting with uh central bucks as you might imagine because they're the they're the biggest outlier so we're going to let that play out and then see what uh more minor adjustments we or uh centennial or new might need to make okay yeah thank you because i think it's important because i know i get phone calls from parents and i can't answer those questions so i give them kristen saw a number it's easier that way but thank you for the extra time on that anybody else all right we're going to go to letter m ref mister mr tate thank you i'll be brief first of all i want to publicly commend ms mckee and ms marcel for the many hours they put into mbit people don't see that it's not
130obvious but it's a big time commitment and we appreciate your representation um i'll be real brief council rock education foundation is planning the council rock golf classic i had this great skit planned for tonight you guys it was hysterical you all were going to be rolling in the aisles because ms marcel was going to tell us about how she's upped her golf game and mr block was going to tell you just how atrocious my golf game is but we'll skip all that registration is open we're looking for people to sign up to play uh so grab a partner or a foursome or and this is very important you can still become a whole sponsor which is an important thing um the details are on the craft website which is creationfoundation.org the month of may is
131uh crsd cref grants an action month sponsored by jefferson health each week during the month of may we will feature a live craft grant in action students and families can join in to learn about steam as demonstrated by a cr educator and students and the projects will feature craft funded grants over the last decade so mark your calendars for wednesdays at 7 00 p.m during the month of may you can tune in and watch and finally the innovative grant applications are now open over the last decade craf has funded almost half million dollars five hundred thousand dollars in support of steam and special projects throughout crsd they are now accepting proposals so staff teachers should be going to the craft website to learn about submissions and that's my report thank you thank you mr tate
132and you might as well just get closer to the microphone goes around we're going to move the facilities your report please yes ready thank you sure the facilities committee mat last met on tuesday march 23rd as i'm sure you all recall and note that was a tuesday and we have had a lot of discussion about a number of projects and i believe that dr fraser is going to take the floor and give us a presentation a verbal view invitation thank you sir thank you all right so as much of our community knows and has been referenced uh earlier here this evening we have recently put out four different projects to bid one of those being the turf and tennis project at council rock high school south sulfine stone elementary renovation in addition hillcrest elementary renovation
133in richboro elementary renovation and then we also put out a joint bid uh that coupled together uh hillcrest l and richboro l uh and then in addition to that also factoring into our thinking and our planning is a backlog that we have in terms of facility maintenance projects you'll hear board members and administrators refer to those as cip projects uh so we have a bit of a backlog there that is part of this equation as well so we have talked at length on march 23rd and other committee meetings about these different projects as well as different ways to fund them potentially at this most recent meeting on the 23rd i indicated on behalf of the administration that we see three scenarios as probably most reasonable and most realistic and those three scenarios uh first would
134be to just reject all of the bids and delay the projects two would be to approve hillcrest elementary only at this time and three would be to approve both hillcrest and sulfine stone at this time so we've stated in the committee meetings that the two facilities that frankly concern us the most are the two oldest buildings that we have in the district that have not been renovated old infrastructure old systems and we continue to hope that they hang on so number one on that list of concerns is sulfine stone elementary and number two on that list is the former richboro middle school uh and the uh the relevancy of the former richboro middle school and certainly the folks in this room know it and many of our folks watching at home probably do as well
135is that we have been and we desire to continue to use that as swing space which uh really accomplishes two things one is it's a cost savings for us it allows us to do these projects in one year instead of two years by moving an entire student body and the operations of that school into the former rms and it also means that we don't need to face that project uh so we also save money by virtue of not having modular classrooms and the like um and then of course just the natural benefit from a teaching and learning standpoint and the student experience standpoint by having kiddos not in the construction zone itself so those are some of the benefits of it and part of our desire around this plan to prioritize both of those buildings
136as really beyond do and aging quite rapidly infrastructures so of course there are other options and combinations of options with these projects that are available to the board but i just want to focus here a bit on uh the three that we have identified and do so from a pro con standpoint so again the first option is delaying all of the projects clearly that is the most budget budget-friendly option at least in the short term as there would be no immediate budget impact that said we would also be left in the situation where we aren't addressing any of these facility needs sulfine stone and the former rms included and uh obviously we would need to come up with both a timeline and a borrowing plan for all of the above in terms of these projects
137that we put out to bid and for cip the second option again is approving hillcrest only the advantage of that option is taking care of one of our significant elementary buildings that has needs um and from a fiscal standpoint that that project fits within our current borrowing capacity so for for reference from a community standpoint uh we one of the line items in our budget is debt service line and so that's an annual line item that we have in the budget and our budgeted amount is 18.8 million annually uh paying for debt service and the room that we have currently to borrow so from an overall borrowing capacity standpoint is 24 million and the cost of hillcrest comes in uh sub 24 million so approving hillcrest would also take advantage of an east grant that
138we have received for that building um as well as as i indicated earlier taking advantage of using the former rms as swing space for that hillcrest renovation uh the cons to approving uh only hillcrest is that again it would not begin to address our most needy facility in the district that being sulfine stone and we would still need to develop a borrowing plan and timeline for all of the other projects including sulfine stone rich barrel l turf and tennis as well as the backlog of cip and then the third option that we see as being reasonable and realistic is to approve both hillcrest ansel finestone this option actually does carry with it unlike the others a timeline and borrowing plan that has been determined for all of the other projects so that staggered timeline would
139look like this funds to address the backlog of cip would be available immediately to us with this option we would re-bid the south turf and tennis project one year from now we would look for a summer 22 uh 2022 start for that so a one year delay on that and then we would re-bid rich borough elementary for a summer 2023 start so a two-year delay from this point on on that project so what this means is that all council rock schools would be air conditioned by the summer of 2024 you may recall when we originally developed this plan we were saying by the summer of 2023 a one-year delay a one-year pause in the capital plan um with this approval would have us online then to accomplish that in my opinion really important status by
140the summer of 2024 um and that timeline just because of the timing of the projects and the duration of the projects would actually have both richborough l and sulfine stone wrapping up in the summer of 2024. so even though sulfine stone would be approved now and richborough wouldn't start until 2023 one is a one-year project one is a three-year project so they would actually end at the same time uh the con is fairly obvious on this one in that it certainly exceeds our current borrowing power of 24 million dollars so if this combination of projects would be approved this evening uh we would need to uh do one of three things or any combination of these three things one is to increase that debt service line item in our budget two would be to use
141a capitalized interest approach which um anyone who isn't quite sure what that is um it's understandable and a and b uh go back and watch a couple of our past committee meetings and uh mr stone has well explained it and then the third option is to uh is to make a cash payment uh and that cash payment amount would be approximately 2.37 million dollars and part of that would be due in 2022 and part of that would be due in 2023. so even with this option there would be no no impact positive or negative to the budget that we are currently planning that being the 21 22 budget so if this option would be approved this evening the administration would prefer the cash payment option as opposed to increasing the budget and opposed to using
142a capitalized interest approach and we think that's a really important piece of of where we're at on this and and really we would be helped in doing so right now um in a pretty substantial way so again when we talk about those cip projects just for the edification of folks at home we typically at year end we balance our books and typically we have uh somewhat of a surplus because we like to come in a little bit better on revenue as well as a little bit better on the expenditure side and we are in the tradition of uh transferring then three million dollars typically three million give or take a little bit to uh to this uh item for summer cip projects in fact a little bit later on this evening we will be approving
143this summer's 2021 cip projects um so we're in we're in the good position right now of this year's 2021 cip projects have already been funded by the end-of-year budget that we had from last school year from the 1920 school year so that's the 2021 cip projects when we look ahead to the 2022 cip projects and this is just part of the overall strategic work that we're doing from a budgeting standpoint in the district we are for the first time building that three million dollars for cip into our operating budget so there will be no transfer that's necessary at the end of this current 2021 school year so um as i've indicated to the board previously if there's ever a year for us to look at using year-end surplus if in fact there is year and
144surplus we still have a quarter of the year to go but if there is ever a year to do that to make that cash payment this is the year uh so again we're we're estimating that uh payment it being 2.37 million that's an approximation that's based on today's bid results and today's interest rates always subject to change but again we will not need to transfer to make that 3 million transfer that we historically have made so that's a summation of the projects and their pros and cons so mr solomon with that i'll turn it back to you thank you sir so let's i think at this point let's have some board comment um there's a lot of information that we've all been talking about we've seen a lot of emails come in from our community
145with their concerns and and and you know some comment tonight about things we should and shouldn't be doing so see if we can get a consensus before we go to the actual bids to vote on if that's fine with you mr tate i think it's a good plan thank you thank you who wants to go first not all at once i'll make a brief statement because it will follow under the statement i made when we rejected all the bids about a year ago i was very very very clear when we rejected the bids that the next thing i vote yes for will be the turf we've pulled that out from under our community what is it three times now perhaps four um we're proposing kicking that can down again i my belief is we will
146just continue to kick the can down so in a way this is easier for me than perhaps some of you because i will not retract what i said a year ago that the next project is the turf which i will um make a statement because it was brought up earlier was the plan uh a year ago it was certainly not to kick it another year the plan was to implement turf so i'll leave it there that that puts me in perhaps a bad or good position but i i i said what i said and i'll stand by it um from last year thank you dr thorward mrs marcel um i had a couple of questions um one well the first one is for mr taylor um mr taylor you know we've seen a number of
147emails from people in the community that have expressed concern about why their particular school potentially may not happen because obviously we've been talking about this to dr thorward's point for a while and i was just wondering if you could share a little bit of background on how our facilities program kind of operates and how you're tracking maintenance and just i think a lot of people in the public aren't aware of like how much planning and prioritizing you spend constantly to help us to make these very difficult decisions and so i just was wondering if you could just help to shine a little bit of light i know it probably would take hours for you to explain this fully but like very high level cliff notes maybe for the public thank you sure so it's it's
148best to start where where i started back in 20 or back in 2011 when i came and there really wasn't a formal plan there there was a plan to you know what are we going to do next year and then next year figured out what next year looked like and as you as you know in 2012 i issued the first capital improvement book which has grown each year and each year i present that to the board in october and we discuss the plan we discuss the five-year capital improvement plan and we discuss the long-range facility improvement plan um so the the book itself is um about five inches thick right you guys see that book it's a paper copy there's 31 tabs in the book um i'm not going to go through all those tabs
149obviously but you know there's an executive summit summary there's a logic matrix uh there's uh for scoring for prioritizing these projects there's general building information in the in the book and then there's the kind of the meat of the book and that's kind of the the middle tabs 24 and 26 and tab 24 contains the listing of each school and includes all of the items that we identify as potential capital improvement projects in addition to the listing it has an estimated cost to implement each one of those projects and it has a scoring system it's a logic matrix which is based on safety educational impact domino effect age life expectancy that covers those that scoring for each of those items helps take the subjectivity out of this so when we meet as a board we're
150talking about issues based on the merits of each issue not on special interest as we talk about the plan the next section is a summary of the schools and it includes the total capital improvement projects for each one of those schools and there's another item where we talk about what the cost is if we were to totally renovate each school and when you look at the cost of the capital projects in comparison to the total renovation cost if the percentage is in the 60 range or greater that project would be considered for a facility improvement project not individual summer projects and when we put this book together and we ran all of these numbers and we we shook it out this page is what starts to develop this long-term facility improvement plan along with the
151capital improvement plan so we're spending our dollars in the right places so that obviously identified a listing of schools that we needed to consider and we developed the plan and we've been implementing the plan and we're right on track with the plan the only thing that set us back is the pandemic sadly which set everyone back in many many ways but we did the new newtown middle school which was in the plan we did the holland middle school which afforded us the former rich borough middle school to now become a swing school we did wrightstown we did rolling hills and next on the list was seoul finest stone which was supposed to be put out to bid last year but unfortunately because of the pandemic we put it on hold this year hillcrest elementary school
152is due and next year rich pearl elementary school is on deck so we're right on track with the plan we've lost a year on seoul feinstone which is now why we're talking about stacked projects this year we're looking at approving two projects stacked on top of each other the reason we're looking at richboro elementary school is because of some foresight frankly brought up by the board and mr block brought the idea of looking at bidding those two projects together as a combined bid historically that has not been successful for me in the 35 years i've been doing what i do this time it worked and it worked in a great way and we're seeing tremendous savings which is what's challenging you even more but we still have good savings with just hillcrest alone there's about
153a 1.8 million dollar you know under budget for hillcrest solfenstone is basically right on track when you're talking about a 31 31.5 million dollar project so the bottom line is we are basically right on track with the plan we've been managing the plan the board has been great at working together on the plan and tonight we're just talking about if we're going to continue with that plan that we've developed if we're going to hit the brakes on it which will impact us negatively much like the capital projects that are now deferred that are stacking that are becoming challenging and we're looking at borrowing the same challenges will face us with the facility improvement projects so the the one thing i would say is you know what concerns me the most is if it's not now
154when and how i would address that you know that project specifically so fine stone hillcrest and richboro are both about 32 years old those systems are tired but at a lesser capacity than what seoul feinstein is we're talking about some 50 year old systems and some 32 year old systems so if you're talking about pumping the brakes and saying okay it's a year then we're going to ride out soul fine stone and we're going to hope that there's nothing major and next year we know we'll move forward if the if the answer is it's going to be five years or some unknown then i have to change the capital improvement plan change the priorities and start putting some items from seoul fine stone in that plan so we address those and they're not going to
155be permanent corrections they're going to be temporary fixes to make sure we don't see any major failures of systems in that building so it won't be a one-to-one cost for if we move forward later that we're salvaging those monies it's going to be monies that are likely spent and not you know not wisely used later so how we got here is you know the plan and we're on one track with the plan so it's just a matter of how we move forward at this point i hope that answers your question it does thank you mr taylor um i also had a question for mr stone based on [Music] us kind of hearing about the pros and cons from dr frazier of the three options that he discussed if we moved ahead with the option that
156where two schools would be worked on um would that potentially like limit us in the future um for putting you know kind of pushing forward on other new kind of initiatives for council rock whether it's a fifth special for stem or rock block or delayed start times and i don't know dr fraser if you want to talk about this too but i just wanted to kind of get a sense of um impacts outside of just the buildings um and and kind of where that puts us yeah absolutely it's a great question and mr stone uh you can follow up if that's okay um this is all part of the master planning that we're doing um as a cabinet team that effectively is um is an academic plan and the facilities plan but really at the
157at the root of it is a fiscal plan so we are uh in the beginning phases of developing this long-range plan to show the the roadmap the runway to be able to do all those things that you just mentioned and you know we admittedly have a couple other things on that list as well that we think are really important for the students and student outcomes in the school district what i would say is that um you know there's always an impact with with any decision that we make and and those are impossible to completely predict looking ahead because we don't know what what economic conditions are going to be what i do know is that those kinds of projects that we're looking at are recurring costs so when we talk about a fifth special i
158don't have that that price tag in front of me but i want to say it's 1.1 million thereabouts every single year so you know not just that so that's something that we need to build up to from a revenue versus expenditure standpoint and i know when i think about the age and the condition of the infrastructure that we have at these two schools in particular the former rms given the utility of it and the value that it represents to us as well as seoul fine stone regardless of what that timeline looks like we're not going to be implementing those things before or at least putting those ahead of of the infrastructure of these buildings because as we all know health and safety comes number one and until until we have proper air circulation and ventilation
159in these buildings um were were always going to prioritize that so yeah there certainly could be an impact um and mr stone uh should be the one to to speak to that but when it comes to a pecking order or hierarchy with health and safety always being number one um we we have to at some point prioritize these projects and whether that's now or whether that's in a year or two i don't know that's for the board to decide but we have got to prioritize these projects because as mr taylor just uh very clearly articulated we what we don't want to do is is be putting investments into these buildings where it's good money after bad money um that that's that's the worst thing that could happen from a taxpayer standpoint from a fiscal responsibility
160standpoint um and so we've been living with these systems for quite a long time do we want to continue living with these systems there are no easy answers tonight and that's why there's you know no easy recommendation coming from me so um mr stone i'll turn it over to you i just want to make sure that from a system standpoint that the board knows and the community knows that we are engaged in this work so that we can show the road map big picture fiscal planning that encompasses facilities and encompasses academics and really from a health and safety standpoint we're going to have to systematically prioritize these buildings if not if not tonight than some point in the not too distant future mr stone dr frazier i really don't have much to add but i'll
161just reiterate that the all projects and all future educational initiatives carry with it additional budget increases and so we will just have to weigh those against what we're able to raise in revenue and um and prioritize if i could just add one more thing that i missed so if you want to see more of the plan in detail the october 20th or the october 15 2020 meeting on youtube includes all the details of the plan and the sections of the plan and how it works and lastly those changes that we would make to solve fine stone uh temporarily would not address air conditioning ventilation the electrical issues um any of those uh concerns we'd be talking about replacing tired boilers with with boilers just to keep the systems running the controls would remain the original
162controls we would um not be making great improvements we're just going to keep it operational and functional which is my job thank you anybody else the uncomfortable uh momentous islands there uh i'll fill the gaps uh where to start i mean we were moving forward with all the projects and then they were they were halted and i think the last thing we did was we we squeezed in the north field which you know just didn't seem right to me that we wouldn't continue on with the south project uh that was kind of where we left off that didn't sit right with me um and then all of a sudden were we were told we're going to go back out to bid which i can understand that because the pam it was said that the pandemic
163was you know the economy was opening back up and people were contractors are going to get busy so we really should get it out there and just see how it comes back and uh i believe me and maybe uh also mr bilik voted no to even go out to bid and i'll tell you why because of the uh the budget uh the five-year budget plans that have been um projections the five-year plan that has been put out there has made people you know that work with finances uh nervous those are the numbers if you can show me different numbers then i wouldn't feel like this but these are the numbers that were presented so i feel like i wanted to wait until hey i think it's a little premature because would we like to see
164what the budget looks like coming out of this year and see exactly where we're sitting because i'm seeing there's uh there's a big deficit and when we talk about maybe we're going to come back even somebody's telling me we're going to we're going to come back flat that would be great i'd like to see that before we voted on on this and it would have been nice to to wait a couple months to make things more clear for us as board members where we are economically because you know and i'll say it now it's just i thought about this like buildings don't teach students but teachers do and if we build these buildings and are unable to to uh to keep all of our teachers teaching than it was for nothing and there's no doubt
165that all of the all the buildings need to be done and when they're gonna get done and they're gonna get done in a reasonable amount of time um i have some personal observations that i'll share with you um but you know it's just understood that we have to know where we are financially and i think we it's important to note that we did receive an email from the our financial uh committee exploratory committee or that we put together that also would like to see more recommended that the board take a real good look at that five-year plan and use the projections with the current data that we have for this year and and move forward uh there's there's just so much information we're getting uh that it's it's it's a lot and to just jump
166in and do these things well we're going to give it our best shots because i said i didn't go out the bid but i didn't vote for that but we're here so now i have to make a decision so little back pedal to when i came onto the board there was the redistricting and i decided to go see all the schools so i could see the kids in the classrooms most of them i tried to get there when the kids were in the classrooms a couple i couldn't see because but i had already seen them so that that's okay but uh bottom line when i walked away from there and i said this at multiple facility meetings before when i looked at all the schools the one that um really struck me hardest and really
167hard was hillcrest from a from a teaching standpoint there were and i've said this before and i'll just say it again and in public i've said that the computer lab was a storage room there was there was storage boxes in the hallways the some of these smaller classes were being taught in converted storage rooms with no windows the ventilation was pipes and fans sticking out of the window and i'm not sure if that's even changed much and they've had a high enrollment i mean some of those classes had almost i if it was 26 it seemed like 30 and you couldn't walk around the desks with with these children and i did not observe that type of environment in any other school so i had said i would like windows and all of those classrooms
168i believe that that was the highest priority when i uh when i when i saw that and i still believe that now all three schools that we're talking about tonight don't have hair conditioning and i'm looking at their boilers and i'm looking at the infrastructure and mr taylor is 100 percent correct in his observations and i know that when we talked you're looking at facilities and that's where you draw the line you're not looking at the teachers contracts or the other items that that affect are affected by uh what we spend in facilities and that's what i have to do so i'm struggling from from that point to to i would love to do of them all and just roll the dice and see how it goes but that just doesn't feel right to me
169and i think a lot of people do do that i think that's why government is so overspending you spend so much over the years and i'm here to change that um thinking one one moment at a time so so fine stone i walked that school i went back again i said i was going to go and i went with mr tate and miss mckee and it was a very good very good visit and it only solidified the fact that the money we are paying is going to be worth it so i was thinking at first hey we're paying a lot of money for this school and and uh you know compared to other schools but actually when you look at the work that's going to be done and i've seen the results from the other
170projects that it's definitely going to be money well spent so i i didn't say uh you know it doesn't need to be done that would be second on my list from a phys physical uh standpoint i could get into details of why but uh and then i went and i went a couple days ago to richboro elementary and went as the kids were leaving and walked through that school now i believe those drop ceilings were just done recently they look uh relatively new um and so and i look at i look at the walls i look at the floors i look at the the the the classrooms and of of those three i believe there's a few more years left on that school's really from the outside it's pretty good the courtyard needs some updating
171but uh i also like to smell and it's hard to smell things through the mask i could give you that observation but that's very important too so uh i would say you i think we have it correct when we say hillcrest sulfine stone and rich burrow and we're kind of on that on that track so i don't think anybody doesn't want to get the work done and i think it's going to get done but right now i wish we would have had more of the information on this current year budget and i actually want to project out for the next five years and i'll just put it out there now we we have to budget in the five years the the the three schools um construction the cip projects and then we have to we
172can only raise the taxes so much and i think mark by i'm sure mr bilik was is going to bring up the tax projections that we're planning uh that i had asked for um and so we have to be able to say how much are we willing to do with the tax increase and ask the the community to chip in maybe it's 16 18 over five years um you know if that's what we're doing that will that will help i don't know if that's going to help the people who are on fixed incomes that ask me to hey what do you want i said they said don't raise my taxes i have to try a little bit to do that one second and i'll finish with well oh was just giving a high sign to
173mister okay my train of thought was no sorry all right uh so anyway the whole thing is is um i completely agree with you on about five different points and i'm really glad that we got to do the tour of sulphine stone together with ms marcel and having mr taylor as our tour guide and mr harlan the principal and and the building maintenance manager was really an eye-opener i mean um full disclosure i've said this before forgive me but for anybody who hasn't heard me say this um i lived two miles from sulphine stone my kids went all three of my kids went through it it's near and dear to my heart but i was still shocked when i did the tour of sulfine solfenstone it's just really the extent to which it has decayed
174i mean you can see leaks in in a skylight on a wall by the gym you can see deficiencies cracked walls um it's 67 years old the original part of it and we patched around the edges we put a nice new foyer on it a few years ago but it's been patched around the edges and there's no doubt i know mr hidalgo was taken by it and ms mckee as well that school needs to be replaced and it would be wonderful to do it with a new building and not have phasing over three years but that's unaffordable we explored that so um i was glad joey got to make that tour and i remember you saying at one point i think we were in the library you said you know this really is about academics
175because it's really about providing students and teachers with classrooms where they can learn and that includes air conditioning i mean if you were offered a job by a company and uh on signing day we're told oh by the way we don't have air conditioning here but we have really good fans and some windows that open and some of our space is air conditioned i doubt you would take the job um but we act we expect teachers to teach and kids to learn in buildings without air conditioning and i just think that's deplorable um i agree as well mr adago hillcrest really is clearly in need of renovation it and richboro elementary were built in 1989 and they are worn out buildings with old-fashioned heating systems and no central air and a whole lot of other
176deficiencies and you can see leaking windows at richboro elementary the toilets regularly do not work drop ceilings falling down floor tiles coming up you know we the priorities are clear when you tour those buildings and i really appreciate ms mckee and mr taylor going with me because it was a real eye-opener at hillcrest and richboro i think we have a responsibility to do these projects it's you know kicking the can down the road is putting it mildly i think it would be irresponsible of us not to continue working the plan because we've gotten to the point where we are with deferred maintenance because things have been allowed to accumulate there's work that hasn't been attended to over the years and every summer we talk about the cip summer projects those are patching roofs those are
177temporary fixes where you know as mr taylor said we're throwing good money after bad so you know i think we have been presented with a responsible and reasonable way to finance doing two buildings i wish we could do three i wish we could also do the turf but i think it is financially responsible to move forward with two buildings they need to be addressed and the third building rich burrowell will get to as as soon as possible so um you know you've you i think my position has been clear in the past but i'll reiterate i think it's essential that we move forward with both hillcrest and sulphine stone i just want to be clear the the option was delay hillcrest or seoul finest stone hillcrest rich borough cip and rebid turf as a complete
178package so the approach i'm just trying to keep score what my colleagues are saying yeah absolutely so so option three is this evening two projects would be approved right that would be uh hillcrest and sulfine stone now we would also be able to with the work we did with pfm we know that we could also begin the cip work uh at this point turf would be slated uh for one year from now and richboro l we would need to have one year in between so we're two years away from starting richboro l with option three mr tate that's the option you're talking about correct correct thank you clark mrs brooks mrs mcgee mr salmon if you're looking for some direction i would agree with mr tate and i certainly agree with all my board colleagues
179we're pulled in so many directions here in making these decisions we want to be responsible to our community and our taxpayers we want to be responsible in looking at the budgetary implications for years to come we want to be responsible to our kids and our families by putting them in safe healthy learning spaces so it's definitely difficult and i sympathize with all my board colleagues i credit all of us for the the sleepless nights we have spent struggling with these decisions but a decision must be made and from where i sit it's not okay to do nothing we need to do something and most especially having been in those buildings and seeing firsthand most immediately sulfine stone needs to be addressed hillcrest needs to be addressed i would love for us to be able to
180do more but if that is a possibility if that is one of the scenarios that you feel comfortable with dr frazier and i say let's go let's go and start addressing this so if you're looking for direction that's where i stand thank you mrs brooks please um i i agree with uh mr tate mrs mckee i you know we talked about the pros and cons of things you know the the the pro that was listed for option one which was to do nothing was that you know we're not spending that money and it helps you know the budget um but i've talked about it several meetings and it's been mentioned here um by others as well there is a cost to do nothing it doesn't it's not like a freebie it's not like we just
181wait and so i that is a huge uh part of my thinking in trying to understand you know what decision i want to make the um you know we voted on a plan free pandemic we were all in we had a capital plan so this is not a question of like um you know redeliberating um what we did several years ago because i was all in i voted yes i wanted the turf i wanted all these buildings i was excited at the prospect that by 2023 all our buildings would have air conditioning and that's before knowing what we know now about the uh importance of air quality and so um i i wish that we could do the turf um i wish we could do it all but the reality is that um you know
182we can't because that would be fiscally irresponsible but um by moving forward with parts of this plan it is helping those other things because it's not delaying them even further and so i appreciate laying out a way for us to responsibly address the things that we need to do for our community to deliver the education in settings that are conducive to good learning um with a plan that um you know is very mindful um you know with the cash payments and and how we spread that out and and the uh not not putting forth you know the the highest possible tax increases but to manage it in a way um that we can all feel comfortable so um i think that it is very very important that we move forward with option three um and
183hope for the best for next year that the other parts of the capital plan that we had all committed to and all want to carry through uh you know we'll have a an economic setting and a a world setting that will allow that to happen thank you mrs brooks mr bilac are you ready or would you like to you can come back to me thank you good i have a question mr old doggo please um yeah so we we talked about uh the capital improvement projects getting behind us for the people who've been here for many years i'm wondering why uh was that allowed to fall behind that money was probably being spent in other areas and uh this is what i'm trying to this is what i'm trying to tackle is there's areas where
184we are spending that money and not this and not able to give the chromebooks the technology the stem labs the the capital improvement projects this is where we have to uh dig in and understand where that money is going and understand how we fix that before we go and commit to another 70 million so i'll say just you know i didn't vote to even go out because i uh so i'm okay just abstaining if i didn't even want to go out to bid i think actually was all put together i probably would have voted if it was separate i would have said well put out for the for the turf because that was something that was right there and it was really uh on the scale of things one of the smaller uh items that
185that i could have but it was all put together so i just voted no um all together but you know it's hard to vote for for nothing to to to mr taylor's point so it would be hard for me to work out to to vote for just uh hillcrest i may just be okay saying to myself with my original ideas let's get our finances on all line items straightened out and and know where we're at before we go full steam ahead and so what i was going to end up doing by voting no tonight is just delay things by a year we're not saying we're voting no we're never going to get these projects done she said we're going to prioritize and come back to it but to have a full understanding of the financial
186uh situation which we're a good very a very affluent school district i think we can work it out but i just don't want to put one step in front of the other and and trip you know so thanks for letting me get that out thank you mr oldaga mr bloch miss dr forward sure why not thank you i don't think anybody's going to be surprised by what i have to say i'm going to take a page out of dr thorwart's book um when we suspended the capital plan in addition to the turf the next project seoul feinstone and uh that's going to be the first thing that that i vote for this has been a unique few few weeks as i've thought about the decisions that need to be made this evening and as i've
187contemplated some of the options with my peers it's been clear that the decision is not being made in the moment unfortunately a moment that's been influenced by an election cycle and more so a pandemic this is part of a plan and and i'm going to be a little bit redundant to what doug so eloquently laid out because i thought about it the same way because we've been doing this a long time it's part of a plan a plan that the board wrote at what we thought was the longest meeting ever eight years ago it was informed by months of public input and committees and it's a plan that we've reviewed every year and adjusted or expanded as needed we've done that through two administrations two superintendents in 2013 when this started we had many of
188the same facilities issues that we struggle with today we were facing the ominous threat of a pension crisis stoppage of the plan con payments multiple other unfunded state mandates but despite some of those challenges all those challenges we removed trailers we built and renovated two fantastic middle schools we renovated two elementary schools we added the star center and all the while we completed the capital improvement work every year with costs near or above 3 million dollars and oh by the way not every single year did we take a maximum tax increase and we were still able to start investing in education in a meaningful way because of what was happening with our fund balance if anybody remembers wendy's thomas used to sit right there and and beat the stick about starting to talk about academics
189as we were accelerating our operations plan and oh by the way today we still have a relatively healthy fund balance and a double-a credit rating so as ms brooks mentioned as recently as march of 2020 we had a great plan that i believe most if not all this board broadly supported which due to coven was suspended and i believe that was the responsible decision as a reminder and several people have already said it but i'll do it again next on deck with sulfine stone then hillcrest in richmond elementary school renovations in successive years while at the same time giving cr south the turf that is so long overdue so as i sit here today we still have a great plan but now we're challenged with a plan that's backed up projects against each other and
190which combined with some of the uncertain times makes restarting the complete plan difficult because of the cash that's required to do it all as once as others have said i want to support as many of these projects as i possibly can and if there are for four votes to do it uh i would consider it um but my sense is it's probably uh not a responsible move to try and eat the elephant all in one bite so that being said i do believe that our current financial position which is solid as dr frazier has stated so eloquently in our last two meetings allows us it even requires us to continue with our plan with the appropriate adjustments dr frazier has told us that he's comfortable starting the renovation of both sulfine stone and hillcrest and
191i strongly support that position and i would encourage my peers to do the same for me the cost of doing nothing it's too great added costs associated with delay loss sunk costs wasted resources required to deal with aging infrastructure that has been neglected due to planned repairs potential safety issues for students and staff no air conditioning the list goes on and on and on and these added costs will most certainly impact our ability to invest in more education miss marcel talked about that um you know our ability to invest in technology steam programs um and and these increases in expenses by not acting now um will require the board likely to raise taxes more than we might have otherwise far into the future and that to me is irresponsible so the bottom line is that
192we must stay true to our plan while adjusting where it's appropriate because it has served us well in the past and it has continued to do so through today these aging facilities are not going away it was the number one issue facing the board and it's it's really truly one of the differences that sets us apart from some of our peer districts um and and it's it's our single biggest challenge um so so what we do tonight it either keeps us on the good path that we've been on or it throws our future into further uncertainty i think we can and we must to at least two of these buildings uh it's balanced across the district it respects the taxpayers of the district and it's consistent with what we've done over the course of of
193the last eight years and i'll go so far as to say if we don't do something it is a dereliction of our duty as board directors thank you mr block mr stone i ask you a couple questions uh we've sat through multiple meetings about facilities i was not in attendance to the first one um one of my colleagues asked a question about your opinion on this and it was to delay the buildings it came up again at the second meeting and your response is still the same that has stuck with me from this day you and i have spoken at length multiple times about this i there is no one sitting on this board that doesn't feel these buildings need the attention that they need but i am concerned and we've talked about this i'm
194concerned about the finances of the district how we can do this effectively and continue to prosper and educate our kids so has anything changed in the last couple weeks that that i'm missing here or can be some more light can be shed on it um because you know right now i have four people that are very happily pushing the plan for number three uh and i think that to me is the one that causes me the biggest strain and i don't mean to put you on the spot i would do it to doug too if it was a dog question with regard to the third scenario that dr frazier presented there have been two overarching concerns that i have financially with moving ahead with projects at any at any scale and that is an increase
195to the 2122 budget when we are faced with uh depending on um perspective either an eight million dollar budget deficit with a full tax increase or a 13 million dollar deficit if there is no tax increase uh i i don't believe that it's appropriate to to increase the debt service budget with that information that we that we have in front of us and i also don't believe it's responsible to use capitalized interest which uh that the plan with um all projects moving on the on the same on the uh originally proposed timeline uh does require um capitalized interest uh scenario three does not um does not violate either of those conditions it does not increase the budget it does not utilize any capitalized interest now certainly the board would be approving projects in excess of
196the 24 million dollars that we currently have capacity to borrow for and so we would have to reckon with that decision uh in the in the near future within a few months we would need to revisit that and have a plan for the 22 23 year and and beyond but that is um that is because it doesn't because it doesn't violate either of those two provisions i was comfortable with with that option being presented this evening that there is unfortunately no there's no magic solution to this um there there will have to be an increase to the budget uh there will have or there will have to be the use of either cash or capitalized interest at some point in the very near future to proceed with the plan and that and and that may
197be the appropriate approach because i like every uh like everyone else sitting in this room believe that these that these projects are worthy and will need to be addressed in in the in the short term and and should not be delayed uh for too long but i do i do still believe it is prudent to to take a pause and and wait another year to fully assess the impact of the pandemic and conduct that holistic financial planning that dr fraser mentioned in his comments thanks bill appreciate it so i'm sorry yes are you are you finished i'm sorry i can go or i can wait if you want to go mr beilock please no are you are you finished i am finished for right now thank you um so i appreciate everyone's comments as you
198know we've had we've talked about this quite a bit we've had a lot of meetings already i don't know how many but for me this is about managing risks so there's certainly a risk in a delay there's a cost risk there's a maintenance risk there's a further deterioration of buildings risk i'm not sure of the impact of our education to our children i think i think it would be better to have them in you know brand new schools but i think our staff does a really great job with the facilities that we have um and there's also a financial risk to moving forward and and for me when i we weigh the risk the financial risk is just much greater than the building risk or the facilities risk a delay is not doing nothing the
199delay is prudent uh it's an action and in my opinion it's it's the most prudent action um our business manager is now three times recommended at the later this board our financial advisory committee has uh has advised us today that um the board should have additional information regarding our budget uh for this coming year and we don't have that that forces a delay and and in conversation i had with a couple of the members the feeling was that they supported delay so our experts are telling us delay you know we don't know the effects of covid yet we are we're not in a financially stable position at all all the um the scenarios that we've been shown show it a a great deficit and our our fund balance being spent down by 2024 and that's
200assuming maximum tax increases in every single scenario maximum tax increases over 17 percent over five years in every single scenario so these are the things that that concern me i want to get every i would love to be able to approve all these buildings getting done i would be very comfortable leaving this board knowing that so much work has been done during my time including these three four projects including the turf field but it's just i i it's just not responsible at all in my opinion and some people have used the words irresponsible and i appreciate how you feel about it but i i think it's their election of duty to move forward we have a fiduciary responsibility to this board and i don't i don't know how we vote to spend funds that could
201potentially cause financial harm to the district in a very short period of time so uh we see things different ways and that's okay that's why we have different people uh elected to board seats but my vote will be as as it's been i will vote for none of these projects i support a delay for a year i hope i hope that everything is much better uh this time next year that the budget um pans out in a way that you know at least soul fine stone so still function certainly has to be done and should be done um in the next pecking order uh from a facilities management point of view uh and it would be great to get back on track um very quickly next year and like i said maybe we have a
202benefactor who comes in and writes us a big check and we can get it all done soon but we have to be prudent with our with our funds we have to be prudent with the health of the district both financial and facilities health and the risks are just greater in my opinion for the financial rest of the district than the the building and facilities risk and i'll just say again uh pausing is not doing nothing pausing is being prudent for the future of this district uh i think that's the end of my comments thank you thank you mr biology mrs marcel were you ready or sure um i was i wasn't planning on talking about this tonight but um earlier today i shared with mr stone that i literally had a dream about our budget
203last night um and so there might be some help that i need um but it was a dream that it was balanced and that the deficit went away just everyone knows and so um but i i i'm telling this because i i want to thank everyone for how much time they've spent on this how many meetings we've had that we can't remember and i i just know that everyone here regardless of where you are on what to do everyone cares tremendously we're trying to figure out the best thing to do everyone has a lot of heart behind this to the point where some people aren't sleeping some people are having dreams um i haven't had a dream about about council rocks since like school reopening and so it was a little bit scary but i
204just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that i've had over the past few weeks and most recently i guess this week i think everyone here agrees that these schools need to be done i think it's all just a matter of when that's happening they all need air conditioning they all need their building systems updated and need to be renovated appropriately so we all agree on that unfortunately that's what makes the decision so difficult is because we have to do these things and it feels absolutely terrible to have to choose a winner so to speak to choose one school when everyone wants to be next but we can we we really have to choose a path that allows us to do this in a sequenced way um and we have to balance all these competing
205priorities um and on top of that we're still in this very uncertain and challenging year and so we're trying to balance priorities and choose winners potentially and then we have this year that's still changing you know like dr fraser you mentioned being like in a constant state of change like we're still pivoting and adjusting and it's much better things are much better than earlier this year um but that's this that's just the reality of where we're at um and so for me i i have so i've had just questions and concerns that have been in my head um you know i think it's positive that our revenue numbers and some of our financial numbers are better than what mr stone predicted last year you know looking at this year but i do worry about doing
206a borrowing for 24 million for two schools this year and then next year forcing another year borrowing when we don't know what the interest rates will be we don't know what type of world we're going to be living in because hopefully it's not you know it's not this one but you know the reason why we're doing this tonight is because over a year ago the world drastically changed and we couldn't move forward with the projects and so clearly it can happen because it happened a year ago so i you know i just have concerns that we don't have all of the kind of pieces um and and and we can't so we have to make the decision with what we know um we can't do everything at once um we really i believe we really
207have to pick the right cadence so that everyone feels comfortable and that we have very deliberate precision with what we're doing and when so that all of the projects are completed it may take us a little longer but it can be a way that everyone feels comfortable with it and i just wanted to mention in terms of my concerns about sulfine stone i mean i really i toured the schools very helpful i appreciate mr harlan and mr taylor taking us around the school absolutely needs to be done so there's really no question about that i think for me the biggest thing that i've wrestled with is that that's the only project that would have students in the building while the construction is going on and so as we're in this pandemic time period we're still
208making special kind of special exceptions or special we're doing special things in the buildings so when we toured the building half of the gym was being used for this week for lunches because of social distancing and we don't know if in the fall if we're going to be social distancing for eating or not but we have to plan on it in case we still do but the other half of that gym has two classrooms in it as per the phase one plan for seoul feinstein for construction so from 11 to 2 there would be no gym class no gym class i guess gym class would be either outside or the hallway or the classroom or and i'm sure that the staff and mr harlan could come up with some wonderful ways to mitigate for that
209but i it's just an example of how you know it's just very complicated when you have the students in the building i think you know when my daughter went to write or went well she went to wright sound during that construction she went to richboro middle school it was a wonderful experience she had an absolutely great year and i'm so thankful to everyone for making that a wonderful year for the students at wrights town that went there so so i'm not necessarily worried about that type of transition i think i'm more worried about like the unknown of what we don't know right now um and so i just want to be very kind of careful about how that particular project is done i support updating and and making sulfine stone a better school in terms
210of its building it's a wonderful school my my children go there the teachers are wonderful mr harlan is wonderful um and so i really just want to be careful with how we're doing it um i wish that those students could go to richmond middle school there was a way to do that just so that it would be one cheaper because you don't have students in the building and two would just be easier because in this world that we're living in where things are constantly changing you wouldn't have to worry as much about all of those things um so for right now um i am fine with either holding on all construction projects until next year or moving forward with one school and the turf if possible if it falls within the 24 million figure that
211was mentioned earlier thank you you need something for me i thought i was clear you're turf only i i'm keeping a record up here sir uh yeah okay yeah and i'll just i'll just finish and i'm i'm not going to help the scenario at all uh i started this conversation with i want to delay um bill i you know you and i have spoke for many many it seems like hours and i think it's been hours and and this this has weighed on me for for since that initial meeting about what are we going to do with the schools and we know these schools need to be done um and then how do we get it done effectively and mrs brooks and i spoke at length about the poker chip we call richboro middle school
212where we can use that as a swing space and and save considerable money on hillcrest and rich bro so i would love to do hillcrest knowing that we can save some money the project moves forward to some degree it's not everything we want but it also fits into that 24 million as mrs marcel said but even then i'm still at a pause is that the right thing to do um so no matter which one of those choices i'm i'm i'm out for number three um it doesn't help the scenario at all um so that's kind of where i'm going to land can i ask a question dr forward please um and this is to the administration i heard two comments about one of these schools fits in the 24 million and then i heard mrs
213marcel say does the turf in one of these schools fit within 24 million and so i'm looking at the team do they uh is my question i don't believe so i don't have those numbers right here in front of me but i don't think uh hillcrest plus the turf i believe that comes in slightly over the 24 number is that correct gentlemen yes how slightly i'm looking at the motions here it says hillcrest not to exceed seventeen million six hundred and eighty seven dollars am i reading the wrong numbers you have to look at the total project cost okay that's what i'm missing 21 136 402 and the turf is three four ninety five fifty six we're awfully close doug is that turf only or is that turf with the with the tennis courts that's
214turf without the tennis courts yeah the tennis courts turf with tennis courts got got us up to what under five the the state they got the savings you know at nearly 600 but the turf is another one for the tennis courts are another 1.2 million i'm trying to find a way that's all i appreciate it where do we go from here i i don't know if my vote count is any better mr hildago please just a follow-up because um getting the turf and hillcrest done puts us over by hundred thousand dollars and you don't recommend doing anything uh mr stone i should be clear that my recommendation is simply that my my responsibility to this board is to provide you with information uh so that you can make the most informed decision possible so i
215appreciate you considering my recommendations and opinions but they are they are simply that it is really the the decision of the board um so i i yes my my opinion is that a delay is for and i appreciate that because it's hard to sleep at night not doing anything to be honest with you and if i was to do something it would be one of the smaller schools and the top of my list is hillcrest but uh and it's not a knock on anybody or anything it's uh just where i fall and it's just my opinion too and this is a real tough decision so i struggle with doing anything really and i agree 100 with mr bilik's take on managing risk you know all right that doesn't help so mr sullivan obviously word is
216still made yes sir of sorts here and i certainly don't want to complicate the situation um but given where we're at i can't help but wonder and it's been said a couple of times here this evening that a year ago we did have a plan in place uh that plan initially was uh sulfine stone and the turf and then the other schools thereafter i want to be just completely explicit in saying that we have not run that scenario we have not asked pfm to run that scenario but i've heard multiple people at the dios here acknowledge this little fine stone is the neediest school i've also heard a desire from a couple people to to do turf we all know the turf has been way overdue in the south end of the district going the
217whole way back to the beginning of turf the rocks many years ago i don't know if there's any appetite to even exploring that but i just bring it up because it was what we had on the table a year ago but again we have not even ventured down that road from a pfm standpoint i just asked if the uh the smallest bid and turf fit in our 24 million and that was unequivocally no so sulfine stone and and turf are not in our 24 million borrowing by any stretch yeah that'll be another 10 million right no doubt yeah you're trying to help me break the stomach possibly yeah i you know i would be open to that but i i think the schools need need to be done and then you know i i appreciate
218bill's perspective you know also the the ceo of the district has said we're capable of doing these things i think there's there's more that that we can do mr tate i just wanted to address a couple of points um one is um i meant to mention ms marcel that you did get a doug taylor tour the day after we toured which is a good thing and i know mr block is is a frequent visitor to sol feinstein over the years so um you know the point was made we don't know what interest rates will be but i think it's safe to say that interest rates will be going up which of course affects our borrowing but it also affects the cost of construction projects and i think mr taylor explained quite clearly and our engineering
219consultants explained quite clearly that we have some extremely favorable bids to act on and these projects are going to cost considerably more money next year or the following year there's no doubt in my mind i also fear that if we don't do sulfine stone this year it is not going to happen necessarily next year these things have a way of slipping um you know and we don't have to pick winners in this process because we have a plan and we have a clearly laid out cadence for for doing these projects we know which are the highest priorities and that was done in a very quantitative analytical way by mr taylor with the board's continuous review so we've got a a clear plan and and the last thing i we've heard from a few parents we've
220seen some emails concerns about students in the building itself einstein when the renovation project would be going forward i would point out that that's the traditional way that school renovation projects have always been done the use of richboro middle school as a swing school is absolutely brilliant as a money saver as a headache saver it's been a terrific idea but that's you know we're spoiled that's not something that is going to work for self einstein or other projects and i know we have experience renovating schools with students in them mr sanko uh i think you were principal at holland elementary school um can you speak to renovating a school with students in it you don't mind sure mr tate so i was the principal of holland elementary school when we renovated that building and so
221during that time richboro middle school was operational as a middle school and we renovated that building from top to bottom systems to rooms to cabinetry to case work while we had students in the building we did it in multiple phases it took a lot of planning and preparation on the front end with moving teachers multiple times i recall moving the library at least three different times part of that project included getting rid of the six modular uh classrooms we had what we used to call the boardwalk um some of the people on this board know that school well prior to the renovation but we we had uh worked long and hard with uh with with doug and with the contractors to develop plans that the teachers the students and the families bought into to ensure
222student safety to ensure separation between contractors and students the contractors were flexible i recall vividly that they changed their their work hours during pssa testing time so not to interrupt the students uh any time they had to cut concrete slabs out of the existing floor uh they did that after hours as well so we had a very successful operation at holland elementary school and i give a lot of that credit to the families and the students of holland elementary at that time and the the work ethic of the teachers uh for what they had to do to move repeatedly around the building throughout the phasing so i do have experience with that and we we were successful with it and we did not have the opportunity to use a swing space thank you dr sank
223i'll just just a couple more comments i'll be brief um and then i know ms mckee can speak to renovation being done at goodknow very successfully with students in the building and and we saw it done at uh hillcrest middle school um or hon middle school you know and it's the traditional way that renovations are done the last thing point i want to make is about the financing issue i thought we were dead in the water until i guess it was about a little over a week ago that dr fraser emailed the board and said we've gone back to pfm a second time maybe it was a third time and worked the numbers and he and mr stone were working very hard to figure out what we can potentially afford and came back to us
224with these three options the do nothing option to do one school option or the do two schools option with the cash payment involved but no but no capitalized interest no increase to the budget and i thought it i saw that and i thought hallelujah we have a plan that is responsible it's reasonable and i i can't imagine the board not accepting it we're going to move forward with projects that everybody is in agreement we need to do and mr stone's responsibility is to be fiscally conservative for this district he's our financial protector he's going to rightfully give us a conservative analysis of our financial risk and that's one of the reasons why we come back every year with a budget surplus at the end of the year because going into the year it was a
225conservative estimate on the revenue side and a conservative estimate on the expenditure side and mr stone said this evening that he was comfortable with option number three being presented and you know it it's up to us to make the final decision and dr fraser has weighed in and uh i think i have no doubt the responsible thing to do is to move forward with saul finestone and hillcrest and i don't think it's irresponsible and lastly about three and a half four years ago when i was born president i had a private conversation with dr fraser and i said the turf project south is essential we owe it to the community and dr fraser said i understand i still feel that way but i cannot imagine going forward with the turf project and delaying one of
226the two school projects that we're talking about tonight that are critical that's the end of my comments thank you this is marcel i just wanted to ask a question i know we referenced how we've had students in the buildings during construction previously could someone comment on how that might change given like just thinking back to what occurred during that renovation and how social distancing and some of the things that we're doing now the way the cafeterias are the vip areas of the hallways like can someone just comment on how it may have been slightly different in a covet era thank you mr marcel i'll try to answer that and the best way i can answer that is that we don't know so while i just talked about the successful operation at holland elementary school we
227did not we had many barriers and many obstacles that we plan for some that were unforeseen all of which we overcame but we never we did not have to deal with covid we did not have to deal with the physical distancing we did have to um we did have to set up special routes of travel to get kids to the recess yard use our neighboring ymca property to get to the recess yard and make changes like that but we did not have to worry about the things that we're worrying about now and plan for the things we're worrying about now as it relates to covet the other thing is the phase that you're talking about is the very first phase for one year only and i know that's a long time one year one school
228year we can certainly you know knowing what we know now and and the way the project is laid out you know work with mr harland to see if there's an opportunity to create those spaces elsewhere so that we're not impacting the gym that first year you know these projects that are phased come with um constant change and one thing andy would probably tell you is you know we had we had uh durations for each phase and we would come to andy and say is it okay if we took this other classroom or can we can we take this early or can we work in this area and there there was flexibility there was coordination cooperation and that's something that comes with every project like this and i'm sure if we talk to mr harlan we
229could you know see if there's some opportunity knowing that we need the social distancing in the gym to try to free up those two spaces elsewhere in the building i mean that's something we'd have to review with him we own the construction of those two spaces if that means we have to move that construction elsewhere you know we can look at you know an opportunity to do so so something that certainly can be investigated and i'll just quickly augment that that i did have a conversation the other day with mr harlan uh mrs marcel after uh you had shared that concern with me um in a conversation that we were having and uh so in addition to the uh options that we might have available from a construction standpoint i will uh just share that
230mr harlan expressed a a really high degree of optimism that we that we would be able to work this out from a because it's not it's not a classroom um impact it's not a specials impact it is as you said earlier it's a gym impact and it's a it's a lunch impact um so that it's it's that portion of the school day it's that portion of the school but mr hurlin in the conversation that i had with him earlier this week felt uh pretty confident that uh we would be able to work things out mr buck i could just make a quick comment and i'm going to sound like a former board member i don't mean to if some of you get the reference um you know we we've we've been through a lot of
231change through the capital plan in the last eight years and we we as a board different members of this board struggled with how we were going to handle things because they were they were you know so impactful to the community you know we've been through redistricting we've done these middle schools you know we've had kids transitioning as the elementary schools were uh were being renovated and i remember a conversation i had with mark klein when we took the trailers off wrightsdown because that was a particularly difficult situation and very tough for for that community and he said something that stuck with me and i want to just mention it tonight because i think it's it's relevant um and it's something that has given me a lot of confidence in our team over the years he
232said listen andy don't worry about it he said the decisions made this is what we do best when when when we have to change when we have to get through kids through new things when we have to orient kids through new things new procedures whatever it is and in this case we were talking about moving the kids from wright's town you know the fifth and the sixth grade and handling all those transitions with the buses and how do we go here and how do we go there and he said don't worry about we got it this is this is truly what we do best we handle our children our families the best and and through the eight years i've been here i've seen that there's a guy in the back of the room who just
233told you about what he did and you know as as i sit here and you know kind of put a stake in the ground on what i believe is is the right thing to do and respect where everybody else is coming from you know i have the benefit of that faith in our team and what they will do once this board makes a decision so the decision is going to be what the decision is going to be uh the most important thing is that you know we've got to lock arms and and move forward but you know again i would tell those who are concerned about the implications of some of these decisions this team's got it they've got it mr hildago please i think i've come to my my decision um [Music] and it's
234a tough one because it's not what i voted to do nothing um is also a risk so when i um when i think about it i i say look we have to use doug it would be good to use rolling i mean sorry uh rms you know richboro middle school to we lose a year there that's a pretty that's a pretty big chunk in the plan so now you're looking at doing one and then also from a side from a fiscal standpoint doing one of the smaller projects we're looking at richboro or hillcrest uh probably richboro is more of my constituents but they under they i hope they would understand that it's not about where you live but it's about the overall impact you're going to make on on the students in the classroom and
235as i stated before bill crest to me is in dire need of help from a students in the classroom standpoint so if we go with and you can't do a turf field if you're not going to do something you know you can't do the turf field if you're not going to do a second school so the turf field is something where hey six months down the road we can flop it in or whatever you know you can open go out to bid whenever but if you get buy some time like we're asking for by not even going out to bid and understanding where we are fiscally we'll we'll make a new plan we'll switch gears but to not use richboro middle school is going to make your job a lot harder it's going to push
236out a whole nother year and that school may go be empty for a year so that's really pushing me to take that financial risk to do the 17 million dollar uh hill crest or i just said it could be rich bro middle school but which one do i think is more in dire need is and i've been saying it for years it's not just today i've been saying it since i visited it two years ago so we do that we we take that inflation risk off the uh off the table and now we are just tackling the other two schools instead of trying to do all three which again is a big project so i think that's where i'm gonna uh as i said if i could have separated them out even when we went
237to go to bid if we supper if we had separated them i probably would have thought about hillcrest and the turf field to those ones i already had my gut instincts so i'm circling back now and thinking that that is where we should possibly hedge our bets all around of course with still feinstein being next on the list and we could be right there you know but to do two schools it's going to make it a little bit more difficult 31 million we're going over and we know uh that might be pushing the envelope too much you know if sopheine stone was 17 million and hillcrest was 31 it would be flipped in my opinion it's not and also the needs have to be there too and the needs are are there for both but
238i think i'm okay with voting for the you can put me down for hillcrest only i added you did a napkin joe thank you mr biloch i think you have a comment sir um yeah i just want to uh you know i i know you're counting votes ahead and i'm not really seeing i'm doing my best mark yeah um i just wanted to respond to a couple comments because i know mr stone's not going to call out a board member at all and i i i'm uncomfortable with some of the comments you know bill said he was comfortable with the the option three being presented but he also reaffirmed for the third time publicly that that he was recommending a delay so i want to be clear about that also bill's bill's position isn't to
239give us conservative estimates bill's position is to give us financially prudent and honest um projections and estimates which he does so um if if there was there was a means to prudently and responsibly get this done that i'm sure that would be bill's recommendation so i i just had to comment on that and i just have to say it's it's 10 30. um it's uh this is something like the fourth meeting we've had on this issue and i'm sorry to say that i don't think we're going to have five board members agree on anything um we've got a litany of motions in front of us and we should either read the motions and vote them up or down or decide to put this aside um but that's my recommendation i would start calling questions and
240uh i think i don't think any i don't think a single person's position has changed since we've started this process several weeks ago so um i don't know i don't know what we're going to accomplish discussing it more so i would i would ask the chair of the president to start calling the um the motions and let's have votes i have something to say mr brooks it is absolutely my preference to do both schools if there is not support for that i would support hillcrest um that is certainly a more palatable one given that it would not raise the budget line item um and so it's a more comfortable position for the budget um when we approved the capital plan it was aggressive it was it was meant to be aggressive and to andy's point
241we had to have faith in our um professionals to execute this um we're talking about risks and i just sir i want to circle back to the risks of doing nothing um richborough middle school is a vital part of what has made renovations in the district different than what it used to be where everything was phased and so if we run the risk of losing that as a swing space and then when we what in the future a future board will look to renovate those schools they become two-year projects with trailers and so this is a golden opportunity um to make a much better environment and it puts us in a better fiscal environment because it's within our borrowing capacity but i have faith in in the people who are employed in this district we
242don't know what future boards will do when we say that oh we'll look at this next year even if i was on the board you don't know you it this year it's a pandemic sometimes it's something else you don't know and and so that gets captured in everything that we think about what i do know is my own experience from the late 90s until well into the 2000s there was a board because it turns over every two years there was board after board after board that did not want to invest in buildings we are continuing to pay the price for what those board decisions were and that's i respect the process that's how it goes future boards will judge us that's how it goes so that's why in the moment we have to make the
243very best decision that we can weighing everything if we looked at it and said we will just follow what dr frazier says in his recommendations which of course has not happened or if we look at mr stone and i don't mean to begrudge any of you if if the position was that we're only going to follow the recommendations of the people in these roles we don't need a board they would decide what they needed to do and they would execute it and we wouldn't have a say but the way this process works is we're here to represent our constituencies bring our experiences all the strengths that we bring and weigh out how to make a decision about this and so i have weighed all of the opinions so again it would be my preference and
244i have a comfort level um to do sulfine stone and hillcrest but it's not that or nothing and if if there is more board support i would absolutely support hillcrest because i want to keep this capital plan moving as best as we can in a responsible way and i hope that now two others would agree with at least that thank you mr brooks and i just want to just add if i could um mrs mckay we've talked about modulars in the past they scare the heck out of me um and i think denise and i spoke about that the other day as well if not i've spoken to somebody in the last couple of days um rich pro for me is is a huge poker chip and it's nothing against any other school the my
245fear and i've talked about infrastructure of our schools and i believe they all need the work um i also need 74 million dollars to make it work for us kids and modulars to me can't we can't go there and to dr sanko talking about holland we moved when my oldest was in fifth grade during construction the man managed a heck of a construction site but they had modulars there um i moved from a school that i thought was um a little backwards so to speak from where we come and i'm not going to mention names but we moved into modulars i moved to council rock school district and put might get into modular i don't want to see that and for me rich pearl richboro middle school is the the poker chip that i did
246if i'm going to spend any money on this plan that's the poker chip i want to use so thank you mrs brooks for getting me started on this thank you dr thorward sure um i i i certainly hope the board will indulge me on an up and down boat on on the turf first if it goes down it goes down but that puts everybody's money where their mouth is i i could i could definitely pivot to him i'm not i'm not exceeding our 24 million and if i do it's by a little bit i reiterate i think we can do the turf and hillcrest with current budget we'll have surplus the end of this year if all the rosy conservativeness comes out of the budget this year and i think we can do it um
247i need to vote on turf first and i hope the board will indulge me and vote on that little project first i can get my arms around hillcrest if i have to so for the same reason that mrs brooks and mr salmon pointed out we have an aging rms and we can slot that one right in and get it done um i agree all these projects need to be done i can't bid on all of them i came on the board and i was told right after you started on the board you raised taxes as much as you could i had to pay for two middle schools that i didn't vote on and would have would have probably done differently that happens there's nothing there's no way around that um this is going to be
248a new board in december there's a lot of unknowns um we don't have our final budget today we don't know where we're spending money um to the administration um covetous has taught me a lot of things and one is we can't keep gutting our technology budget so i see a lot more spending in technology than we did ever a lot every year we we we fight about the tech support specialists um they they proved to be a a golden egg in this and and and i'm glad we had them so i don't i i it's hard to reach with so many unknowns so i keep trying to stay in or close to that 24 million as we can i said i needed to vote on on the turf next i need to vote on the
249turf next um that that was the plan we would have broken ground on this this year or last year actually last year so um i i i i can't wrap my hands around not sticking to that somehow if we can but i need at least an up and down vote early on that it can't be a castaway like it's been forever so so far i you're i'm done mr oldago dr thorward um i'm thinking that just because we're not doing the turf field today that it's not something that's not going to be jumped into we will have to re-bid and and re-um permit everything and that wasn't pretty so then i i worry about the the inconsistencies between um uh how will the people with so fine stone i mean they got a new high
250school they got a brand new middle school i mean we can't i mean i understand where you're coming from and sal's been waiting for their for their turf they did they got a a a brand new middle school i just think from a political standpoint i don't want to cause any more divide between the the the district that i feel people talk about it it's in the emails the north getting everything that south getting nothing i don't quite see that but i think that that type of thing doing it tonight with not doing so fine stone could be very agitating and that's just me this is just my personal one is that kick in the turf again is going to do the same thing well that's what it's meant for because difficult oh so all
251right i'm sorry um yeah well then i think about the three million dollars and we have this prop we have this budget coming up we have this budget coming up so three million dollars is going to be f in the financed right mr stone that that would just put us right at the cap of 24 million that we yes at this moment the decision would be to to finance the turf project all right it will tell you that uh if turf were the only project to be approved i would request some more time to review whether it was efficient and economical to to borrow solely for that project because it is so small and it may not be may not be wise to borrow money it may be wise to look at the possibility of
252your end surplus or funding it through other means rather than simply borrowing it but if paired with another project then there is merit to borrowing for the project okay and mr taylor like what's the turnaround if we if we let this bid go stale how quickly would when we decide to do the turf after we see how the budget pans out and the other projects how what would be the what would your if this didn't go when you're saying it i saw i was already two years out but when would the soonest do you be able to do that and i guess you'd have to do it in the summer one of the summers and it'll be next summer yeah you would have to bid the project this time next year for a spring start
253it the construction time is april to october i just can't see doing turf when we're not doing so feinstein that's that's me mr hidalgo i didn't ask you to vote for it i asked you to vote yes or no before these bigger projects that's all and and i'm just saying i appreciate it sorry mr tate listen i don't think anybody wants to delay this most of all doug but is is there any sense to revisiting bill's projections based on or is there more analysis to be done based on this fiscal year's finish and or the assumptions that we've built into next year's budget relative to cyber charter relative to support from state and federal relative to retirements because if if that makes it i mean we we all obviously want to get we want to
254find a way to get to yes so so if there's an opportunity to do that yeah i think i'm actually going to look at mr taylor first because well regardless i would suggest you look at the board first because i'm not inclined to do this for another six hours a second time so i i want votes tonight so that's that's where i'm at so i could offer the contracts for these projects contractually need to begin april 19th if we fail to issue a contract to the contractors before that time you know we're going to put ourselves in delay claim position we can't sadly i mean the contracts are written the bid documents are written that they will be awarded a project on or before april 19th so that's our timing that's for every every one
255of the projects correct that's correct i have a couple thoughts i i do absolutely do not have a horse in this race i have i don't want any of this to be interpreted as though i do i count for four board members are in favor of going forward with the two elementary school projects but it doesn't seem like there's a majority of the board that wants to do that i believe that ms brooks who was in favor of two going forward with two schools is comfortable with just hillcrest i interpret mr hidalgo's comments to indicate that he's prepared to go forward with just hillcrest a question that comes to my mind is whether there are any other members of the board who are in favor of doing both the two elementary school projects hillcrest and
256seoul feinstein are comfortable as miss ms brooks now is with just hillcrest i think it'd be helpful to hear from those four board members as those other three board members in addition to ms brooks on that issue and then dr thor worked in order to weigh in on hillcrest alone i think once a vote on turf itself maybe that's maybe those two maybe getting clarity on those two issues how the other three members who were in favor of two feel about just doing one moving forward with dr thorwart's request maybe that enables the board to um have an up or down vote on these issues i'm sorry was that directed to me saying very good that's all right that's that's earning your money perception of the last uh hour or so mrs mccabe please thank
257you and thank you mr cox that really was very clarifying while i certainly would prefer to see both schools going ahead if there is not a majority support for that i would certainly support just hillcrest if it can only be the one then yes i would agree to that i would prefer both but seeing a lack of support for that that doesn't mean i wouldn't vote yes for hillcrest so i count if i include myself i count four for ill crest mr bilik is at lay mr tate and mr block are still at number three and mrs marcel is at number one possibly two i don't know i said i could support one school as long as it the school and possible turf could fit into the 24 million well the question becomes is hillcrest
258everybody seems to be mentioning hillcrest by name is it hillcrest i think based on the schedule that makes sense um but i do think richboro needs to continue in its place and sulphinestone needs to continue going forward too um i know that for me it's hard this with all the pandemic stuff going on but i'd like to work on getting sulfine stone in the future so that we can get that school done it needs the work and so for me um i defer to the plan in terms of hillcrest being first and then richborough um so i'm fine with that but i i mean rich bro obviously deserves the school too and so in the renovations so and i said i would vote with you i just asked that we moved the turf to the
259very first motion that's all kind of consensus for hillcrest yeah total you wanted to yes i haven't changed my position okay thank yeah mr you or mr tate have a comment or we want to start reading the you want to we had discussed the various scenarios about the order of the motions yet mr i mean so i'm sorry dr dr thorward asked if we could read the turf it's first please that's your wishes that's fine with me all right that would be j j i've got it i'm opening it item j the approval rejection of the bids for the crhs south synthetic turf field project i moved to approve the bids for the crhs south synthetic turf field project including select value alternatives i'll let somebody else make the motion i'll make it thank you
260i moved to approve the bids for the crs south synthetic turf field project including select value added alternates to the contractors as attached to the agenda at a total cost not to exceed four million two hundred and twenty five thousand and fifty six dollars subject to solicitors review and audit i moved to approve the professional service agreements to the council rock south synthetic turf field project as attached to this agenda subject to solicitors review and audit second thank you just want to clarify this this bid is includes the tennis right yes i was just going to mention that that motion includes the alternate for the tennis courts does someone want a different motion i didn't see another one just change so doug do we have to reject the table i'll just take i'll just table
261it if if if there's a different motion it's not one of the many options that we put in as a motion as a separate i just need the cost not to exceed mr cox if you can okay i mean the value is three million four ninety five fifty six three million four ninety five five six five five six and that would exclude the alternate for the tennis board okay mr cox can i amend my motion to be not to exceed three million four hundred and ninety thousand five hundred fifty six dollars which equates to not doing the tennis courts at south that work it does for me as long as mr taylor you know what i'm sorry that's that's the total project cost you're right so it's it's three million one twenty two zero fifty
262six you want me to say that again or do you got it sorry mike mr taylor i'm sorry i'm not writing it's three one hundred twenty two thousand zero five six and that excludes the tennis court alternate mr doctor can you make that motion sure let me change it uh we'll table the last one mr salomon you're okay because you seconded it all right i moved to approve the bids for this cr south synthetic turf field project uh are we including any select value added yes yes okay including select value added alternates to the contractors as attached to this agenda at a total cost not to exceed three million one hundred twenty two thousand and fifty six dollars subject to solicitors review and audit i moved to approve the professional service agreements for the crs
263crhs south synthetic turf field project as attached to the agenda subject to solicitors review and audit this motion excludes the tennis court options from the uh bids have a second second mrs marcel thank you i'm so sorry i have a question because before we said the the cost of hillcrest plus the turf would be 24 million 626 556. yes the number that you just gave it comes to twenty four million two fifty eight so fifty six we're looking at two different numbers this is the construction cost this is the to award the other number is the total project cost with all the other fees okay so i just want to make sure i got this so all in hillcrest plus turf would be 24 626 556. uh i can it's 21 million 136 402. plus
2643 490 556. 24 million six hundred twenty six thousand nine hundred fifty eight dollars say that one more time please sorry twenty four million six hundred twenty six thousand nine hundred fifty eight dollars six hundred thousand dollars over approximately yes thank you so bill if that's if there's five votes for that how what's your sense with that then if there's a combination we're capped at 24 both the the construction costs are known costs we have bids in hand so we know that the hillcrest construction cost assuming no change orders will be 17.7 million dollars approximately and to see ourselves turf cr south turf only will be 3.1 million dollars approximately the soft costs are estimates there are contingencies included in the overall project budget and similarly there the the financing costs to calculate that 24
265million include an estimate of interest rates now i i have to rely on the expertise of both mr taylor and the folks at pfm to calculate those estimates so to i am uncomfortable with um assuming that things would come in better than expected to move forward with that but that is it is a possibility and i will always advise you of what the possibilities are we could come in better better than expected on budget and borrowing we could also come in worse so that that's just with the best information that we have it it is admittedly not very far off but it is it would be we would be taking a risk a much smaller risk comparatively than some of the other scenarios that we've discussed but a risk nonetheless i would say with the
266contingencies because we seem to always come in under budget with our projects we're going to come in under 24 million but that's only my opinion that's actually been the case for every project that we've managed to this point not that there's not going to be a time where it could happen however historically we have been in very good shape any other comments madam secretary we're going to take a vote on it i call for a roll call vote well i've been an advocate for the turf for a long long time um you know i can't justify in the current circumstances relative to schools we're we're not doing so should it pass a part of me will be happy but i can't support it thank you mr block uh yeah rocco roll call please no yes
267denise brooks yes yeah come back to you oh kristen marcel yes yep yes lost count motion passes though five votes in favor yeah [Music] i think we also need now um k yes approval of the land development agreement all right i'll read that this is the approval of land development agreements for the crhs south synthetic turf field project i moved to approve the northampton township land development improvements agreement northampton township municipal improvement security account agreement and the stormwater best management practices monitoring operation and maintenance agreement for the crhs south synthetic turf field project subject to solicitor's review and audit second dr thorbert ii any comments have a roll call miss secretary please doctor yes [Music] no motion passes 5-4 state you want to take it up to the top to be correct be right mr
268salmon yes it's going to be a stand alone correct doug i'm sorry right yeah b and c um we'll take them separately i guess um the approval rejection of the bids for the hillcrest elementary school additions and renovations project i move to approve the bids for the hillcrest elementary school additions and renovations let somebody else read this motion i'll go ahead and read it uh i moved to approve the bids for the hillcrest elementary school additions and renovations project including select value added alternatives to the contractors as attached to this agenda at a total cost not to exceed 17 million six hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars subject to solicitors review and audit i further move to approve the professional service agreements for the hillcrest elementary school additions and renovations project is attached to this
269agenda subject to solicitors review and audit second dr philbert thank you any comments a roll call please mary ann mckee yes yes marcel yes it's solomon yes no mark pilot no mike zoro yes denise brooks yes motion passes 6-3 number c letter c should i read number c letter c also i'll do it i move to prove the northampton township land development improvements agreement northampton township municipal improvement security account agreement and the stormwater best management practices monitoring operation and maintenance agreement for the hillcrest elementary school additions and renovations project subject to solicitors review and audit a second i'll second it oh i'm sorry i thought you were a second no any comments roll call please [Music] so per our previous uh consultation mr solomon you want to have me just run through the remaining motions
270yes so we're at this point i think we're just going to reject the rich bro uh i think mr cox advised us that we should vote yes i i agree with mr taylor that uh that the the board should formally reject the bids if if that's its preference that's fine all right thank you d approval rejection of the bids for the rich borough elementary school additions and renovations project i moved to approve the bids for the richborough elementary school additions and renovations project including select value added alternatives to the content yeah you want to reject them you want them one on the bottom remove the rejection we gave you a simple reason i'm sorry yeah yeah yeah i moved to reject all bids and professional service agreements for the rich borough elementary school editions and
271renovations project subject to audit second doctor forward a second any comments let's have a roll call please andy black yes mark yes nice brooks yes mary mckee yes yes kristen yes okay for e i can just improvise and substitute reject for approve i think you need to do that i don't think we need it mr tate you can just skip that skippy f um yes f should be rejected it's a combination bid f i move to reject all bids and professional service agreements for the combined bid for the hillcrest in richboro elementary school's additions and renovation project subject to audit second second dr forward any questions a role call there too please okay andy black yes mark yes denise brooks yes and mckee yes yes kristen marcel yes yes so we don't need to vote
272on g all right h i moved to approve the bids for the sulphine stone elementary school additions and renovations project including select value-added alternatives to the contractors as attached to the agenda at a total cost not to exceed twenty seven million one hundred and forty three thousand nine hundred and twenty four dollars subject to reading the rejection motion i'm making a motion to approve sorry i was confused oh that's all right i know it's no it's confusing i believe i i think my just my account is that this is the minority view but i i think it would make good sense to have a motion as as might the minority had their motion at the last meeting and if we voted down it's just and then you aim is rejecting well and then and then
273uh and then have a vote to formally reject the bids i was just confused sorry yeah no that's fine go ahead mr tate right i moved to approve the professional service agreements for the saul feinstein elementary school project is attached to the agenda subject to solicitor's review and audit second thank you mr vlog any comments a role call please no niece brooks no mary mckee yes joey no kristen marcel yes all right so now we'll move to reject i'll let somebody else read it i moved to reject all bids and professional service agreements for the sulphine stone elementary school additions and renovations project subject to audit second dr thor with the second right to roll call please it's the same one the same one that we're voting to reject this is no this is the
274same motion but to reject oh okay oh i thought i did that one h yes h voting both of them you did you did this is the motion to reject after the motion to approve failed okay okay all right no i i confused the issue denise brooks yes mary mckee no joe hidalgo yes okay so that takes us to letter um letter l this is the approval of the 2021 capital improvements projects i move to approve the bids for the 2021 capital improvement projects including select value added alternates to the contractors is attached to the agenda total cost not to exceed million two hundred and three thousand seven hundred fifty three dollars subject to audit second thank you dr thorwick any comments on this these are the summer uh 2021 projects we do have a
275couple more that will come in later that were you know working on but [Music] overall these projects were combined under budget we're in good shape and we're ready to roll uh once these contracts are executed and these have been discussed questions at length yeah mr bailek please all right and these are already uh funded um uh the the funding is already this is this does not require additional funding correct that's correct this was the uh okay the budget of 3.25 million that was provided right very good thank you any objections to these all right with that madam secretary i want to ask you uh that to record the motions passing with unanimous consent thank you mr solomon the next meeting of the facilities committee will be thursday april 22nd following a special meeting of the
276board of school directors which i think we need to hold to uh um for these contracts or on i'm sorry never mind next facility is meeting april 22nd thank you sir with that we're going to take a five minute break sir uh ed yes mr bilat my son just popped in here and told me that i've got a leak in my basement so i'm going to ask uh you to take the the finance committee meeting with along with with mr stone is that okay that's fine we'd love to know all right yep thanks man okay all right folks if you're still tuning in we're back uh before we move to finance uh dr thorward asks for a moment to uh make a statement yeah i i um in in the last couple of hours we've
277we've had comments about buildings leaking buildings falling apart but maybe not to that level but we we've had comments that um really paint mr taylor in a bad light and and i i don't want the the community to think that mr taylor's neglecting buildings um we stalled on some things because we had a plan it got hosed the plan changed again tonight that happens um so i just i i i would have felt remiss if if that left it was left unstated um our facilities director is doing a very good job and and that needs needed to be stated i'll i'll be quiet now but i wanted that to happen thank you for that yeah i'll third that like i worked with you for a whole year and i learned more about buildings and the
278fact that you know the amount i've always said this doug taylor brings a job in under budget they're neat they're clean and they're impressive and then that's the work with your team and the teams that you bring in it's second to none i have nothing but faith in you and i have family in other districts that would love to be in council rock knowing how well what these buildings are so thank you dr thorward for clarifying that making that statement and doug you have my utmost respect and i and i can say that on behalf of the board as well thank you sir finance committee mr stone you want to go right into it certainly mr salomon you want to approve the committee meeting met uh we met on sorry i'm a little ill-prepared march
27911th i believe it was uh and we presented the first draft of the budget and reviewed that in in detail and set the table for the remaining several months of the of the budget process we also discussed the uh funding agreement for projects at mbit similar to what we've we've been discussing mbit is in need of of some needed upgrades and so we we discussed that and moved that forward for approval which is now on the consent agenda before you this evening uh the next meeting is scheduled for next thursday april 15th thank you thank you dr thor would you mind taking finance sure a heck of a job tonight oh i've been moving i moved to approve consent agenda items b through h as contained in the attachments to this agenda second mrs marcel
280with the second any comments any discussion any objection with that i want to ask the secretary to record the motion as passing with unanimous consent we'll move to letter i you mean to read the motion mr stone any comments we do actually i i want to uh give the board some information about this about this particular item in light of the recent actions that they took and we do have mr william from pfm and mr reed our bond council on the phone to give some further color around what is for you to approve so the the resolution is crafted as two transactions uh the first is will be known as the series of 2021 which represents new money for the projects that were just approved by the board so that would be the hillcrest elementary
281school project as well as the council rock south turf the series a of 2021 is the second transaction that is a bond refunding of all or a portion of the series b of 2015 bonds so bonds that in 2015. mr reed will go into further detail about the the resolution itself but this is what is known as a parameters resolution it sets forth the maximum amount of borrowing that that could be undertaken and there there are some dced requirements uh so that we intentionally have to uh overstate the amount in any particular year um to to accommodate those those requirements so i am going to project up mr williard's presentation onto the screen and turn it over to him to give to give an update so uh zach bear with me just one second while
282i connect and just let me know let me know where to drive sure so i can't i can't see it on the youtube but i'll just assume just a bright screen but anyway hi everyone so i know it's uh late at night and you've had a long meeting so i'm not going to belabor this this handout if when bill gets it up and and he flips to the interest rate chart on the first page you know the good news which i think i heard and you all know is that interest rates remain very low they've they've run up a tiny bit since president's day over the last kind of six weeks but when you look at the grand scheme of of things you know they're still at what would have been a historic low just
283a year ago okay so the timing for the project is good the the interest rates are also you know what what helps make the potential refinancing work of your 2015 bs so that's on on page two is where you have your your debt service this is what we call your debt summary it's it's small apologize for that but lays out your different bond issues the top half is the gross debt service the bottom is after you get the state reimbursement back and we're talking about refinancing column 3 and 17 which is the 2015 bs now the interest rates on those are already very very low the average rate is 2 percent i believe so you know we're not going to save uh you know a million dollars or anything but you know there's a chance
284to potentially save you know 150 maybe even 200 000 depending on how the bids go when we when we do your bond issue the the minimum net savings which kevin will refer to which is in the the resolution is two percent which is you know historically what we've used at council rock so as long as we can save at least two percent of the refunded amount net of costs and net of state aid you know we would move forward with that in conjunction with the new money which you just voted on and so that is also part of the resolution now the actual amount that we're going to borrow i think is 24 million 626 000 okay that's the cost of the project which i think we just heard and bill can confirm that for
285everybody but that's what we'll do is we'll go out and we will get you that amount of money via the the competitive internet auction and you'll have that then um for your project now if you flip to page number three this is the big kind of colored summary page that i think everyone is used to seeing at this point now this lays out kind of the full multi-year plan which is is not what you've approved but this was just meant to show and project you know how things would go if you did if you moved forward with these different versions of the project we've run through probably 30 different versions of this you know over the past kind of six months but this is kind of the one that we've landed on for now okay
286and so what you're what you've just voted to approve is the red column which is columns two and twelve and that would be to borrow right now it says 24 million but really it's going to be the 24.6 and then the estimated debt service is in column 12. and then um i guess the one good piece of news is you know assuming that we're moving forward with this you know we're going to be ready to actually lock in the interest rates next week we kind of have all the leg work done and you know right now these rates are still a little bit conservative so assuming that nothing um wild happens between now and next thursday you know we should come in you know a little bit under what we're showing here so that would
287be good for all these budget discussions that we just had and that's essentially it i'm not going to go through all the backup schedules in the back of the handout you know this is the same process that the districts used you know every year now for for a long time um happy to answer any questions if not i'll turn it over to kevin to quickly go through the the resolution there any questions from mr william i'm seeing and hearing none mr reed so the floor is yours all right good evening can everyone hear me you can yes yes okay great all right so um and i think mr stone did a good job of kind of preferencing the the resolution the best way to look at this and and the school district has done this
288in the past is that this is a parameters resolution in this particular resolution we're identifying two series of bonds the first series being the series of 2021 that's the one that is allocated toward new money projects of course you've had some debate this evening and made a decision with regards to that and that's what the financing team will act on um the resolution is done in the maximum amount there's a couple different reasons for that one it's because under the debt act pcd requires that there be an action item which shows an actual schedule and the second reason is because on the pricing side of the equation mr william and his group are obviously trying to secure the best rates and sometimes bonds may move in particular years in particular maturities the overall size wouldn't
289go different but where they actually land in the maturity schedule may differ depending upon the investor's appetite what we do though just so the board is aware and we've done this consistently is not only do we file the maximum schedule mr william talked about a pricing next week will actually also attach the actual pricing schedule um as well when we file with dced the second aspect of the parameters resolution does in fact relate to the refunding of a prior series of bonds specifically the 2015 b series bonds it's also done in a maximum schedule of of seven million dollars in this particular instance but the actual size as is shown on uh zach's schedules would be less than that but the same reasons that apply to the new money schedule applies to the refunding schedule
290and once again an actual schedule will be submitted to the application with dcd should the board act favorably on this resolution um and then the process like we've done in the past um there would be a series of of documents that we would file with dcd um if the if the local board approves it we also get have to get approval from the state and then we have to go through a series of of closing documents that get executed by the various parties and of course as zach indicated um two things you'd be looking for uh competitive i believe you're doing this to an auction site competitive bids through that vehicle trying to secure the lowest bid and then the second thing is that there is a minimum savings requirement set forth in the resolution
291of at least two percent um and that would need to be achieved for the refunding part of this deal to to move forward with that i'll pause to see if there's any questions seeing and hearing none i will just thank you gentlemen for your uh for your participation this evening on a long night and thank you to the board for indulging uh taking a little bit of time to explain what is a one of the more significant transactions in school business to to borrow to borrow money so so thank you thank you for allowing us that time okay thanks everyone we'll report back next week thank you great thank you gentlemen let me make the motion let's go okay i moved to approve the attached resolution to authorize and direct the issuance of the 2021
292bonds to fund certain capital improvement projects to authorize and direct the issuance of the a bonds to finance the current refunding of all or a portion of the 2015 b bonds the interest rate on the new money issue shall be the lowest bid received the required savings on the 2015 b bond shall be no less than two percent of the refunded par value second mr tate with a second any further comments on this any objections okay madam secretary roll call please yes it's solomon yes andy black yes mark pilot mark mark drop um yes little letter j would you mind i moved to approve the personal actions as contained in the attachment of the agenda i further moved to approve the addendum to the personnel actions as contained in this agenda second this is marcelo
293ii um any comments on this is mrs taylor on the phone it's late perhaps you can answer i i i yeah no i'm here i'm here i was thinking she wasn't but since you stuck it out i have one quick question for you then um i see a couple of uh permanent sub uh terms coming to an end uh and and as i've done with several of these i'm just verifying we don't need them elsewhere in the district now and and and you're yes you don't have to explain it other than yes we're good but before i release any of these subs we've fought long and hard for i want to make sure we don't need them anywhere we do not we're we're good okay thank you anybody else i need any uh objection to
294these okay hearing now to ask the secretary to record the motions passing with unanimous consent and there will move the new business of the board if at all any any old business all right that's the end of it thank you now you