001thank you [Music] good evening the purpose of this meeting is to conduct the business of the Gettysburg area school district public common is welcome and issues we referred to the appropriate board committee or administrator comments will be summarized in the official board minutes which will be made available by contacting the business office please take a moment to silence any electronic devices Brooke everybody would be present this evening please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign thank you president hessinger and good evening everyone we have two people that have asked to address the board this evening we'll start with Mr Bob Stillwell thank you Dr moyer for that warm introduction Mr President I Rise to remark on the totally unacceptable process the school administration has been trying to use to get you to approve the expenditure
002of 34 million dollars without you to my knowledge even knowing what you will be spending it on I spent a 50-year career in government and Industry procurement and I am appalled at what I have seen regarding this procurement I've asked your business office on numerous occasions to see the procurement parts of the roll-up of the sump components that make up the statement of work that then lead to the 34 million dollar total I've been told that at this time and I quote the details have not been done just on the face of it the notion that it would cost 34 million dollars to replace two Elementary School HVAC systems and two roofs flies in the face of believability and recently we've been told that there may be nothing wrong with any of them I'm sure
003that each of you at some time has been driving down the road and seeing a furry black and white recent dead animal ahead and thought to yourself oh God this is really going to stink well I can tell you from my substantial experience and major program procurements that this project is really going to stink in fact it already stinks from what I've been able to get from your business and Facilities offices to me the message is train I have 34 million dollars that is burning a hole in my pocket please tell me how to spend it then I'll give you a contract to do just that unless the members of this board know more than we do about what you are being asked to approve millions of dollars for the very fact that such an
004item is back on the board's agenda for approval apparently without modification after being recently rejected is subject to serious question if you vote tonight to approve this expenditure you would be well advised to Define carefully and publicly what you think you are voting to spend 34 million dollars of taxpayer money on because from what I see this Fiasco will never withstand an investigative audit thank you Mr President for the board's time thank you [Applause] thank you Bob and we also have someone else that would like to address the board Miss Sharon Birch thank you thank you my name is Sharon Birch I'm a resident of Gettysburg and have children who have been through Gettysburg schools one currently in high school the policy Committee of the GISD board is considering changes proposed by the superintendent to
005the policy related book challenges this was discussed in detail at the November 15th policy committee meeting I'm going to hone in on one part of the document in addition to proposing an opt-out option for parents the draft policy also includes an escalation of options including the option two quote require the students who do access the challenge materials to meet with a counseling professional end quote this could apply to all students accessing a book that may have been challenged by any member of the community this would marginalize and stigmatize students interested in any of the topics that most frequently get challenged it directly communicates to students that their interest in this material is evidence of a problem kids out there who already kind of feel like this community hates them you tell them that if they'd
006like to read a book with a gay character in it that they need to see a counselor sure which is worse removing books and sending the message that their lives and experiences are erasable or and then the message that there's something wrong with them that needs a conversation with a counselor and it's not just that what will you do when someone challenges books about black history that they think are too woke because that's already happening all over the country who wants to tell a student as they turn in something like stamped from the beginning that they now need to go see the school counselor your first reaction is probably well of course that won't happen that's not the intention but if a policy can be used in a particular manner even if that was not
007the original intent then that possibility is encoded as District policy can you see the headline School District requires counseling for students who check out black history books it's not a good look for the district even if you never actually required any students to see a guidance counselor after turning in a book The fact if this option were enacted as policy it effectively bans books whether they remain on the shelves or not because no middle school or high school student will check them out or even touch them probably the most likely outcome of this policy were enacted it's a hidden ban but it is a ban by all but name now I assumed that none of the proposed ideas are in opposition to existing laws and regulations I'm not a lawyer but this may or may
008not be the case PA Title 24 section 9375 States and I quote records of the following institutions which relate to the circulation of Library materials and contains the names or other personally identifying information of users of the material shall be confidential and may not be made available to anyone except by a court order in a criminal proceeding the section goes on to list which types of libraries this applies to and the fourth item on the list is the library of a public school in order to require counseling for students who check out certain books the library staff would have to release names of users that would be indirect violation of Title 24 subsection 9375. and finally just because other districts are doing something doesn't mean gasd has to maybe we can be a beacon for
009letting teachers and Librarians do their jobs and for letting students read what they need to read here's my proposed policy GISD will not negotiate the free access to any and all materials that professional Librarians and professional teachers deem important for our Public School libraries thank you thank you typically we do not address back in Mr Stilwell actually some of your questions will probably be addressed during a motion in question but Mike with policy uh do you have any comment quickly I mean to Mrs Miss Burch I can just say that the policy committee has met and there is no draft policy that's even been brought to the committee there's just been discussion um we're still exploring options and looking where other districts are doing but there has been no discussion of of even a draft
010policy at this point so I appreciate your comments that brings us to our routine approvals this evening at a request to remove or separate 5.2 and 5.6 uh Amy Beth requested that so I am going to entertain two different motions the first motion would be a motion for 5.1 5.3 5.4 and 5.5 so moved second question hearing no question roll call timmin Michelle yes Amy Beth yes Al yes Mike yes Jeremy yes Ryan Yes Tim yes and I vote Yes that brings us to 5.2 may I have a motion so moved second question on the motion 5.2 was something that I hope to discuss you may have before I have to apologize we are not connecting right now to um our internet so I'm going to be reading from my phone uh 5.2 is what
011I'm referring to so after oop I'm sure I got my stuff together after a review of our financial report I found I had more concerns related to our district procurement cards and their spending I wanted to detail some of my concerns and offer a possible solution I have served on our Wellness committee within our district for several years our committee was able to achieve and successfully address outdoor food being given to our student body the school board voted unanimously in favor of changes brought forth by our committee our committee got to have an open discussion about skyrocketing obesity rates in Adams County food allergies that range from Celiac peanut allergies gluten intolerance negative reactions to food coloring and dyes type 1 and type 2 diabetes students still could enjoy celebrations such as cupcakes on their
012birthdays but those items could be ordered and purchased through our buildings cafeterias this way the items are labeled and no student will go without a reward or a celebration based on a dietary limitation a focus of nutritious options like fruits and vegetables would be encouraged our District's Wellness committee will be gathering once again to discuss topics like these having our staff order food rewards and celebration items through the cafeteria would not only support a healthier and safer way to offer food but it would allow us to become more self-sufficient and fiscally responsible and more importantly lead by example to our students once our committee decides on a date I will update you but for me tonight I would be unable to support many of these line items within our financial report and I hope this
013helps you all understand that for me this is about wellness and health of our students and staff thank you thank you any additional questions hearing non-roll call Tim yes Mike yes timing yes Amy Beth no Jeremy yes Al yes Ryan yes Michelle yes and I vote Yes brings us to our last routine approval item 5.6 may have a motion so moved question on the motion so um requested that this be pulled the specific item I would like to talk about is the potential replacement for assistant director of facilities this administrative staff position is quite costly and I believe the public should be aware of what's taken place so this is a brief overview of my from my perspective in January of 2021 we received an Abrupt resignation from Wayne Crosby who had been embarking on
014a major mechanical Capital Improvement project Mr Crosby asked to never be contacted for any reason by our district with which left us in quite a predicament then we created a short-term plan to address our situation then we evaluated our car we elevated our current employee Mr James Hoffman offering him a 10 pay increase to temporarily replace Mr Crosby we aggressively started searching for a permanent replacement that resulted in our district hiring Joshua Reynolds Reynolds is now our director of facilities manager and Mr Hoffman would now become the assistant facilities director I our district has recently been given notice that Mr Hoffman would like to retire and I really do wish Mr Hoffman the best retirement possible for me I really had hoped that this retirement would be recognized by our district as a blessing and
015considered considering the recession that we are in by not filling that position we could save the taxpayer seventy thousand dollars for lost benefits so I have two questions for our superintendent if I may how long has our district had an assistant director of facilities and what examples can you give as to why this position is necessary at this time we've had an assistant uh pretty much last couple of years that that I've been here prior to my arrival I don't know the history um history there but is your as you recall one of the things that we did um one of the reasons that we created the assistant director was actually a cost-saving measure we reduced other positions basically department heads and two other facilities areas and then put those areas underneath the assistant director
016so by creating the the assistant director position we actually reduced cost for personnel in that department so that's currently the the model that we have that's currently the model we would like to continue with um and uh we chose a solid uh solid candidate to fulfill that role I appreciate it those were two questions that I didn't have answers to thank you yeah absolutely are there any additional questions on 5.6 hearing none roll call Tim and Michelle yes Amy Beth no Al yes Mike yes Jeremy yes Ryan Yes Tim yes and I vote Yes items for board action 6.1 may I have a motion so moved so for the board a little different to make this is crystal clear as it can possibly be it'll be a roll call vote if you look at your
017agenda you'll see method one method one being the build Design Services with Cooperative purchasing Network it's basically or not basically it is the recommendation originally by the administration method two is a build design it's essentially an Esco project that this board has discussed over the last I don't know how many meetings eight nine maybe and the third option is a no vote so as we go through after question and we get to the time for voting it'll be a roll call vote which is somewhat different instead of just a straight motion as you get your name called You will choose a particular a method method one being the administration's recommendation method two being the Esco project method three is a no vote across the board I would remind the board too if you look at
018the motion that's on the floor right now it is not designed as approving a budget it is not designed as saying that the project is moving forward it's saying that we're looking at which method if this board at a later date approves the spending or the budget for that tonight is not this motion tonight is not that so as you as you vote I want everyone to be crystal clear that that is not the purpose of this motion this evening or this this item so may I have a I have a motion it's been seconded do I have question on the motion on the floor Mr President I don't I don't have a question but I'd like to just reiterate what you said um this HVAC project for these two elementary schools have been on
019the capital Improvement plan for for five years plus before I was even elected to this board um and we need to make a crystal clear we are not approving a budget we are not approving the project we are not issuing a blank check we are just going to decide how we're going to move forward with this project that's been discussed and talked about for years and planned for years we can't get a punch sheet and a list of bid materials until we start having Engineers design bid and build it correct I just want to make our crystal clear that that we're just talking about how we're going to proceed with this project we've talked about it for I think it was slated to actually be discussed and approved last spring and we're coming up on
020a year now um so I I just kind of don't understand some of the the outrage from the public like we're trying to Ram this through we're just trying to figure out how we're going to do it Mr President good um well part of the thing of it is too is it um some of the reason that it didn't pass the last time was because once that actual bid came in we as a board could not remove stuff from it because of the time frame that we were on so we voted it got voted down now that that happens when we get a whichever way we do it or if we do it when the bid actually comes in and we can actually look at that and decide oh we don't want the lighting we
021don't want the roofing before we couldn't do that now we can do that that's number one number two um it has been on the capital projects uh before most of us got on the board uh before Josh was here so it's nobody's Pet Project it was already on the list of things to do and by uh proving one or the other or not at all whichever everybody wants to choose then there will be an actual hard estimate this is a rough idea number that has to make it come in way lower we're not giving anybody a blank check this is just a rough idea of what it could cost when the actual hard bid comes in then we'll know and then we will discuss whether we're going to approve that or not and what we
022want to keep or don't take out of it you know it's been a misconception that we're trying to write a blank check for this project we are not this is just a rough idea what it is until we get a hard estimate from those we don't know and this is just a way to procure that hard estimate foreign questions or comments Kenny um I just want to say for everybody who's out there um I think everybody knows that I've been the one that kind of started the pot a little bit um but I want you to understand I do have somewhat of this facilities background um and I can tell you that once HVAC units get to 20 years they really do start to lose their efficiency their effectiveness um and and it is better
023to consider replacing them but like everybody else here I'm not willing to write a blank check to do anything but I do want to make sure that our buildings in our facilities in general are up to standard and up to par um and I you know as long as we have the right to take things out and replace them or not do this or not do that you know I'm okay with it but there are some things that we have to do it's just maintenance has to get done that's it Mr hassinger Amy Beth it has been something that has been up for discussion so I think that there are some um folks from the community who have had questions and have voiced concerns I myself have some questions that I still have unanswered and
024I don't like to act hastily when we're talking about such a large dollar amount 34 million dollars is a lot of money especially considering what people are going through right now I would be more inclined to slow down and I would like to put a motion to table this item so that we could have further discussions and allow that communication to happen naturally instead of rushing where I feel that I have made a decision two months ago to vote no for this project based on questions at that time more questions have come up and I do not want to rush when it comes to this type of dollar figure well there's a motion to table it so you would need a second to table it or the other option would be that you would vote
025option three yeah if there's no second time is there a second to the motion is there a second to the motion what there's what is yeah are you seconding the motion to table no I'm second motion and we move forward with it okay so I wanted to make sure we're clear so without a second well the motion that motion fails and we would proceed in voting either method one two or three right right and I want to reiterate I thought I did that at the beginning I thought we did this in other meetings the motion this evening is not to write a blank check because uh Tim Sigmund had mentioned the motion is allow this board to determine which method if if it determines a method get the pricing get the bids then come back
026to the table and see what is adequately represented or needed in terms of the overall project and we've had people come in and talk about the lighting we've had people write about the internet and I personally agree with with the speaker and some of the emails that we got and that's something that I can't evaluate even at this point until we choose a particular method on how to explore this that's the motion as I see it on the floor so option one I'm sorry method one would be the administration's recommendation through train option two would be as Josh put it step back and and put it out through the Esco and option three or method three is a no vote across the board on the project Mr President yes and as I see it uh
027if I'm not confused so uh whatever we would if we would pass one or two whichever one of those when that hard estimate comes back then we would then have the time to ask whatever questions we choose to have at that point in time correct that's my understanding this is not to ratify or sign on to everybody's profession could still be answered especially then we would have it still has to go before it would still have to go before a full board vote as to whether or not we're proceeding with the project none of that's changing here this evening this this provides approval of a procurement method so that all future conversations um as opposed to going going back and talking about other methods we can actually focus on the actual project at hand the
028design and have those questions and conversations that folks want to have I know that I tried to reach out um to get more clarification on my own independently um I did talk to a professional that has worked on HVAC systems not here locally although they are Gettysburg area tax payer I'm going to quote that individual so that my office is an agreement that you could damn near build new schools for that amount and it really is about that for me it's not the project and the questions that I still have it is the dollar amount and the excessively large dollar amount that we have we now just approved assistant or facilities so we now are paying over a hundred thousand dollars for the director of facilities and now 70 thousand dollars plus benefits for both
029and that's a lot of money that's something that is to be considered I know I'm considering it and that's why I was hoping that we could take our time and have the community along with board members talk about those things additional questions or comments before roll call timing using deal with this project and what we're going to do with it what we're not going to do it for over a year it's my understanding that if we prove one of these well not one of the method one or method two that we have the right as a board first to change that vote and say no if we decide we can't pull out what we want to pull out but if we can pull out what we want to pull out and make the adjustments we
030as we see fit I think it's time we get off that's my understanding Belinda would this not be very similar to the the um project we are finishing and finished at the high school where the board had voted x amount and it came in at x amount based upon certain changes that we made because I know that that came in under budget is that would this be am I in my reality with saying that it's such a different procurement model from the original design bid build stage that we did for the hvc at the high school the one advantages of this procurement method is you don't necessarily have to take the lowest bitter and deal with change orders down the road and but you still will have options available to you to decide no I
031don't want to do the lighting no I don't want to do this or I do that that is not the stage and I think we've kind of communicated before that we are not at the final stages of a statement of work we are only at the estimate stage and this is really only as as you mentioned many of you this is really only setting a procurement method to move forward so if the estimate comes in in six to eight weeks and this board does not like the estimate we're not locked into anything that's true so it would be very similar to the high school when when we approved an initial budget not to exceed I think it was around 26 million dollars and we came in around 17 million dollars based on decisions that the
032board made to save taxpayer money so we have the option once again just to reiterate we have the option to review and decide what parts we want to move forward with and what parts we don't or if the budget design build bid comes in and it's something that that we're not comfortable with we have the right to say no we just need to choose which procurement method we're going to move forward with like is there's a project this is like not to beat a dead horse but this has been on the books for like five years and and it's a project that we know that we have to do we just need to figure out which procurement method we're going to explore to try and kick the project off and not to mention we can't
033it's hard to say yes or no to a project in general until we have the actual number it's going to cost right now we don't know right now we're mentioning 34 million it could come in at 30. it could come in 28 it could be 40 but we don't know until that bit actually comes in so trying to write something off until you actually have a hard number is hard to do so we need to get the hard numbers so we can make that decision anything additional okay roll call vote method one as I said earlier is the uh District district recommendation through train method two is the Esco project and method three is simply a no vote roll call Al method one Tim method one Mike method one Jeremy method one timing method one
034Amy Beth no Ryan two Michelle two and I would go with method one Brooke you have the tallies on the motion method one is what I apologize six thank you motion moves forward with method one and the determined at a later date informational items policy 918 Title 1 parent and family engagement just information yeah sorry now I'm just going to go ahead it's just an informational item that was discussed at our last policy committee meeting so it's an informational item today Mike yep so we discussed um my apologies we discussed policy 918 Title 1 parent and family engagement at the last policy committee meeting and Dr Lee gave us an overview of that and we also um we're in the the still the discussion stages of a book policy a book review policy so there'll
035be I'm sure a couple more meetings surrounding that one before it comes to the board I'll keep to my right Tim anything our next billion finance committee should be December 1st I believe unless there's a change or we have to move it up for some reason but that's it Amy Beth as far as the Liu board which I serve on that will meet on the 29th and I'll update you after that I have a legislative report the general assembly has finished its work for the 2021-2022 legislative session with legislators in the Senate and House of Representatives spending this week delivering farewells and thank yous following the election and looking ahead to January Pennsylvania will be a new Administration for first time in eight years with the inauguration of Josh Shapiro as governor and Austin Davis
036lieutenant governor transition meetings have already begun in the state general assembly Republicans will retain control of Senate while control of the house is still undetermined as races for two seats are unresolved the balance of power in the Senate I mean and the house rests on the outcome of those two races elections results will also impact committee Selections in the general assembly in both Chambers committee memberships and chairs will change due to the retirements of election losses committee chair and rosters are expected to be announced in January for the senate in this most recent cycle senators in the even number districts were up for election for a four-year term the Republicans will retain majority of the status with 28 to 22 seats advantage of the 25 seats up for election there are 19 incumbents who will
037return to the Senate including eight Republicans and 11 Democrats House of Representatives is next all 203 members of the House were up for election for the two-year term at that time election results show Democrats have won 102 House Seats and Republicans 101 seats I expect there to be a struggle in leadership over the next few months in addition Three Special elections will have been held at the later date one is to fill the seat held by Anthony DeLuca who died in October strangely winning a huge Market by a huge margin the other two elections will fill vacancies for legislators who ran for two seats representative summer Lee also won her bid to represent the 12th congressional district in the U in the U.S House of Representatives Austin Davis was elected as the State's new lieutenant
038governor thank you thank you Beth I just wanted I know I've asked a couple meetings have you had an opportunity to talk to any of our legislative people about property tax relief and charter school reform because I know I would like to have any emails that any of my fellow board members have any questions and also that from the public I welcome those thank you I understand but you don't I would like you to email me if you have any questions you're a legislative liaison for the district I'm only asking if you've had conversation you've represented if you've met with these people from time to time has property tax relief come up or Charter Schools that's all I asked two separate meetings I'm just asking now following up okay president hassinger I just want to
039give a correction on the finance and Facilities date it's December 15th 15th thank you yep program reports this reminder uh no school on Wednesday no school on Monday hope that everybody and their families and friends have a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday and if you're headed to the woods next week good luck and be careful calendar of events uh our next meeting will be a two-prong meeting December 5th the reorganization at 7 pm followed by our regular school board meeting I have a motion to adjourn We Stand adjourned foreign