001Rachel Gyos. I'm your schoolboard president. Welcome to this evening. Um, we have a double header. We are first going to start with a budget meeting. Um, we will end that and then we will go to our regular work session. The budget meeting is a voting meeting. So, with that, we're going to call that meeting to order and we are going to stand for the pledge of allegiance. Please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Um there will be a chance for public participation at the end of this meeting and again when we get to the work session, more public participation. Um so I wanted to flag that. And with that,
002I will turn it over to Mrs. McGibney. Thank you, Miss Gagos. Um, this evening, uh, for the special meeting prior to the budget adoption, um, I would like to just take the opportunity to be able to, uh, review the budget prior to that budget adoption. And hopefully we can pull that up on the screen. There we go. Okay, I'd like to take the m take a moment to uh review where the budget process began uh for the 2627 school year. Um again, uh this budget development highlight slide um is an opportunity to take a look at uh where we started and where we're going to end at with today. Um, back in December is where the budget process began where we talked about the act one index um what that looked like at a 3.5%
003um mill rate increase. That's what the state um index is set at. Um, and then in January, um, it was also brought to the board for for vote, um, to determine whether or not we were going to stay within that act one index or we were going to, uh, go out for referendum exceptions. After that in February, um we began to discuss the act one index, what the mill rate change would look like and assess values and revenue. In March, uh we had a discussion in more detail around expenditures. in our April time frame. Uh during the April 13th work session, we presented the preliminary budget uh with the highlighted information and budget approval on April 20th. Uh we also came together for a finance committee meeting in May. Uh the first meeting on May
0044th, we reviewed the budget in its entirety and at the May 11th meeting, uh there was a summary review of the budget and highlights uh were discussed during the work session. And at the end of May, uh we highlighted the uh budget once again and let the public know that the budget was up on the website for review as well as a hard copy was placed outside uh at the reception desk here at district office. And that leads us up to today uh June 1st uh for the budget adoption. Again, uh back in January, the board voted to stay within the act one index. Uh so we remained completely on the lefthand side following the PDE guidelines. um and throughout the entire process. Uh just a reminder that the right hand side uh is a
005timeline that's set if we were to take any referendum exceptions. Uh so that's why the right hand side is grayed out because we stayed on the lefthand side within the act one index. I'd also like to take a moment to uh set the tone of what we're looking at um as far as comparison from previous budget years to what we're looking at in uh our current budget time. Uh in the past years, we were able to see increased assessed values as well as larger grant revenues that we were receiving from uh the state and the federal government. uh currently when we're looking at uh the act one and the mill rate increase we're looking at declining assessed values and we're looking at less grant revenues. So if you're taking a look at the history slide
006as far as act one compared to the mill mill increase um you'll see over the past five years the average of 2.94. Um if we include a 3.5 what I'm currently proposing uh to increase the mill rate to um that would bring that average up to 3.03 for the average tax increase. This would also change the mill rate from 25.66 to 26.10 and we will still remain the second lowest um mill rate in the county. Taking a look at what our revenue would look look like. Uh this was presented before previously as well. uh for the 2627 school year utilizing the 3.5% act one um based off of a $4.2 billion assessed value with a $5 million decrease. Uh that would result in a gross uh revenue stream of $111,95,000. Um but we only base
007our uh revenue number on a conservative of what we on a conservative number of what we collect. um from our households and that's 109,584,000. The remaining portion would fall under a delinquent uh tax account. Uh this would give us an increase in our real estate tax revenue of 4,314,000. So what does this look like or what does that impact um have on the taxpayer? The average taxpayer uh the average taxpayer would see a $237 per average homeowner uh annually with an average assessment of 269,559. Pulling all of this together, we take a look at our total revenue uh broken out by uh local revenue, state revenue, and federal revenue. Our local revenue is derived at levy taxes which are transfer taxes, interim taxes and uh public utility. Um as well as we include delinquent tax,
008district activity fees and rental fees as well as an IDA grant pass through that we receive locally. Uh we bring in we are looking to budget to bring in $118,345,312 under local revenue under state revenue. This is where we receive our regular education and our special education subsidy as well as our pasers and our social security uh retirement reimbursement as well as uh state grant funds which I'll go into more detail in a moment. Um and the state revenue is 21,211,22. And lastly, the total federal revenue uh is 1,514,150. And this is comprised of medical access funds as well as grant funds. As you can see that 118 million for local revenues, that makes up 84% almost 85% of our uh revenue base. I pulled out the grants um because we provide this information to
009the board on a monthly basis, but this is the opportunity to take a look at it as a whole. Um for uh local grants, again, uh that 684,000 is idea funds that we receive. Uh that's a pass a pass through grant uh that we utilize for our special education costs. Uh under state grants, uh two grants we receive is the ready tole learn grant and the PCCD grant. That's the Pennsylvania uh crime and commission on delinquent uh grant. And under total federal grants, uh those are all title grants um that comprise that 514,000. Uh so in total we receive 1,625,521 um in grant dollars. Uh this is 1% of our budget of what we receive for as far as revenues are concerned. I'm going to switch over to expenditures and we're going to take a
010look at um the budget changes prior to me showing you what the totals are. Um, so in looking at the comparison of the 202526 school year to the 202627 school year, salaries and benefits total $2,210,000 of an increase over the previous year. Uh, special education is $4.8 million. Uh, this is to align um our budget to the actuals of what we've been seeing year-over-year. as well as we also have some increased complex needs um in education cost. And I'll jump back really quick. Salaries and benefits. Um we're also looking at just an increase based off of uh act one as well as um increases that we're seeing um at about 6% of a composite of um medical benefits and prescription um medical and prescription uh increases. Continuing on with uh budget changes that affect uh
011what we're looking at for the 2627 school year over the 2526 school year are transportation costs. Uh we have a contract that is coming due. Uh we're working on uh that process. It'll renew in the July time frame. Uh but right now we have a budget of the utilizing that same 3.5% increase. Um as well as our overall specialized cost have increased as far as transportation is concerned. Facilities this is looking at the overall all of our buildings uh just being mindful that um the utilities and the grounds costs are increasing as well. Um and technology um we've talked about this previously. We're showing this as a zero. This was previously uh aligned for $273,000. Um and this is just based off of just um planning differently um utilizing a different timeline on how we're
012going to roll out the um clear touch boards uh to the teachers and staff. And lastly, under budget change, this is a decrease instead of an increase. Uh, but this is a contingency line uh that we did utilize um last year uh that was holding $380,000 just based off of um PDE and what their budget looked like if it was if we needed to utilize it. Um, so the net total change as far as expenditures is $8,530,000. And you can see that difference of the total expenditures from the 2020 202526 school year compared to the 2627 school year. Um, here are the four categories. Instructional support services, non-instructional services, and other financing other financing uses and debt service. Um I'm going to break it down um into each area. So instructional uh is direct student
013related cost. Uh that's $89,394,340 $345. That's 63% uh I'm sorry. Uh I'm going to skip that. I'll come right back to it. Support services. Supports are in place um for students districtwide cost. Um, as far as nurses, counselors, administrative um, and support staff, uh, all fall under support services under the 39,453,986. Non-instructional costs are student activities, uh, which are band, athletics, and clubs. Um, that makes up 2,210,615. And lastly, other financing uses and debt service. Uh this is our bond payment issues and any capital uh transfers that we make from the general fund over to the capital projects fund. Uh what I was saying a moment ago um just to take a look at the total budget of $144,513,164 63% of that budget is made up of salary and benefits. Uh 15% of the budget
014makes up uh special education, contracted services, and subcost. And 10% makes up outside placements, um any transportation costs, any charter school costs. And then the remaining 12% um is property services, supplies, and that other financing and use line. So, back in March, uh when we were at the beginning of the budget process, um I presented a budget that was about uh we were looking at a $2.6 almost million dollar uh deficit. um we went back uh sharpened our pencils and we brought back in April a preliminary budget um for you to approve um that had a deficit of $817,500. Uh so this is what was approved by the board in April. Um, we went back, we sharpened our pencils yet again. Um, and we came back with our 2627 proposed budget uh, version one. Um,
015looking at a total revenue of 141,70,664 and our total expenditures matching that at 141,70,664. Uh, that left us with a balanced budget. At that point, uh we were able to reduce the 817,500 um by uh reducing our some of our special education costs by 3775,000 um by working with uh some of our vendors and we will continue to uh work with our vendors uh as far as trying to reduce some of our costs. Um and then the remaining 442,500 um was reducing the capital projects line or that other financing uses and debt service line. Um so that's how we were able to balance the budget um at that point. Version two includes everything that we just talked about in version one. Um, and this is the version that, um, I'm proposing to the board for
016recommendation for a vote this evening. Um, and that is a budget of, um, 141,70,664 for total revenue. Uh, but the total expenditures are at 144,513,164. Um, this brings us to a deficit of 3,442,500. Um, while I explain that this is inclusive of version one, this also has an added uh transfer from our capital projects fund balance general fund um into our capital projects fund. I'm going to go into more detail of what that looks like in a moment. Um, looking at our fund balance definitions, I just want to be able to go through uh the different categories um of restricted, committed, assigned, unassigned, and non-spendable. uh restricted uh these are amounts that we have currently that sit under our capital projects fund um and they are restricted by that fund. Committed funds we do not
017hold any committed funds but they are there um if we ever needed them um and they are assigned based off of board policies. Uh assigned funds are funds that we bring um or could bring on an annual basis. uh we propose them to the board as a assigned f assigned funds to be designated um to be utilized for purpose. Um unassigned funds are um based off of board policy. Those are funds that can be used or designated for any purpose. Um currently we are at a 5.8% uh fund balance designation. um per board policy 620. Uh we need to be within a five to 8% of our total budget range. Um and then the last category is the non-spendable. Um and this is usually designated for our accounts payable, uh which is money that we
018owe at year end. Uh so when the year cuts off at June 30th, uh we still have outstanding uh purchase orders and invoices that need to be accounted for. Um and that's what comprises that non-spendable amount. All right. Now, looking at the fund balance breakdown and then I'll also discuss uh what the transfer looks like through this process. So, starting with the restricted funds at the top, which is the capital projects fund of 8,885,000. Um that money is restricted. That's what we have set aside in our capital projects fund. Committed funds, we currently do not have any committed funds. assigned funds. We have future capital projects of 20,759,299. Uh we have special education settlements at 2.5 million and we have charter school costs at 500,000. Our unassigned funds are at 6,935,370 and our non-spendable is
019at $477,518. So looking at our future capital projects fund of $20 million, I'm proposing to reduce that by the $3,442,500. That would bring that balance down to 17,316,799. Along with that, it would just be moving or transferring into the capital projects fund. So it would be reducing or subtracting from the future capital projects assigned fund and moving it into the restricted capital projects fund. Uh that would increase that fund balance to 12 12,327,960. So just to kind of keep things um equal uh to give you the total uh prior to the movement uh we're looking at between the restricted and the assigned future capital projects we're looking at 29,644,759. After the movement um or the transfer, we're still looking at the same 29,644,759. Uh why are we looking to do this? Um one I will
020say that PTE requires us uh from an accounting standpoint per their guidelines and our auditors um we have to move it through the uh general fund process get the board approval on an annual basis to be able to move these monies. Um it's also to move the monies to maintain the capital project budget. Um so that is the reason why we're looking to move these funds. Um the safeguard um is we need to budget it uh per PTE per uh the auditors. Um but we don't need to transfer the funds unless we absolutely have to transfer the funds. Um but if we don't propose them now then we won't be able to move them later if we need to do so uh per the designation. Um so I would also just note it as a
021it's a not to exceed amount um that is set aside as as a part of the budget is concerned. Um the 3,442,500 uh 3 million of it is to um balance out uh a reduction of the 2526 year. We're looking at a projected um reduction of $3 million um in our current budget year. Um so we're looking to make up that difference with this. And the 442,500 is is um how we were able to um balance out the deficit for our current school year. I'll also just touch base on what we're looking at from a capital project standpoint. um just to kind of keep it in perspective. Um so in our current budget capital projects um going into the 26 to 27 school year, we're looking at a paving project in our high school middle
022school. Uh that's roughly about $3.5 million. We have a roofing happening over at our General Wayne building um at about $1.8 million. So that's about 5.3 in total. We have other projects going on uh totaling $2.29 million and a total for 2000 2026 2027 school year. Uh we're looking at $7,590,000 of capital projects. Going into the 2728 school year, um we have fields um allocated an additional roof um at our Sugartown Elementary building and then other capital projects totaling about $4,100,000. And going three years out into the 28-29 school year, um we have playgrounds slated as well as a roof on our high school building. Um, and we're looking at about another $7,150,000 um for that. Um, so I know that it is uh a normal practice to be able to um be able to
023transfer monies from our general fund into our capital projects fund. Um, so this is just continuing to make sure that we're maintaining those funds to be able to upkeep our properties and our buildings. This is um the same uh piece of information that I just went through. Um it just depicts it a little bit different. Um gives you the differentiation between uh what we're looking at from the general fund um and what we're looking to reduce and increase um and uh showing the other half of the capital projects fund of what we're looking to do as far as the uh deficit is concerned. Um, and I will also note that this is uh very similar to what we uh uh processed in our 2425 school year as well. This is a a baseline 5-year budget
024projection. Um, this was uh brought to the board back in uh the beginning of May. Um, and this is just looking at uh where all things would be um as far as just based on the act one um index number. Um there there's no markups. Um it is solely just the act one uh percentage of what we're looking at. Next steps. Um we're always continuing continuing to monitor um the happenings at PDE. Um, we will gladly, if PTE is listening, we will gladly take more revenue. Um, we're always open to that. Um, and, uh, we're looking at a final budget adoption, uh, this evening. With that, I'll take any questions, um, comments, and thank you for your time this evening. So, we'll go one at a time here. Is there a motion to approve the
025attached budget resolutions and annual budget book by establishing the 2026 27 budget at 144,513 thou uh 513,000? Am I saying this correctly? I apologize. long day. Uh at the millage rate of uh 26.10 mills and the homestead farmstead exemption of uh $216.26. Start there. There a motion to approve. I will. Motion to approve. Um is there a second? Second. Okay. Are there any questions from the board? All right. And is let's open it up for public comment now if there is any. I'll talk slow. You can come on down. Three minutes. Okay. Yeah, you can come. Please come up. Come forward. Um this is public comment related to the budget. If there's other items you want to comment on, you can even come back a second time as part of the work session. Okay. Um
026just give us your name and your residency, please. Ashley Gilliam. I live in the Sugartown area zoning. Uh my daughter goes to Sugartown. She's in kindergarten. She currently uses a wheelchair and she's doing PT for a gate trainer. Um halfway through the year, she sat on the bench and colored, which she was great with. Um she was happy. She didn't expect anything else. and she started to get braver and now she's playing on the black top and she's playing tag red light green light she's playing duck duck goose and I'm looking into her future and her safety she has osteiogenesis and perfecta which is brittle bones disease and I'm just looking out for her well-being she currently has an aid and a handicap swing but she cannot get to the handicap swing without her aid
027picking her up because the curb is too tall. Like even if you tilt the wheelchair, it has stabilizers in the back so that she doesn't tip over. Um, so I don't think that is a safe thing to practice in the years going forward with her at Sugartown because she's only going to get heavier. Um, so my request and bringing to your attention why I'm up here is um I would like to help the board any way that I can um maybe finding some grants because I know the budget is tight to install a rubber playground and I think it would benefit all the students at Sugartown because my older daughter who's in fourth Every time she came home from school, she has mulch in her socks and she has sensory issues and she often had
028trouble getting ready in the morning because even after I washed her socks, there would be mulch in her socks. So, for safety reasons, um it would be good to have a rubber playground because currently she can only play on the black top. She can't play on the mulch or the grass. And the mulch isn't even even, meaning that if she were to slightly go off of the one path to the black top, she could tip over. And if she were to tip over on the blank, sorry. Um, she could get a skull fracture and that would be fatal for her. Arm, legs, not so much. You can wrap it and it heals, but a skull, I want her to be protected. And last year at her IEP meeting, they said that they couldn't help with
029that and they put in the handicap swing, which I'm grateful for. She loves it. Um uh I know it takes time. All right. And with that related to 301 only, did I need to wrap in 4012? Are we voting that separate? Separate. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. So, related to 301 only and the final budget and the presentation we just heard. Is there a motion to approve? I'm sorry. There is a motion. All in favor? Going to be that day. Any opposed? All right, budget is approved. Eight to nothing. We have one board member missing this evening, so there's only eight. Okay, moving on to 401 personnel items again related to budget. Yep. Thank you. So, just one item there for the board's consideration this evening. Um, it would be the appointment
030of Ratu George as our director of human resources. This is a newly created position via the board. Um, Miss George on my behalf comes highly recommended from the administration and from my level and I present her on this evening's agenda for your consideration. All right. Is there a motion to approve um this particular personnel item under 401? Motion to approve 4.01. Is there a second? Second. Are there any questions? I know we've discussed this before. All right. All in favor? Any oppose? All right. Motion passes eight to nothing. All right. Um, any other public comment? All right. Related to the budget. Again, if it's not related to the budget, there's another public comment section in the next meeting. Whatever everyone's comfortable with. Okay. Any board comments? All right. Is there a motion to adjourn the
031budget meeting? Motion to adjourn special budget meeting. Is there a second? Second. All right. All in favor. All right. We are adjourned from the budget meeting. Thank you everybody. Thank you Mrs. McGibney to you and your team. All right. We're going to move on to our work session. This is a non voting school board meeting that's starting now. Um get to my agenda here. All right, these meetings are recorded and you can find them online um for everyone's um reference. We do not have any student um representative reports. I think our new students um will be joining us uh potentially next week so we can meet them and get that going. So, we'll move on to 301, which is a review of the district goals from this year. All right. Thank you. And for the
032board, our new student reps will be here on Monday, June 8th. You'll get a chance to meet our our two new reps and they'll give you a little more of their background. So, I did want to confirm that. Um, this evening, I want to draw your attention to board docs. There are two documents. One with is the actual presentation. It's four slides. It's the faint same four slides when we introduced these goals to you back in the in the early fall. And then I would like you to take a look. There's an additional document, a multi-page document that really goes into each of the goals, the work that we've done, and I think the team has taken it to a a higher level this time. You'll see there are a lot of links to take
033you to separate documents that really give you robust background on the various goals. This year, we were very ambitious. I think we had close to 20 uh district goals. And uh I'm here this evening just to unpack them. My presentation will not go into each and every uh goal deeply. That's why that supplemental document is there for your review. Um and I'm surmising that we'll address each category. I'll pause for board comment feedback, go to the second category and then we'll cover all four. Um let me know if there's any issues with any of the links to some of the documents and I can also share those if if there are. All right. Um, with that being said, our first area deals with our academics and student development goals. So, we had four goals that
034we addressed this year. I want to thank the team, everybody, uh, for their collaborative work. It's hard to believe here we are in June uh, reporting out on them. Um, the first goal we dealt with our K12 vision and strategic plan around technology and AI. Hopefully, you'll be able to see that particular document for your review. Um, I gave updates throughout the year of a secondary think tank of teachers who met repeatedly. They actually developed a vision that we're going to use going forward with AI. And I'll share that vision with you. It is that in the Great Valley School District, we believe generative AI should be used safely, ethically, and effectively to support human- centered learning for all. that was really important with our team of teachers, administrators, and staff is that we don't
035lose that human aspect of education. I do think it's a point of pride for our district. It's an area where we excel and that certainly was represented in our in our vision. So, that think tank met numerous times. Uh we did some deep dive into AI tools. We talked about ethics. We also have some other work that's coming up in the some professional learning sessions in these closing weeks where we'll continue to bring some staff in and work through some of the AI work. So, um that'll be ongoing. I think I shared in a previous meeting that work's never going to stop. Uh we know AI is going to be a powerful tool. Uh we know it has a place in K12 education. It's a matter, as our mission statement shares, is doing it ethically,
036effectively, and and making sure we don't lose our way as far as our human- centered approach uh to to serving children. So, um certainly a little bit more than a little bit going on with with AI. You'll also see I would direct you to the the document that I have in there. you'll see some sample um scope and sequence type items that we're striving for with our students particularly in K6 but also K12 some of those competency focus areas for our digital citizenship and instructional technology do with digital literacy skills progression how are we building each year from first grade to second to third where we're continually building the children's capacity on using instructional technology uh in meaningful ways. We want to focus on digital well-being for our students. I know there's been a lot
037of discussion as of late about screen time and and so on. And I do think our staff do an excellent job keeping that in mind and monitoring uh time, but we still want to make sure that we're developing digital well-being practices for both our staff and our students. Digital citizenship remains a core essential theme. We also I know Dr. Beck through many presentations both through committee and in the board meetings have referenced some of the ISTY standards and that's really one of the highlevel uh organizations that schools follow and a lot of that work is is grounded in what we're doing here in Great Valley. So we continue to do that work with our teams um and really looking at integrating technology across all of our content areas. So um I would encourage you to
038look at that document that we have in there. Uh it really is several pages to to give you a deeper look at some of the work that's gone on with our K12 tech work. Looking at our number two, our bullets on math and English. Uh our language arts teams that have been meeting. Again, Dr. Beck, I thank her and her team for a lot of their work in these areas. You'll see some documents in there. Just know that um we had collaborative teams K to 12 of teachers, specialists, librarians, instructional coaches that met um at various points. They did classroom based learning. So they learned, they did some some what we'll call uh learning walks, kind of gathered what's going on in our classrooms, what are we seeing around us, a lot of collaborative discussion
039around best practice research, what we're actually doing. So professional learning was mirrored in with with both teams, both math and ELA. Um, and a lot of time for reflection and collaboration, right? So really building this internal framework. So I think we have a really strong foundation. You'll see some documents that really highlight the year's work. Um, and certainly if you have questions both this evening or subsequently, um, please continue to reach out. Uh, and the last one that really deals the third bullet up there that deals with our English language learners. Uh, a lot of work has gone into supporting our our English language learner population or EL population. As you know, I've shared countless times before, we're at about 9% of our population identifying as an English language learner, which is substantial. It's been
040a rapid growth and a lot of work has been done to support those students in both access to our curriculum, access to content and also ways that we can develop their English proficiency. So very proud of that work. It gets very complex. I want to thank our ELD teachers, our support um from administrators to kind of move forward. Um just a sample you'll see within there there's probably about 20 things that I list that we've done but just to give you a real high level view we've developed flowcharts for screening identification placement so that we're very consistent across our seven schools we've established expectations for support again across the buildings making sure that we're standardized um and also looking at our our content teams as I said making sure that students can access content even
041though they might not understand English there are ways that we can help them to access higher level content and our teams have really worked on what are the ways to to best go about that. So, a lot of ongoing work. I know the board has asked for we've had presentations earlier in the year on the work of this department. So, I know this is very important to the board and so please I would encourage you to reference that document which really highlights a lot of the work. And then the last area is just our ongoing work for responsive practices and the framework K to8. We're probably close to five years in with this work. We've used some outside presenters uh and support. I think now we're starting to shift more internally with our building based
042teams. Um this year we've really had a focus on getting our middle school up. So we did use some outside contracted support for staff development, but Dr. Cohen and her team also led a lot of sessions to introduce these practices uh with within the middle school. And we also have a lot of support that's ongoing in the other buildings who are uh further along. So, um again, you'll see a variety of bullets there within the document. Uh I do want to highlight our responsive framework is really embedded in everything we do. It's we model it with our staff development. I know for board members, if you've been at prior board retreats, we model a lot of the tenants right there when we learn professionally and when we engage with one another. Uh it also is
043now fully ingrained into our induction program. So whenever there is a new staff member or new teacher coming into great valley uh that individual goes through a training that highlights the responsive practices and the framework and we are seeing the results uh with our students and with our staff where we do get more and more reports. It's evidenced in our surveys that overall people are feeling greater sense of belonging. They're feeling more physical safety. they're feeling more psychological safety. And so we still need to work on that. But I do think we're starting to see the benefits of of this framework. And again, I commend all of the staff and the administrators who have have worked over many years um to get to this point. Let me pause again. There's greater detail in the document.
044I don't know if there's any follow-ups, but I wanted to hit this first category of goals, right? and I've been updating you along the way and through other committee meetings, but I think there's energy around technology always. We're all reading the same articles. What can we expect? I know that the team has been working hard to constantly make this a more effective use, a more strategic use. um how are we going to start communicating more broadly to the community to start level setting about what is happening what we expect to happen and and education just a little public education around this y um I do think up to this point I'll admit we've been somewhat reactive when parents reach out with a concern so I know Miss Marston and I and other members of our
045team particularly our teaching and learning team are talking about being much more proactive so one with direct communications missio things that we're going communicate directly to families, directly with staff. Here are our expectations. Here's why we send iPads home at certain grades. Here's what you can expect to see. We also looked at our website. We know that a lot of our communications are designed to funnel people to our website where they can get additional information because we can't embed it all in letters, otherwise our letters get very lengthy. We realized our our website had some gaps and particularly I think for students and families around the expectations, but I would say there's even staff that trying to be consistent across seven schools. What is the intent? Why are we sending them home? And we're going
046to reexamine that as well. I know in some neighboring districts there's been a a focus on should devices go home. We are going to look at that. We don't want to make any strong knee-jerk reactions. Uh we're sensitive to many of the concerns. So that is something that we're going to do a deep dive on and I intend to report out to the board on any changes during our August meeting uh before school starts. So uh I agree with you this is ongoing. Our team is aware and uh expect updates throughout the summer uh with a a larger presence and communication in August. All right, appreciate that. With no other questions, we'll just transition and I'll be mindful not to read everything that's in in the document. Our second area is our culture and well-being
047categories. So, we've done a lot of training with our administrators on the common ground framework. That's a PTE framework with a real focus on trauma-informed practices. And really, it blends nicely with a responsive classroom model, right? It's about, you heard me say, students being physically safe, psychologically safe. Uh, and a lot of that when we know children have experienced trauma, setting up a universal classroom that's sensitive to that is really, really essential. And so, um, I know we've worked with our administrators being more and more familiar with the framework. We've done training and I just think it really dovetales. If you've looked at the framework, which I've shared with you before, it really does go handinhand with a lot of the responsive practices we've been doing. But it's just nice to have an actual state
048endorsed framework and to know that our pre-existing work is very much aligned with with where the state wants us to be. I think we're ahead of the curve in a lot of regards in in that particular area. um discipline and um Dr. Wexler has has led a group throughout the year to look at our shared philosophy around disciplinary practices. Um we've engaged our building based equity teams that have looked at building based data at each of the schools. Um just looking for areas of bias or areas where we can grow. Uh looking at the data and say what does that really bear out for us across our our various schools. Um, we're also starting to phase into more of a restorative approach when it comes to discipline. And so I know we talk about responsive
049classroom, which is creating community. And then there's a restorative piece, which is more about repairing relationships, whether it's student to student, student to to staff. Uh, sometimes we have issues as a as an organization, staff on staff where we have to remedy. So this year we were able to to go with a train to trainer model. So we have two staff members who have been trained as restorative practice trainers and we'll plan on building on that next year and start to layer aspects in where the restorative work does not supplant discipline. Students will still be held accountable. Discipline will build still be assigned. But how do you take it to that next level to really make sure one that certain behaviors don't repeat themselves? Um, and then secondly, students are learning the important life skill
050of I've had an issue with someone. I've had a conflict or I've made a mistake. How do I repair that? How do I move on? How do I be a better person? And how do I truly repair or restore those relationships? So, I want to make sure the board is aware as we go down this road, this is not about supplanting discipline. and now students just have to apologize or shake hands or have I mean it is far more um involved than that. And I think in some of the early fall presentations next year, we'll really do some deeper dives and you'll hear from some of our trainers and we'll we'll talk about what restorative practices truly look like and um what they're not, right? We want to get in front of any sort of
051debunking if any misinformation um should get out there. So, we've been doing professional learning around restorative practices. Uh I mentioned the the train the trainer. Uh one thing that's still left is for us to really do a deep dive on our discipline policy, but I think we're building capacity within the system. We'll get feedback and that is something that we're going to have to look at next year. We were hoping to get to it this year, but I think it was more important that we laid some of the foundwork um the foundational work around uh our discipline and looking at our data and starting to understand restorative practices better uh before we just hop in and say let's do the discipline. Um, so I I think we're poised for um a good position next year
052when it comes to our policy and so on. The staff climate survey, I think with everything else going on, I did ask the board, we're going to table that for next year. We had a lot to do with just the student administration unpacking that. So, we will do the PD staff climate survey next year. We're just going to roll that one forward. I do appreciate the board's grace on that. I know that was a goal, but with the other 19 goals we we just knew and other things that we wanted to focus on, I think I was a little over ambitious. So, thank you for giving us grace on that and moving it forward. And then lastly, we we had a goal to deliver three formal presentations on our equity plan, and I know Dr.
053Wexler uh did a nice job on that. As we move forward, that three-year plan has now sunset, but it was a great starting point for us. I want to remind the board, you know, we brought DVC, the Delaware Valley Consortium for Equity and Excellence came in, they did a year-long audit, came back with a report, helped us formulate the plan. It was a great starting point. I think we're now three years later at the point where our building based core equity teams are going to take up the charge. Our principles, it's really going to be grassroots. Every building might be a little different and they're going to be empowered to do some of the work moving forward. So, uh, you'll see buildings having specific equity goals across the district, and I'll share those with the
054board as we move forward and as we formulate those over the summer. U, but we were, uh, I want to thank everybody, particularly Dr. Wexler and her stewardship and those building based equity teams that did a lot of work around equity and and even getting into the discipline. Um, you'll see a lot more detail about some of the work there, but I just wanted to give you that intro. time for me to pause and just see if you have questions, comments on these goals. When you Dan, when you talked about the equity plan just now and how it will be now led by the building based teams, but that each building might be slightly different. Can you just clarify what you mean by each building being slightly different? Yeah. So, they'll set their own goals.
055Uh, one of the things that uh you'll see on the agenda later is we want to maintain our partnership with Dr. Holland Sims and she has been with us for several years. each principal in the building based teams will continue to work with her. Um I would go so far as to say she's an equity expert. She's been a great resource and support for the administrator. She provides coaching and she'll provide guidance. So throughout the summer we'll work with our principles. They'll identify goals. They'll meet with Dr. Holland Sims over the summer at least one or two meetings to help formulate and list those goals. They'll share those with their staff in August and then we'll we'll go from there. So it's not going to be something that's going to be top down. We want
056our principles to be involved, engage staff, and then we'll be able to announce where we're going to go in the fall in each building. But just so everybody's clear that the like the standards and expectations and culture will be essentially the same across buildings. Correct. Right. At the same token, I think we have district-wide norms and expectations that we want to maintain, but it's so important that people are empowered at the school level to address because some of the issues at Sugartown may be different than what Charles Town wants to address or the high school. But you're right, it's important to make sure there is consistency across expectations and that's where I think the connection with Dr. Holland Sims who I'll meet with periodically as well uh to make sure we're calibrated with our expectations.
057Nope. Appreciate that. Moving to number three with communication. Uh I'll thank Miss Marston here. Uh a lot of her reports are linked in there where you can see her strategic plan. You can see her newsletters. Uh we opened up with the annual report in September. She came right out of the gate uh with a great our first annual report. And so um again, we've talked a lot about these through the communications committee and in in other settings. Um, so we do have the the plan that's there for your review, the annual report. We'll plan on doing that again in September. Appreciate the feedback. And that was a great way and the board wanted this to engage people that maybe didn't have children in the Great Valley Schools. So, we're we're going to work on trying
058to get that messaging out and I commend that work. Uh, our monthly newsletters continue to update staff. We realize the need for internal and external communication. I think you see those embodied here in the goals. And then with the website, which is really an area of focus throughout the year, Ms. Marson has been keeping tallies on the changes and uh you'll see one of the links there from everything from just technology, access buttons, up a variety there. So you'll see a nice laundry list of those enhancements. Uh we'll continue to always look for ways to make the website more accessible, um easier to navigate. Uh like I said just a moment ago, it really is our intent to communicate and then funnel people to the website where they can get the more robust information on
059the topic of choice. So um those plans are there and I know she's presented countless times. So um let me know if you have any questions, feedback or comments there. All right. And our fourth and final category deals with finance and and operations. So registration has been an ongoing struggle for us over the years to streamline the process. Um I think a few years ago the adding of uh our multilingual aison really helped non-English-speaking families to navigate this complicated process. So I think that was a great enhancement. Uh I know this year with the transition to Infinite Campus, which is our new student information system, uh we are working to streamline student enrollments for next year. So new students that are coming into the system now are already using Infinite Campus to register. So we've
060we've we kind of dove in. It's a much easier process and we're doing a lot more to centralize both I think registration and withdrawals. So uh a lot of work has been going on there and our website really reflects a lot of the changes too. So you can continue to see communications that go out uh and information that resides on our on our website. We're still working on some scenarios um about some other pieces and training with all staff, but we are in we are registering people in our new software and uh I think so far um the feedback is has been pretty positive. So again, check the document for additional details. Being cashless is our second goal. And I know the board had some concerns about this, but Mrs. McGibney and um Miss Chambers
061have have done a wonderful job. This year, we've really uh streamlined our activity fee process, and you can see as a result, we've been able to collect more activity fees. We're not chasing people down. It's much more efficient uh due to that cashless system. We still have avenues though for people to pay with cash. That was really important for the board. We realize we're transitioning more to a cashless society, but there still are those avenues. So, as much as we're encouraging it, we do have processes for families that that um might not be able to to go the cashless route. Uh but again, we're we're seeing, you know, an increase in the revenue uh close to 10%. Because it's just more efficient and streamlined and we're not chasing people down. So, a lot of good
062work there. and also Infinite Campus which uh has a a payment module. Uh we're really excited about the potential of what that can mean moving forward too. So um a lot going on there with our our cashless systems. Third bullet high level just with uh our training. We continue to use third parties to test our system. We do a lot of internal testing fake emails making sure we you know we're not succumbing to click and bait type of scenarios. So Miss Evans and her team have have done a lot of a lot of training. I wish we would have done a little bit. We could have done a little bit more with the uh the high school students this year, but I do think the testing of the students where they get tested as well,
063what they click on, what they accept, and with the staff. Uh a lot of that testing was a really good step. I wish we could have done a little more maybe in-person training with the kids, but obviously coming up with a way to get to 1500 high schoolers is a little bit of a challenge and we'll we'll stay on top of that. Um so, please take note of those those items. And the last one is our student information system. And I really want to thank Dr. pro tool for his stewardship here. Uh we really have transitioned. There's a lot of work going on this summer. We are not done by any uh stretch, but we are using the new system. Our secondary principles are scheduling their their master schedules in it for next year. Uh
064we mentioned new registrations are filtering in. So Steve, thank you for all the good work. This is a a shift even though it's the last and it's a very shortly worded goal. It touches every aspect of our organization. It touches parents. It touches our staff. It touches our main offices. Um, so much is ingrained. And so, he's had to dive in and look at processes. And sometimes we had processes that weren't so great. We didn't want to carry them forward into a new system. So, we had to backtrack, correct the process, and then say, "Here's how it's going to work the right way." So, this is um again, it's really short. It's easy to overlook that. But I want to point out to the board that when you transition to a new student information system,
065it is on a huge magnitude. And I appreciate the team. And Dr. T will tell you he didn't do it alone. He had a nice cadre of people who supported him, champions within the buildings. Uh he still has a lot to do. He's not going to have a restful summer as we continue to work on this, but um I know um we're off to a good start and I'll give you more updates as the summer progresses. I'll take a break. I'll see if you have any questions. Um, I just didn't want to I wanted to make sure I did the goals justice. There was a lot of hard work, but also to give you the detail as a board. So, please check out those other documents. Any last comments or feedback? Well, as we wrap
066this up next Monday, I'll present a draft of goals for next year. Um, my intent would be to get the board's feedback on those goals and then when we come back in July, finalize them as we did this past year and then we'll have them ready to go for when everybody comes back to start another school year in August. So, um, round two next Monday. Um, more to come. Thank you very much. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Um, okay, moving on to section four. Um, report out from our policy committee. No report tonight. We meet tomorrow morning. So, I'll have a report for you next Monday. Okay. Um, anything under 501? Nope. And monthly enrollment. And then moving on to facilities section six. Okay. Under facilities, the first three items 6.02, 6.03, 03
067and 6.04 um are renewals. Uh the first one is the trash and recycling service renewal. Uh this is a three-year contract extension. I just wanted to point that out for that renewal. Uh the second renewal is the HVAC water treatment proposal. And the third item is the environmental risk and engineering service renewal. 6.05 05 is the high school middle high school middle school paving bid award. Um this is the paving project to construction master services LLC at a cost of $2,914,139.95. Uh two bids were received on April 24th. Um and construction master service was the lowest bid. Continuing on with the paving project is the TNM uh paving management agreement. Uh this is to provide construction uh administration services for the high school and middle school paving project. Uh you can see the attached agreement
068um that was already approved in the at the February 2026 meeting excluding the add-on services. Uh, so I wanted to bring it back uh for the additional ad add-on services not to exceed $17,000. 6.07 is the David Blackmore and Associates Consulting Service. This is also a part of the paving project. Uh this is to provide a consultation service uh for the high school and middle school paving project. This is if there's any additional um services that are needed uh based off of the geo uh teching uh project that we did in conjunction with the paving project. That is not to exceed $22,962. That concludes facilities. Okay, any questions? Just can you remind us when that paving project is starting and when is it scheduled to end? So, it's scheduled to end at scheduled to start
069um in June um at the end of the school year. Um it will not be completed until September time frame. We'll have final completion uh mid to end se middle to end of September. Will that cause any will that cause any disruptions to the flow of traffic or parking or anything like that that we have to have contingency plans for? Um we are working on what that will look like for um back to school. Um the bulk of the project will be completed at that point. Uh right now the major consideration is um the tennis courts uh because of when the tennis season starts um and when we need to have that project completed. So but all of those things are being looked at. All right. Uh, transportation, I don't see anything there. Um, food
070service, I don't see any items there. Moving on to technology section 9. Uh, there's one item under technology 9.02, which is the site reading factory. Uh, this is for an online music education platform. uh at a cost of $729 for two educators and 240 students at the high school. Okay. And then moving on to 10 finance. Okay. Um under 10.01, uh there's no finance committee report. The next meeting is scheduled for November 2nd. Um 10.02 O2 is for the 2026 2027 uh subscriptions. Uh this subscription list is a full list of various softwares throughout the district. Uh this is a requirement a new requirement that the auditors um have us compile compile a list of all of our subscriptions that we have throughout the district. Uh this is probably about 90% roughly of the list.
071Uh we're continuing to compile it. Some of the um renewals don't occur on a July through June time frame. Um so uh when you take a look at the list, it is broken out by building um or by department so that you could see uh what services are utilized that way. Um so that list is there for your review. Um but they are all renewals that you'll see on that list. Any new subscription I will present to the board under a separate item. 10.03 through 10.09 are all annual renewals. Um each attachment is there for the board's re review. Um I will point out point out that 10.04 um the Ames janitorial service renewal is a three-year uh contract renewal. Um 10 point 10 is uh Dr. Holland Sims Consultation LLC proposal. Uh this is
072an agreement for the 2627 school year to have three virtual meetings uh per building for ongoing consultation and check-in sessions um at a cost not to exceed $10,000. Previously, this cost was $12,000. 10point 11 is uh Dr. Dan Allaria uh an independent contractor agreement and to provide math professional development for the 2026 27 school year as well for $1,500 per session to be paid with title 2 funds. Uh 10 uh 12 is AI for education agreement. This agreement is the AI for education at a cost of $8,000 to be paid by ready tolearn funds. Uh this is a virtual professional learning for 90minute session for the high school English staff and the high school AI think tank members. Uh and this will be uh again paid with our ready tolearn grant funds. And 10.13 are
073uh our educational service contracts for your review as well. That concludes the finance section. All right. Any questions from the board on those? I have a quick question on 10.12. Can you, and I don't know if this is Dan, um, talk a little bit about what these four sessions are and how they fit into the larger AI strategy um, that's kind of going on right now. Yep. And I don't know if Dr. Beck's here with us or not. I don't know. Trisha, are you okay to help us out a little bit? I know set that in. I mean Trisha will be a little more articulate about the support and how we're really investing in some of the information up front to do the work. Trisha. Yeah. So this um this came out of an outgrowth
074of the AI think tank and in response to some conversations at the high school. So this is a collaborative effort with Dr. Capola. Um the AI for education is an international organization. It's actually founded and formed by educators, many of them high school staff. Um and some of our um staff have already taken professional learning with them and so they came highly recommended but they will provide um the training is unique to us. So it's synchronous um and the trainer will meet with our team to um design that training but we wanted all of our high school English teachers and we met with Mr. Essterly the department chair um as well to talk through this. So our English department will participate in an overview of AI generative AI um so that everyone has a common
075foundation in the high school English department and we did invite um at Dr. Capola's suggestion we invited the AI high school think tank members as well to join that and then there'll be an opportunity for two additional sessions. So the goal would be to work with them um many of us as administrators will be participating in a course this summer um that they're leading around leading AI policy and guidelines and then the goal would be if we receive positive feedback to bring them in in person in August for all of the high school staff to have some professional learning and then work with our K8 building leaders too to then plan forward for what that will look like at those levels as well. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Trisha. And I think it's important, you
076know, a lot of people say, well, what are you going to do with AI? Well, a lot of it is we have to learn about it, too, and it's evolving and what is the trajectory? So, I think a lot of what Trisha is setting up and I want to thank the teachers for for participating is really building that capacity and getting that understanding. Sometimes people just want to get in a room and say, "What are we going to do?" And you don't take that time to do the homework or the backstory to really understand what's at stake and what's involved. So, I don't want to use the played out analogy, go slow to go fast, because I don't think we we have the ability to go slow, but I do think it's important that we
077build capacity that we learn, we understand, and I I thank Trisha for building on the the think tank's work and uh continuing to stretch that that capac capacity while really drilling it down on what we need here at Great Valley as opposed to national or global trends. So, thank you for asking that question. All right. Under 1101, we have personnel items um for the board's review. Uh nothing under 12. Any other committee reports that I missed? Under 13. Our draft agenda for our June 8th, which will be a voting meeting on the items that we discussed tonight, um is there for review. And then we are back to public comment any on anything budget or otherwise. You have three minutes and as you heard there's a buzzer that goes off at 30 seconds to let
078you know you have 30 seconds more. We just need your name and your residency. Yeah. Please. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um hey, good evening uh honorable members of the board. Um my name is Pravin Durba and uh we live in Willistown Chase which is right at the intersection of route 9 926 and three and our request is regarding a transportation problem. So I'm so sorry to interrupt. Could you keep your voice up just a little bit? I think because of the air conditioning it's just a little hard to hear. Okay. So perfect. Thank you. Yeah. So my name is Pravin Durba. Uh we live in Miliston Chase which is right at the intersection of Route 26 and uh and Route 3. So currently um our kids are getting picked up right at that
079intersection which is um causing some concern for our parents because it's uh in in in the midst of uh rush hour traffic and uh heavy traffic. So our request is mainly to um propose that the pickup location be moved inside the community. Uh um and um so that is my uh that is our main request but we have some information around it and we wanted to propose some solutions and um uh who is uh my neighbor uh he will go over the solution. Yeah thank you. I have given these slides I don't know if you want to open that. It would be helpful just to visually see that um technically if you see um like right now what the condition is the kids are staying on Westchester Pike. So the buses coming all the traffic
080is coming especially during snow uh like this this here is exceptional but mostly during the snow they are not able to stand on the curb side. So maybe the slide page one I don't know how can I show you but in the slide page one I have kept it specifically in a figure that the cars are coming kids are staying there every time we saw like the nodding head from the driver kids are also moving around we cannot tell them know keep stay here so our request if they can come in take a circle or go back we have three options I in the in the slide so the first is they can come take a U-turn from toss tall tolls lane and then go back from the sagewood or come straight there's a bus
081stop like you know we can just put it on the uh entrance so you can go that way too or third option is they can make like you know a back u-turn and then come back so we are like we are okay just if in the case bus can come in that way it would be helpful thank you thank you and then u the last point is we also got an approval from the HOA village HOA which I also included that if If you copy I can give you that too. Uh so H doesn't have a problem. Uh just in case if uh they want any additional information anything else we are ready to propose that I have Dwanka she also wants to say something. Right. I think I think I'm just I'm just closing
082I guess you know just I think they want you know as as a mother I think as a parents you know if you see here this is just half of the parents in that community. You know most of us are like very if you look at that place it's like it's really scary for the kids and like uh Omeay said that in in the winter not only in the winter even it's like a incoming high-speed traffic and in the winter because of the accumulation of snow is very small small area where they can where the kids can stand and it's very scary as a parents I think all all we want is to make sure that our kids they get to and from school safely and uh you know that is something I think this
083is an unnecessary like you know uh uh adding to our anxiety, you know, like every every single time we drop our our kids to school. So, so we uh you know, so we just wanted to like respectfully request you guys and you know, maybe work with the you you know, if you if you want uh to work with the uh transportation department and and review the safety. I think you know we are uh we are uh you know can help from our side whatever way we can and I'm sure like the district is very like I know that that you uh you know concerned about the kids safety and uh you know I we we really appreciate this time you know that we can uh uh uh we can talk to you about these concerns
084that we have and I hope that you can look into it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry. Uh I'm also the one of the parents and I just want to mention our community is a little bit different maybe the others because outside just right outside of community is the road three uh route three which is like that that p uh that area the the speed limits is 50 and especially in the morning a lot of people actually drive I would say maybe even 70 plus miles there which really really makes us very you know anxious. So, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for the documents. We'll take a look. We appreciate your time. Appreciate it. All right. The board did meet in executive. Oh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't looking up. I
085apologize. It's okay. Um Um Hi, my name is Grace Lawrence. I live in Charlestown. I'm a junior at Great Valley High School and I'm here to represent Great Valley High School's Drama Guild and Stage Crew. On May 19th, Great Valley High School was nominated for three awards at the Philadelphia Independence Awards for High School Musical Theater for our production of the Lightning Thief, the Percy Jackson Musical. My fellow classmate Abby Parker was one of five actresses nominated for the Jimmy Regional Jimmy Awards, which is the National High School Musical Theater Awards. As for the other two awards, we were nominated for best scenic design and best lighting. and I'm proud to share with you that we won best lighting. If you're unfamiliar with the Philadelphia Independence Awards, it was founded in 2018 to celebrate outstanding
086student musical theater across the Philadelphia region. In 2023, Ensemble Arts Philly partnered with them, hosting free workshops as well as the awards ceremony. This year's this year's ceremony was MCED by broad Broadway actress Jenny Lee Stern and Alicia Vitarelli from 6ABC. Over the course of these four shows in the spring, we had over a dozen adjudicators judging the production. The adjudicators are a mixture of graduate students pursuing a theater arts degree, theater professionals, community members with theater experience, and current or former theater educators with no affiliation currently with schools participating. As a member of the lighting team along with Max Miller, Jackson Fiorini, and Sheamus Man, I wanted to make sure that this achievement was celebrated by Great Valley Great Valley School District because this is a pretty big deal. This is the region regional
087high school equivalent to the Tony Awards. For students who wish to pursue the theater arts, whether it's in an acting or technical capacity, this achievement elevates our high school drama guild reputation for college recruiting and scholarships. We have we we all share this honor of being a part of an award-winning production at Great Valley High School. Sports teams get to celebrate conference or state championships. For us in the performing arts, this is our state championship. I couldn't be more prouder than the than what our drama guild has achieved and I hope that um you all share that same pride. So, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. That's great. All right. I'm looking up this time. Okay. So, the board the board did meet in executive sess executive session to discuss legal and personnel items. We are
088now at the end of our meeting. Anything else the board wants to add? I know Andrea and I had the pleasure of chaperoning the KDM third grade field trip to the YMCA and it was fabulous. They did a really nice job. The kids were great, respectful, enthusiastic. Um, it was a good morning and no one fell in the pond. No one fell on the pond. So well done to the planners of that. That went really well. So it was a good day. And with that, let's get on with our evening. Thank you all for being here. We are adjourned.