001oh good evening the purpose of this meeting is to conduct the business of the gettysburg area school district public comment is welcome initially referred to the appropriate board committee or administrator comments will be summarizing the official board minutes which will be available by contacting the business office please take a moment to silence any electrical devices electronic devices or cell phones ms collins all board members are present please stand for the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible you'll notice in your agenda if you have it we have notices and communications and typically that is a rather silent item however i'm going to take a moment and address the audience in my position as board president and not speaking from a personal level if i
002do i'll certainly let you know that it's my personal comment i don't represent the board we have received a lot of emails directed to the board and and i am the one that's responsible for responding as a board as a whole whether my personal beliefs are in line with the board as we vote or not makes no difference that's my responsibility so let me clear the air here because i see we have some public speakers the district is not changing its curriculum we have not changed it i should say we are in line with what the state has asked us to be in line with our administrators have met with the teachers and continue to meet with the teachers to better develop a curriculum across the board for an equitable education that is not for
003debate i welcome anybody to speak to that will be more than happy to listen to that but i would suggest that if an issue comes up with the curriculum like other issues that it would be addressed with the board admit or i'm sorry the building administrator and if the response is not adequate we have people in place through our leadership team that can directly deal with that prior to it getting to the board we were surprised as a board as a whole with a newspaper article that singled out or mentioned that's what i should better say mentioned one of our teachers we said last week or two meetings ago dr parent had a statement where i thought that he had cleared the air that there was no curriculum changes that were striving for an equitable
004education and the teacher that was named has an unblemished record within our district and there are no issues with that teacher and i don't anticipate any i'm sure she appreciated people standing here at the last meeting addressing in a positive manner but speaking for me personally that's all i've ever heard throughout her career so it is not a board agenda item on the other note i would ask if anybody speaks anybody in the audience look we're divided in some areas where we shouldn't be divided is in this room here everybody walks into this room and wants an education they want to become something in their community whether it's a budget issue or policy and procedure we can disagree but i would ask to be civil as board president i'm not tolerating any outburst you'll be
005asked one time at the second time i'm going to ask you to leave we are not letting this board break down to platforms for agendas this board is here to further the education of our students and families thank you having said that we'll jump right into citizen's participation good evening and welcome everyone i appreciate you all coming tonight we have uh i believe it's eight people that have uh requested to address the board uh so uh we're going to start with mr derrick scott if you would come to the podium and and please get close enough so that everyone can hear appreciate that okay hello okay here we got you thank you all right okay it was kind of big all right thank you board members for the opportunity to speak i'm derek scott a
006parent of a daughter in the district i look forward to collaborating with the board and district in any way that i may help to ensure that we are an excellent district for teachers or educators to teach and and for students to reach their fullest potential i'd like to address the board about the district's plan to improve economic achievement for the requirements of title 1 of the every student succeed act as a parent new to the district who is also a social scientist i've started to look take a closer look at the district's economic achievement while the district's overall performance seems to be above average a closer look at the data particularly as it relates to economically disadvantaged students english learners students with disabilities and students of color are quite alarming the achievement gaps at both
007the middle school and elementary school levels are very concerning while growth scores show in some instances positive growth for these student groups the achievement gap between these student groups compared to students who are not economically disadvantaged disadvantaged are quite concerning many times near 20 points or more in a review of the district's latest comprehensive plan and some title one plans there does not seem to be a lot of language about how the district will address these large achievement gaps further the district does not show the disaggregated data on its website that magnifies these gaps i had to pull them from federal and state data sources if we are not transparent and do not talk about these issues to all stakeholders how will we effectively strategize to reduce them and create equitable opportunity i ask that
008the district share these data and this includes how many students of these groups participate in ap classes and go on to four-year colleges compared to economically advantaged students further it does not appear that the plans address the importance of providing educators with evidence-based culturally competent relevant and responsive strategies to support educators as they work to provide students with opportunities to succeed at the highest level how does the district plan to support its educators use um use these using these strategies how does the district plan to support its educators using these strategies in addition how does the district plan to ensure it's that its curriculum is culturally responsive so that all students achieve at the highest levels the plans indicate alignment with the standards but no specific references to actual curriculum research clearly shows us that
009culturally responsive curriculum are important to ensuring that the success of all students it would also be helpful for the district to post this curriculum as clearly note a clearly noted best practice for this gatesburg is a wonderful community and i'm happy to be a part of it now so let's engage the community so that we can support the district and becoming even better thank you mr scott uh thank you for uh sharing tonight and i would just say this uh to uh mr scott and anyone else that is sharing tonight or requesting or inquiring about more information chances are we here at the board and the administrative team that's here tonight aren't going to be responding right away in real time but again if you would put those that information and and we'll take note
010of that our assistant superintendent our principals and there are other people here on the administrative team that are very capable of responding to that and hopefully we'll have answers that will satisfy you if it doesn't we'd like to hear about that but uh uh but we will have our we'll have dr perrin work with his administrative team and someone on the team will follow up with you in regards to that and anyone else that is interested okay so thank you our next uh our next uh cis interpretation participation uh inquiry is jenna scott i think it got bumped there tom can you see if that's uh microphone's okay that we um an excellent visitor for our educators and for our students to reach their fullest potential as i know all of this is already shared
011but specifically focused on stakeholder engagement stakeholder engagement is one of the most important strategies in building a successful district and school culture and climate the comprehensive plan online as well as title 1 plans describes some efforts to engage our stakeholders but the authenticity and continuous improvement of this engagement appears to be missing we'd like to know more specifically how the district plans to engage its stakeholders in required federal and state plans including the american recovery plan for example how are stakeholders teachers parents students and community members selected for participation do we ensure that representation adequately represents our most underserved students how do we ensure that we continuously engage our stakeholders including having honest and transparent conversations about student performance and curriculum gettysburg is like so many communities across the country where politics are serving to
012polarize us and we forget that the heart of our education system is to support our educators and students thankfully i have seen through my work many districts across the country have these difficult conversations support educators put students first close achievement gaps and create greater opportunities in order to understand where we are as a community we ask that the districts share its school climate and culture reports for example we'd like to know how does the district assess school climate and culture what instruments are used to assess climate and culture who administers the assessments what is the sample or population of stakeholders that are included how does the district communicate the results and plan for continuous improvement how does the district strategic plan ensure social and emotional supports for students and teachers as part of ensuring a
013positive culture for our educators and students as well as the wider community we need to address effective ways to prevent community spread of covid after all we want our educators teaching in person and students learning in person therefore we ask what communication strategies will the district employ to share coveted cases with stakeholders will this include dashboards or emails will the district use the cdc recommendations and pennsylvania department education guidance for all teachers and students to wear masks if not what evidence is the district using to support a different decision how will the district handle positive covid cases will students and teachers move to virtual platforms for an allotted time i love gettysburg i really do and i get emotional when i think about it i returned here a year ago and i want this community
014to be the best community possible we are an amazing village and when we work together we can achieve anything one of my favorite quotes all of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others we are all human all of us recognize the humanity in one another we can achieve great things when we listen when we hear and when we work together thank you all thank you jenna our next citizen participation participant carolyn jenkins mr president and fellow board members thank you for this opportunity i'd like to just speak briefly about the critical race theory i want to talk about it because it has captured the attention of the national education association to such an extent that they voted during their summer meetings to push it forward in our school systems across the nation
015this is a grave concern first we know this ideology developed in the 1930s in a manifesto for marxism the goal of this philosophical theory was to tear down objective truth to question everything and to criticize all while offering no solutions the ultimate goal was to pit people against one another this spawned critical legal theory in the 1970s there was a pivot to see all people as either the oppressed or the oppressor it contained destructive economic strategies currently we see this idea has evolved from a generic oppressed versus oppressor to divide peoples via color it tramples on reverend martin luther king's cry for his own children and actually all children to be judged by their character rather than the color of their skin sadly we see our government human resource departments and school systems not that
016i'm saying that you all are but in general joining the fray without forethought about the final outcome i hope it will not prove true for gettysburg area schools this is an attitude a mindset and a stronghold it constitutes an artificial lens for viewing america as irreparably flawed here is the cycle created for the one who identifies as the oppressed victim once identified they become bitter angry and sadly hopeless from there they move on to declaring well they're not personally responsible for their state or condition finally they decide others should take care of them all of this flies in the face of the american dream where people have come from around the world since the inception of our nation to become what was never available to them on their native soils here is the other side
017of the cyclical coin once you have been identified as the oppressor shame and guilt are heaped upon you you are made to feel responsible based on how you feel responsible then you're to care for these other people and it's based on an unchangeable factor an unchangeable trait that being the color of one's skin this is a system worse than the caste system in india where individuals have no hope for anything different than the one dictated by the strata of their birth study the plight of the untouchables and you will glimpse the outcome of such schooling my plea is simply that such teaching never be a part of the gettysburg area school system indeed i would beg you to take a bold step and outlaw the use of any such ideology from all classrooms and textbooks
018for the sake of the children of every color and to enable each and every one to thrive and strive to be the very best they can possibly be okay carolyn thanks for sharing i do believe that president hassinger and dr perrin have to some degree address that issue if you have a specific question please pass it along to me and we will get it to the correct administrator to follow up with you thank you our next speaker or citizen participation participant tim funk all right thanks can you hear me yes hi i'm tim funk i have two kids in the district one in the middle school and one at james gettys i'm here specifically to discuss uh and to recommend a change in the optional mass policy to go from optional to temporarily requiring them
019for all students and staff k through 12. adams county is currently classified as high transmission of covid19 therefore this uh cdc pennsylvania department of education the pennsylvania department of health the american academy of pediatrics all recommends universal mask wearing until case numbers decrease below certain levels in our community the original mask optional policy that was passed by the board was developed in early july when cases were low and it totally made sense with dramatic uptick in cases that we've seen in adams county in particular a more transmission a more transmissible variant circulating i'm just kind of curious if there's an evidence-based compelling reason why we haven't changed our policy to match that recommended by people with backgrounds in medicine and public health there are a number of reasons that we would do this one is
020that mask wearing is most effective when the infected person is wearing a mask decreasing the likelihood of transmission in the air which is the main way of course that this virus spreads number two we do not have the free freedom in this country or in this district to harm others or to put others in danger right we can't murder assault or steal from others we can't smoke indoors in pennsylvania because we know the dangers that me smoking my second-hand smoke would have on other people and so that has been banned to make sure that we're protecting others gettysburg area school district already has a number of policies limiting student freedoms when it could be detrimental to the safety and education of others students in our district must come in vaccinated against a variety of diseases
021to keep themselves and to keep others safe we have a dress code that limits student freedom of expression and frankly i'm much more concerned about someone passing along this virus than someone wearing a budweiser t-shirt to school number three elementary aged children are not eligible for vaccines they literally do not have access to the primary source of the primary tool that we have against this virus number four don't we want to maximize in-person student days right last year which days were more productive remote or in-person days right if you ask any parent who was sending their kids to school and then had a remote day versus an in-person day i think it's fairly clear which days ended up being more productive so mask wearing should decrease the spread resulting in more in-person days and a
022more effective educational experience for our kids and less disruptions to the schedules for working parents number five it worked last year any comment or concern about the difficulties of interactions between students and students and teachers it's not as relevant because we successfully completed an entire year with with this policy in place i teach at the college level and i know that we had mass mandates last year and we were able to do okay in terms of interactions with each other and i know that that is certainly different than working with k through 12 year olds especially on the younger end of the spectrum i also coached a bunch of nine eight and nine year old boys on a soccer team where masks were required and the kids themselves and i and the kids we didn't
023have any issues interacting with each other i just want to end by saying that let's be honest nobody freaking wants to wear these masks right like this isn't fun right i don't enjoy wearing this thing but given all the factors and recommend and recommendations and our desires desire as a community to ensure that our kids are in school as much as possible and remaining as safe as possible a temporary mask mandate is the best way to achieve these goals ignoring these recommendations from public health professionals simply does not seem to make sense considering all the information we have about the effectiveness of mask wearing in reducing viral spread the importance of maximizing the number of days our kids receive in-person instruction and the fact that this policy was already shown to be successfully implemented during
024the school year last year thank you tim sure thanks next uh jillian higgins good evening and um my name is jillian higgins i'm a parent of three children in the district and i think tim has just very nicely summed up many of my concerns um i i'm requesting that the district reconsider their health and safety plan to be a little bit more specific to include masks for k25 who don't have access to vaccines and that the kova dashboard be put back so that parents can make informed decisions about sending their children to school deciding if we want them to wear a mask or not we have no information from what i can tell there's going to be no or very limited communication to parents to make these decisions so i think just a little bit
025more precise information from the district would be helpful for uh as we move into the school year thank you jillian next is christine hopkinson i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly so hello thank you for letting me speak tonight um i am also a parent of two district children both elementary age and i'm here to reiterate in person what i have emailed to the board a couple of times about my concern for the health and safety plan for this coming year specifically with the part of the plan that makes masks optional as was already stated this plan does go against the guidance of both the cdc and the american academy of pediatrics it ignores the science on covent transmission in kids and on the effectiveness of masks and it fails to give our youngest kids who
026do not have the option to get a vaccine yet a chance to avoid infection i do believe as local leaders that you should listen to the doctors who know what they're talking about and mandate masks in our schools and i think tim's idea to do it temporarily is a wonderful one if you choose not to make that change then i personally would like to understand because i haven't received an answer to this why you've decided to ignore that guidance i don't i don't i would like to understand what the reasoning is for that infections in adams county declined over the spring but as we all know they're on the rise again since march of last year when our schools first closed we've learned a lot about how to reduce kova transmission and masks have shown
027to be effective and very easily implemented i kept my kids home for the the bulk of last year and did online learning um and it was tough it was really tough we sent them back in april they were so happy to be back and they don't love to wear their masks but they did it because they know that it's the safe thing to do it keeps them safe and it keeps other people safe so i fully support the decision to open schools five days a week my children want to be there and i want them there as well it's the place where they need to be but i want them to be safe and it's your job to ensure that they stay safe as i said they're not excited about wearing masks but they're happy
028to do it to go back to school it seems as if in the health and safety plan we are pretending that covett is gone that we are no longer in a pandemic and i also don't understand that because it's not gone and just because we're sick and tired of it we're all sick and tired of it we can't just pretend that we don't have to deal with it we need to be smart about our mitigation efforts the masks are the lowest hanging fruit i hope we would consider some testing in the schools i don't see any of that in the plan i see everything that was in the plan last year that helped us keep our community safe seems to be gone now and again i don't understand why that is when our numbers are
029the same as basically as what they were last year with the high a more highly transmissible variant so anyway in closing i just want to say i think we need to be smart about our efforts we need to choose the health of our children in our community over the inconvenience of wearing masks thank you christine next janine weber hello good evening my name is jeanine weaver and i have four children in gettysburg area school district two in james gettys elementary one in the middle school and one in the high school i'm in front of you today to address the achievement gaps that we see in races at gettysburg area school district more information very well from what derek scott said and the pressure that you are feeling to not teach critical race theory and the
0301919 project as most of you probably know the in depth of both curriculums are taught in higher education meaning possibly bachelor level but more likely at the masters and doctorate levels even with this misplaced labeling age-appropriate diversity education is necessary it's necessary to become better learners and to become more successful research from the sesame workshop and norc at the university of chicago says building a solid and positive sense of identity involving race ethnicity gender religion and social classes vital for children's healthy development as well as unders the students understanding themselves as well as understanding other cultures and races points of view creates empathy empathy creates kindness if there's one thing we can all agree on is that we want our students to be successful and to be kind empathy creates kindness with that said only
03140 percent of white families surveyed by the chicago university said they discuss race and ethnicity at home with their children diversity is not just learned by by having diverse peers it's by having diverse teachers as well as the teachers teaching diverse points of view for example if you're teaching in the vietnam war you would teach the view of northern vietnam people the view of southern vietnam people and as well as the view of american people for the war and we need to understand we need the children to understand the various points of view to understand the struggles other cultures and races face we want them to find empathy to create empathy and kindness as a core value we want them to understand what life is like in someone else's skin we need our with that
032said we need our teachers to be incorporating these various points of view into their curriculum and that's one thing i would like to challenge the board and the administrators to do is make sure the teachers are incorporating these different points of view that again that is not the mislabeled critical race theory it is simply teaching kindness and diversity to understand someone else's point of view teaching someone else's point of view is not pushing politics understanding race is not politics again it teaches empathy so with that said we need um i'm sorry i lost my spot and we don't want the teachers when they're teaching about race when they have the retaliation from students and their parents we need them to know that our school administration including principals superintendents and the school board members will be
033there to support them our teachers deserve our support so my question is what are we doing as a district to close the education gap and to ensure that our children if they are not white are feel incorporated into the system as well as if they are white understanding what it's like to be of a different race or culture thank you okay thank you janine i do believe if you have a specific question there that our principals would be very comfortable responding to that very general question that you have but i would recommend that you contact them directly i'm sure they would provide that for you thanks janine last but not least michelle thomas michelle you look surprised good evening everybody um i did get an email response back from is it dr parent or mr
034michelle would you talk a little closer to the microphone thank you um i did get an email response back from oh wait jason the principal sorry um my question was in regards to the esr funds [Music] let's see here you guys were supposed to get something tonight according to whoever yeah him um on the agenda to provide a summary of what the sr2 grants are going to be used for i know it was supposed to be used over the summer but with kovid i know nothing was used so or done so what extra support for these students in the fall of 2021 well how are you going to address the learning losses for these students what are the programs that were established are the funds going to be used for these kids and not other
035things so that was my question did you guys get any any update like in the email to address dr parent i'll let you respond to that if you like but i do believe uh this uh grant is over at two year period right and that uh there's applications involved that have to be approved and so on uh i don't know if there's anything additional at this time uh there was supposed to be programs that were supposed to happen for the underprivileged kids you know the under served or not underserved that's not i didn't mean that like the the kids who really need it like there's nothing done over the summer so what extra things are going to be in place for them in the fall like so we can close these learning gaps for these
036students special ed low-income english learners all all of that i i think i'll step in it is an informational item 7.2 on tonight's agenda that will i don't have it right it will be somewhat addressed but we are going to try to stay within the confines that when we do citizen participation we typically don't have feedback but i will assure you that you will get an answer as would any other speaker here from from an appropriate person related to that which will probably better explain and i'm going to allow them to because i'm not we're not a part of that process they bring it to us after they've established what they're looking to do right but can this be brought up or posted somewhere for people to know publicly instead of me i would recommend
037stick around tonight and make sure and be a part of the discussion for the 7.2 okay and then after that if you have any specific questions you certainly can contact dr perrin and members of the team all right thank you thank you and thanks to everyone who participated this evening mr president it's back to you thank you it brings us to number five routine approvals may have a motion for 5.1 through 5.6 so moved sylvan hershey second question mr president i do have a question kathleen pratt uh it's about the agenda so two weeks ago when we approved the health and safety plan that we received 30 minutes before the meeting we all agreed that we're in a fluid and changing environment we've got to be prepared to adapt as the circumstances call for us
038to do that it's our responsibility for the safety of our children our teachers our staff and our visitors to our school so i'm perplexed that we don't have in our agenda an item for board action to revisit that health and safety plan specifically adams county the seven day average of new covid cases as of yesterday as 21. yesterday alone there were 25 new cases in adams county kathleen so i'm so anyway that's my question why isn't that on the agenda tonight thank you first off we're under routine approvals the question is on 5.1 through 5.6 if you're uh if your wishes to make a motion under after routine approvals of some sort it certainly would be entertained if it was second and go to a board vote but it is not on the agenda because
039it was approved at the last board meeting i mean i don't know how else to answer you it was already approved i mean we don't normally recycle something that was already approved well i guess i'm not being clear 5.1 is the approval of our agenda so my question is why why doesn't our agenda include a revisit of our health and safety plan that's my question so when this agenda was set which i think a few days ago why why this i believe is going through as if i'm not mistaken i may be speaking out of turn here is is that jason is it not to approve i mean our agendas as they go through and cycle through throughout the year calendar year right and and i mean if you're you're certainly at liberty this evening
040basically i mean in the past it's given regardless of what district you're in if that appears under routine approvals that's just the part of the agenda that allows board members to make recommendations to change the agenda like or add something to the agenda or if if i might please do yep perhaps um you would want to make a motion to amend the agenda by including an item and then that would be if that were seconded that would be debated and if the majority of the board voted to do that then it would become part of the agenda but uh bob my question to you would be we have routine approvals as we have every single meeting right to approve but if if i might um in the past you normally wouldn't approve the agenda the
041agenda would just be prepared and it would be placed out in front of you about two months ago the legislature amended the sunshine act to require the agenda to be put out there and and you can't deviate from the agenda etc but one way you can deviate from the agenda is by having a motion to amend the gen before approving it having a motion to amend and then debating it and it requires a five-member vote to amend the agenda so kathleen this is uh the email that gets sent out to the board every week every before every meeting where i ask the board members if they have something they would like to remove from the routine approval so that we could look at it separately i didn't have that email back from any board member
042asking me to remove it therefore it came in as 5.1 through 5.6 you're at liberty now if you would like to remove 5.1 and make a motion on the agenda i'll certainly entertain that well thank you i appreciate that i'd like to do so i'd like to make a motion that the agenda is revised to include in section 6 items for board action discussion and i hope a change to our health and safety plan to include at least a temporary mask order sylvan hershey i second that question i don't have a question but i i would like to make a statement um the agenda is put together by the board leadership and the administration of the district and it is sent out to all board members on thursday or friday for their review questions and
043comments and this is just disruptive in my opinion we could have discussed this well in advance and and and again i i agree with the past what i'm looking at and this is the the statute that i'm looking at that has changed the law it says upon majority vote of the individuals present and voting during the conduct of a meeting an agency may add a matter of agency business to the agenda the reason for the changes to the agenda shall be announced that the meeting before any vote is conducted to make the changes to the agenda and then the agenda there's a process where that has to be advertised after the fact so bob would 5.1 be separated or from the routine approvals for procedural purposes yes in effect and that does follow past practice
044any board member could pull an item in effect 5.1 has been pulled and now there is a motion to amend the agenda based on this legislative provision and then a vote would go back on 5.1 to approve it whether it was an up or down vote correct yes that that vote is if if you if five or more members of the board vote uh to adopt the motion then the agenda will be amended and then you'll debate the health and safety plan there's a question on the motion on the floor it's been second do i have any additional questions sylvan hershey i have a question or maybe it's just clarification every month when we receive our copies of the agenda my mind set is that you mr hessinger and dr perrin have sat down and
045put together the agenda that we're going to be looking at at the board meeting and we have the opportunity to pull something out to discuss on its own merits rather than be put together with a grouping of agenda items and i think maybe what we need to do for improvement in communications is to make it clear that as board members we at that time would have the opportunity to add something to the agenda rather than just to pull an agenda item out for particular discussion so that's my concern and sylvan i'll address that before we go to a vote you are partially correct the district administration presents to dr moyer and i an agenda based upon the day-to-day and yearly operations of the district we examine that agenda we sign off on that agenda the
046agenda is then released to the board as a whole late thursday latest early friday depending if financials are done at that point prior practice was board members had the ability if they had a significant question on a routine approval they were able to remove that so that they weren't sabotaging so to speak or voting no across the board on routine approvals when they really only disagreed with one item but certainly uh we'll discuss that with dr parent and his staff and see if we can't make it a little bit more more crisper but in all honesty for four years this is exactly how we've done that carrie uh mister this is carrie soliday point of clarification actually routine uh approvals came about a few years ago and they were to be items that the board
047saw year after year making them routine and then action items were items that um would tend to have more discussion because they were not routine and so there's been a shift in the trend where we have new items under routine approvals and even last week we saw a lot of questions this week i'm anticipating asking a lot of questions because there's things that on under routine approvals that i've not seen before in past years and in fact his first time on an agenda in five years so um maybe a bit of clarification that also is necessary for what is routine thank you is there any additional questions on the motion on the floor hearing no questions roll call carrie uh to clarify the motion is to um could you restate the motion please my understanding
048the emotion is and it was seconded is to amend our agenda to add the health and safety plan to items for board action tonight and i suspect that a board member or two may propose a change that health and safety plan but i'm speculating yes thank you amy beth no tim no mike no sylvan yes timing yes al no and i vote no while do i have to go back to 5.1 through 5.6 now correct that's correct there additional questions on 5.1 through 5.6 we have a motion and a second gary i do have questions this is carrie soliday um the financial report belinda it's in a new format and i'm not familiar with all the abbreviations it would be helpful to know what some of the abbreviations are um in those documents let me
049find an example of one p s d l a f i'm not sure what that is and it's listed with liquid with max with fixed rate interest there's another p plgit and reserve i could guess that it might be the reserve fund just the formatting um is difficult to understand um what exactly are each of the line items and and uh so my question is could they have uh could there be a key to what the abbreviations are i'd like to just mention that as the treasurer belinda and i've been talking about those things um just adding a little bit more clarity so that we as board members would be able to recognize that so i think that's something that's actually being talked about now and blind has done an excellent job with working with
050me so that we can understand a little bit better as to the line items so it's something that we are working on i have another question i don't want to um if anybody else has something good okay under 5.3 the gettysburger education association memorandum of understanding uh this is a a new item um as well and it appears that the mou is for it's labeled as cyber teacher graders so i'm curious who is teaching the cyber classes oh good evening chris lay assistant superintendent uh we are outsourcing our services to kaola this year with uh through the lincoln intermediate unit so this cyber classes are fully independent and they're synchronous so our teachers are the evaluators of the students work but there isn't a direct teaching a teacher involved in that the courses are developed
051by kayla and our teachers will be evaluating the work that the students submit we also have counselors involved and our instructional coaches to make sure students are staying on pace if they need assistance our teachers can support students have like office hours with the students but generally the students will be cleaning the work independent but just to clarify i missed i think a word so they're asynchronous courses the students will move there at their own pace correct in item number four teacher graders serve for one year the salary be fifty dollars per student per quarter of the 21 22 academic calendar this will be prorated based on student enrollment is there a cap on the number of students a grader can be assigned yes i believe that's 50. and this is our teachers in six
052through 12. elementary teachers are not the teacher graders could you clarify who would grade the elementary content we are outsourcing the work for our elementary cyber program so the the provider is also providing the grades and those students do get direct instruction with the digital provider that we're outsourcing it could be paraded so they could have as few as perhaps one student but as many as 50 um they also are responsible for any ad adaptations that are needed for learning support emotional support english learners participation in 504 and ieps i mean it sounds like quite a bit of responsibility and just looking at the numbers even if they had 10 students that's about 2 000 extra that would could be earned but it's also quite a bit of responsibility we worked on this contract with
053our teachers and our teachers were the ones that were interested in serving in that capacity there's is this perhaps related to another item under essers the cost then of the uh i think it's bln it's referred to there in the 600 000 range well vln is going to be used for our students at hoffman homes only only okay there's another one but i think it's another item so um let me just double check before i but yes this money the this resource and the expenses are in esser because we currently have 63 students in our full-time cyber program and that number is going up every day at this point and we believe a big part of this is the impact of coving i'll say the other related [Music] the rest is all related related to
054us those are my questions thank you you're welcome president i have a question on 5.5 if you recall at our last meeting i asked the wrong person i guess but she was willing to attempt to answer it after hearing the tenor of that meeting and i made the comment that we have an angry society maybe we should be looking into doing some training for our event supervisors just in case we have problems at those events between attendees of the opponents so to speak in the sports world and our own people and i was hoping to get an answer tonight as to was any thought given to training in addition to working with g-force event security again certainly with the event security that's always that's that's what they're there for is to help prevent situations like
055that but they're all unarmed security personnel with training but obviously if something gets out of hand they don't put hands on people they call the police so i think what you said is it makes sense and obviously we talk about making sure that everybody understands how that works and the training that they might need but um as far as a developed plan that we did from last meeting i don't believe that necessarily has happened but we certainly are continued discussions about that type of situation most of the training for that type of personnel is de-escalation strategies same type of training you would give you know a teacher in a you know in a classroom so you want to be able to solve probably 80 percent of what you're faced with just through de-escalate de-escalation um
056de-escalizing pick your term and uh and then we don't expect them as tom mentioned uh once that's not able to occur then we go right to uh right to law enforcement at that point tom i think in the information that we were provided it mentioned the fact that there are less staff members signing up for those positions and what we used to have so between the two we should have enough coverage and people who i remember years and years ago when i used to teach i always signed up for those because it was you know it was candy money in the sense that you sat in the bleachers and you saw the whole activity and then you left and you collected a paycheck because nothing you know ever got out of hand and i just
057fear that in our time period now that uh you know people are much more willing to speak their piece speak their mind uh whether you agree with it or not and things can get out of hand so whatever training or whether it's just a matter of sending uh something out to the people who are there that says here's what you know our expectations are for this position and that way people can't say oh i didn't expect that to happen right yeah and we do actually have expectation um of what they're supposed to do okay thank you okay i have a question uh and they might be able to uh what is the uh annual or estimated cost that we pay g-force on a yearly basis i try to get you before you sit down but
058sorry everybody basically uh in comparing the years past 2018-19 was the really the last full year and we had um you know 1900 hours or so of security use so in looking at the hourly rates that g-force has provided in the contract and our hourly rates for using our own staff it's really about cost neutral so as far as the actual total amount i don't think i have that off the top my head but it's basically about the same so it's been budgeted for okay but tom it's an item and after 30 some years in law enforcement that unfortunately the district and the community can't walk away from it's no different than the sro program that we're about to go in and try to renew a contract at some point whether it board or entertain
059it it's a program that's beyond the law enforcement contingent it's a mentorship it's it's all the things that even some of the emails and speakers speak about you know our current guy rich kiefer handles on a daily basis 900 to a thousand some incidents a year and they're not all putting hands on somebody in fact they're not putting hands on anyone right they're dealing with bullying incidents they're dealing with uh kids lunches taking kit truancy taking kids home there's so many other things so i applaud you for for uh putting together a security program i mean it's much needed in today's society i'm sorry go ahead and i'm sorry a doctor like you may have to come back to the microphone did to answer that it's under the educational services agreement um and i know
060this the the district has worked with um hoffman homes for quite some time um and there wasn't a written agreement prior to that um so i was curious um in reading through the agreement how many students residing at hoffman homes attend school in gettysburg area school district building i didn't i didn't recognize that before or am i misreading them no no students okay so everything then that is provided actually happens on the hoffman home campus correct okay so my second question so hoffman homes is a you know more contained environment did hoffman homes have to close classrooms last year due to cova do you know between march 2020 and june 2021 i don't know for certain but i suspect that they had similar circumstances so then providing this cyber option to hoffman homes is what
061is the rationale for providing a cyber option to the hoffman homes academy those students actually utilize our cyber program while at hoffman homes the bln and there's a teacher there to facilitate the course but they're actually going through the online course right so the asynchronous online course correct they are not receiving uh direct instruction from an adult they're moving through courses at their own pace they are but an adult is there to provide that if necessary because they also can be the greater so you have to be certified in the content so when you're looking at the cost of 242 000 for this blm would be the virtual learning network um what i'm surprised that that isn't charged then perhaps to the home district or that it's simply coming out of the gettysburg is it
062it's not this is for the students that are in gettysburg okay students who are gettysburg presidents who are correct thank you for clarifying that you're welcome does the board have any additional questions on the motion on the floor hearing on roll call amy beth yes mike yes timmon yes al yes kathleen yes sylvan yes tim yes carrie now and i vote yes informational items 7.1 non-resident student are there any questions hearing none 7.2 s or dr perrin yeah sure the uh the brief summary that was posted online um along with the agenda uh is uh just to provide an idea of the types of categories available and we're talking about sr2 specifically esther ii will be submitting generally by september 1st and then in september of the fall we'll begin working on sr3 and looking
063at how to appropriate those funds so the funds for sr2 that available on the sheet [Music] is not an all-inclusive list but they it's an all-inclusive of the categories that we've utilized so there are examples under each each one of those categories listed but it's not every single item so it hits a number of areas there was summer programming this summer i believe at the middle school looking at remediation and learning loss support as we enter fall of 21 looking at mental health support at a number of levels we know that jumping right back into face-to-face learning for all students there's is some anxiety there for for kids that i've talked to um it's it's not a simple um you know turn the switch in everybody's back tomorrow so we want to make sure that
064we have the supports in place both instructionally and mental health-wise to make sure that we're meeting the needs of of all of our students as we move into into the fall as well other learning materials we've kind of created a board access expectation as we've went through covet in terms of live streaming that we'd like to be able to continue even when we move back to the administrative office boardroom so making sure that those supports are in place technology whether that is kind of one to one making sure that everybody has access to devices but also making sure that there's wi-fi access for the families that need it those tools have to be in place or you're not able to provide the equity to instruction that we're trying to provide as we move into any
065school year but especially school years where at different times you might be asked to jump into a remote situation where the access becomes that much more important so making sure that we're taking care of families that need support in that area as well and those are just some of the items off of off of that sheet and certainly belinda and and dr lay um went through a fairly long process uh we started talking about esther ii um as we were moving through the budget and then through the summer budget heads got together we took a look at the categories that qualified some of the emerging needs um some of the very very specific needs uh for for learning you know for all kids and then for those who might need special assistance regardless of what
066that assistance might be so the number of things listed there the sr3 funds is a much larger portion of money so we'll be starting on that in september and kind of working through the working through the fall and trying to make sure that we're utilizing those the best way possible again you kind of look at the concentric circles model in school finance and that is student in the center and you kind of work your way out from there so we try to try to make sure that we're keeping the student in the center and then um you know we're still spending um you know some monies on some infrastructure and those types of things but really all of us supporting learning in some way or supporting parental access to information or supporting community access to
067information it's really about just making sure that we're that we're both utilizing the grant to fidelity making sure that we're utilizing it in the areas that it's designed for and also that um that we're able to uh you know at the end of that be able to um be accurate in the way that we've the way that we've used it because like most federal grants there is monitoring associated with that on the back end of it to make sure that you're utilizing the funds so the process the process is very similar to the process that districts use for title 1 funds title 2 funds 3 4 even perkins funds for technology education you know type hardware software so the process itself so the esther grant is is through the e-grants system um belinda and dr
068lay have worked very very closely back and forth between the administrative conversations and then making sure that all the accurate information gets put back into the grant so just kind of a summary in terms of where we are um you know where we are right now and uh and then we'll start looking at the next grant um in the fall and along with that um i believe there's a couple board meetings that goes uh the question was asked you know is there someone that's always looking for grants and basically we look at every grant that becomes available to us and we see if there's a need within the district that would actually align to it so for instance there are some things that we could have put in esser that we saw other grants available
069for like maybe something was a really odd technology grant that you know like four or five things would apply to so one of the things that we're doing this coming year not with esser funds but through another grant is all of the and we've talked about it for several years so this year it's finally going to happen um is all of the school buses will be wi-fi enabled which will be um it will be specifically helpful for those long activity and athletic trips where you know kids are traveling in the evening for an hour and a half and um you know and then uh they get back home at 10 o'clock at night and then the home and then it's homework time so so there are some things uh that aren't part of esther just
070as an example of uh grants we look out for um and jeff williams found that grant and uh so so that's that's kind of where we are with with esther ii specifically and uh you know that was through um many many conversations in terms of coming up with a laundry list and then kind of prioritizing um kind of the student piece of it and this is where this is where we are at this time and like most grants we can you know go back in and make corrections um you know as needed with with federal grants so belinda and dr lay if i missed anything that you think is paramount feel free to jump in good evening the one thing i'd like to clarify with dr perrin mentioned the technology grant for the buses is
071called the emergency connectivity fund sponsored by a federal grant through e-rate that all schools will be able to apply for it was a quickly a turnaround time frame that was very short and narrow for mr williams and he was successful in submitting the grant we will find out for certain whether or not we were approved but it's at approximately 158 some thousand dollars to supply that specifically to our routing buses and so forth just wanted to give that information and to answer your question a little earlier mrs holiday psdlf is pennsylvania school district liquid asset fund it is an investment fund that we use plygit is very similar short acronym for pennsylvania liquid i can't even get that acronym in the moment but that a lot of times you will see acronyms rather than spelling
072out the entire amount but like mrs hodges mentioned we are attempting to add a little bit more descriptions to our information okay any questions mr president i have a question dr kathleen pratt uh dr perrin please forgive me if you if you actually already mentioned this uh but when i look at the figures in the allocation table as we kind of plan ahead and we started having this discussion when we were having our budget conversations right so how do we plan for the future so our our budget is is strong and healthy and we don't create a fiscal cliff for ourselves so when i look in the the figure column what am i seeing here that will be figures that we'll have to sustain outside of a grant thank you sure if if if there
073are any supports in place for instance that um that we would put in place in perpetuity once the grant would once the grant would run out then that would need to become part of the general operating budget so most of the supports that you see within within the grant there and uh dr lake correct me if i'm wrong um are kind of uh the life the life cycle of of those supports are the life cycle of the grant and then um because we really think it's it's kind of these two years where the intensive supports are going to be needed um but you know we're always in our building principles and teachers you know they know the teachers especially know the students best and i think that certainly as we work through those grant years
074if we see that there are other needs that arise or other supports that are arise then we would work and we would plan to make sure that those supports are part of the general operating budget um and uh you know not pull the supports away just because the grant has dried up i guess is is the question thank you yeah carrie thank you it's carrie soliday so along those lines i applaud uh item k um i'm sorry item l um where the focus is on mental health services and supports and you know certainly hope that um that's an item it's expensive 426 000 and there have been other mental health supports have been building over time that there's a way to find to sustain the support we did this and that's a that's a contracted
075service um there is under a a reading specialist uh at 110 000 and then under n um there's some everyday math on-site support which may be temporary professional development and then an intervention specialist which also implies another position so i was surprised as well to see that there were specific positions included in the essers fund with all of the discussion about not creating this financial clip right so we talked specifically about those um and it you know at some point you say you know where are those needs and if there are those groups of of students struggling the need might be that support so i think that what we had to accept in heading that direction is that we would put this in place and know that it was for the life the life cycle
076of the grant so if we had to do something beyond that then we would have to um look at reducing other areas if we wanted those to continue beyond the grant um dr lay is that fairly accurate it is accurate the other justification for reading specialist is to support the implementation of our new core phonics program and our new online digital content so much of it is through the transition of building capacity in our schools thank you the it's not necessarily built into essers but you begin to look at the data and adding a reading specialist adding additional reading programs the the core phonics programs it really points to a core curriculum issue and at some point that really needs to be addressed because you can keep adding layers of intervention but over time they
077should be impactful and change and we heard quite a bit about closing an achievement gap you would expect that to happen over time especially as long as intervention has been provided and the district demographics may have changed but maybe the impact is not being realized yet and it is a new core program so it will be implemented in the cork in the general ed classroom and so the reading specialist is also serving to build that capacity for implementation with fidelity in the classrooms right and i think i heard you say phonics core program you're talking about the full core like maybe from journeys is the program that would be all of english language arts um there's also um at one time there was a five-year tech plan and the goal with that five-year tech plan
078was to have devices k through 12. we haven't talked about that more than a year maybe two years and yes it's good to replace the technology so how does that tech plan whatever may have happened with that dovetail perhaps with when you look at item g the purchase of latitudes which are laptops chromebooks um and there was uh you know the wi-fi jeff packs with something specific to the pandemic but how how are those two meshing together because the extra spending and then right you know the financial cliff so so we uh i think it was my first year here we implemented the uh the five-year tech plan and that was to create basically leveraging the cost of the cost of devices to leverage human support for uh for learning and uh so we we
079followed through with that and then when uh when covet hit um we decided not to add more instructional coaches because part of that plan was to eventually have um one per building i believe i believe it was so we once we got to that kind of break-even point we stopped adding the staff and then and realized the um the device savings because we had gone to to a less costly device and so you know basically at this point our technology costs are really kind of life cycle costs um the cost of you know replacing a year's worth as you move that through the life cycle so so jeff and his team is still basically working on um because having a chromebook and everybody's you know in most kids hands um different devices for you know
080for the youngest learners but um if by having a device in every student's hand of course um you know you're you're able to to support it better too as you know the more consistent that the more consistent they are but at the same time um the life cycle expands a bit because you're replacing more on a yearly basis so my thought right now and we can certainly look at it as we move you know towards budget time is that we would still hold on kind of where we are with instructional coaches and then um and then the the savings on the devices would pick up the coaches that we're not adding could pick up the increased cost and life cycle for the devices that we do have thank you um two more questions i think
081and then i'm i'm done so thank you for bearing with me um some of the things perhaps might be things uh things were purchased and there there is now you know monies to cover that is that true or all of these purchases are going forward that are in this service so at sf2 we have um some things that are in the process of being purchased some things that will be purchased and some costs that we had through uh covid that uh um that apply to the grant my last question there was some summer activity and it was i'm sorry related to um stem i've lost the name of what it was called and i do not believe there was transportation provided which then really limits the children who are able to participate and so i
082would not a question more of a recommendation make sure that any summer or after school activities that are provided for we what we call accelerating learning or you could refer to as addressing the learning loss include transportation so that all children have the opportunity to attend and take advantage of those as needed thank you are there any additional questions board committee reports just kerry very briefly the ads county technical institute paused over the summer our next meeting is on wednesday evening at 5 30. thank you calendar of events as noted that our next board meeting will be september 7th it's asterisk so i'm assuming that that is a tuesday seven o'clock as of right now it'll be scheduled in our board room if there's any changes it will be advertised and on our website as
083we do for all our board meetings i have a motion to adjourn no mr president could i add something yes because we talked about agenda is it possible to have a new number 10 called board member comments and a 11 then calendar board events and adjournment i sit here and i i listen to what's going on and there's never really a time to follow up on it if it isn't part of the given agenda like i love to compliment the people who went to the microphone and congratulate you on what you said how you said it hopefully you opened up some mines this evening rather than closed them i believe you did dr parent i have a question for you do we have a new job description for andrew's position yes we have a um
084a job description and once we uh once we have an interview process in place we'll bring that to the board okay yeah i think we could take advantage of that opportunity maybe listening again one of the themes is communications and maybe we could work with the gettysburg times and have someone more regularly discuss topics with the community so that they're aware of it and you know it might make things go smoother for the district sure thank you sylvan to answer your question i certainly will speak with al and dr parent about that and i'm assuming the board members at some point i think the agenda and i agree with you i mean i agree in complete transparency but the agenda was i think the the mindset behind the agenda was to put a structured uh
085meeting together that flowed to allow the information into us to get in and make the decisions that we need to make i'm not opposed to a board member um voicing their voice and their comments uh and i've never been opposed to us being able to respond to somebody who comes and publicly speaks to us and every one of you heard me say that if you commit you publicly speak you should get we know the answer why would we not give you the answer here instead of referring you to an administrator it never made sense to me before i took this position so that's going to take a change that the board would agree upon but i'm certainly open to any suggestion that allows more transparency in our meetings and lets everybody out in the public
086know exactly where board members stand i understand that if we lately we've had lots of speakers and i don't think it's appropriate based on what you've said i think the the participants would agree that we're not in a position to be able to answer a lot of those questions so it would be silly to get into a dialogue with those participants who went to the microphone because we don't have the background to do that al and i may be a bit of an exception in understanding certain things but i i think by putting that as a new number 10 it would give people like harry and i who also like to talk uh an opportunity to say things that we may have picked up on during the meeting sorry carrie i threw you under the
087bus thanks sylvan i'm not opposed to that and i'll give you and i'll end it this way um we received multiple emails on curriculum and as i said when we started this meeting i'm probably not the best person to give you my expertise on curriculum i'm not a teacher i'm not an educator i'm not going to pretend to be that so therefore the appropriate question related to curriculum should go to the district administration who deals with it every day and the teachers that have to implement those programs that know what works best instead of me sitting here trying to make that decision so i will look into that as we move into our next board meeting okay thank you may have a motion to adjourn we stand adjourned thank you you