001board meeting. I'm Rachel Gyos, your school board president. This is not a voting meeting, but there will still be opportunity for public comment. We record these meetings. You can find them on our website and tune in right now if you feel like it and you're at home. Um, and with that, we will move on to section two, our recognitions. Just one very special recognition tonight. Uh, I'd like to recognize Justin for his service as our schoolboard liaison and student representative this year. I know I speak for all of us at the table how impressed we were with your ability to highlight a variety of clubs, activities, and really give the board and myself, Justin, uh, some real insights into the happenings at our high school. And, um, I know your presentations were were always so
002thoughtful. uh we can tell that you prepared and we just as a collective want to say thank you so much and also thank you to your parents who I know also get you here back and forth uh a bit of a family affair but uh you you and Anna both have been outstanding uh representatives to our school board and we're going to honor Anna next week when she's here but we do have a certificate and we do have a great valley sweatshirt so if you wouldn't mind just I'd like you to come up we're going to congratulate you and get a photo before you get up before you get up Justin I'm going to put you on the spot hot. We spoke at the legislative breakfast about a club you started and an app you
003developed. Can you give us like one minute on that? I know I'm terrible. Right into the microphone you go, but this is worthy of being shared, so I want to hear it. Yeah, no problem. Um, so the competition was the presidential AI challenge, and that's something that was started in response to AI obviously being more prevalent in our society. Obviously, it's a huge issue. I know you are all probably dealing with that trying to figure out how the district's policy is going to work, but on Ethan, who's my brother, twin brother, uh, and my end, we wanted to put in a project for this competition. And the track we chose was a proposal. So, we didn't build an app. We built a proposal for one. Although, not to brag, I think it has potential to
004become an app. That's it. Sell it. But, um, it it's the it was it's called My Parks. And what it is is an AI recommendation system that you would input your needs and you would get out a list of parks, national, local, state that would work for you. So you could say, I need a biking trail within five miles and it would spit out a list of five or so ranked with priority. And then it would use all sorts of complex AI systems like semantic search um to figure out what exactly you needed based on your words. And that's similar to what current generative AI models use. So that's your chat GBT, your Gemini, your um CL, your Claude. And it's different though in the way that those tend to hallucinate. So I don't know
005how many of you use them, but if you type in something, sometimes it's going to give you an answer that's completely wrong. And our model sought to eliminate that by prioritizing trusted sources by contracting with individuals where our data is uncertain and also through a s through a ability to tell users where we might not be certain. So where chat GBT is going to always give you 100% certainty even if it's wrong we would say we might not know this one. So that was our plan and we finished first in the state. We did not uh place in regional, but thank you. Yeah. Well, I'm going to give you a $20 shirt. And then you're all set to do your pres So, I should have started with this, but I hope you had a great
006weekend. Um, I know it's it's been very busy, hectic time at the high school with AP exams going on, a lot of testing. So, I'll get to that in a minute, but first I wanted to highlight something that I've seen uh happen, and that is the baseball batting cage. So, what over the year, the past year, the baseball team, we fundraised for a batting cage. Uh, and among other things, we've knocked on doors, talked to friends, family, and sold raffle tickets for fundraisers with the end goal being to build a second batting cage for our high school baseball field. Uh, because the old one had a few holes needed to be replaced. Uh, the turf needed to be redone, and then we wanted to add a second one for more versatility because we have three
007teams that practice on that field. And the construction was just completed uh two weekends ago and that was completely done by the players with a lot of help from a few dads of the team. So I just wanted to thank everyone who was involved in that. It was a great example of the Great Valley community coming together to work on a goal and that's why I wanted to share this. Um it was a really great success. The cage is up now and you can visit the high school campus and see it. But I thought that was really positive and something I wanted to highlight and I want to thank Mrs. Spece. I know she's not here tonight, but she sent me those photos. So, if you're watching at home, thank you. And I know I
008alluded to AP exams. Those are happening. They started last week. They continue this week. I had a exam in calculus today and I broke quite a bit of sweat on that one. It was it was pretty difficult, but um that's that's every day pretty much there's an exam happening. And those, as I mentioned earlier in the year, give students the chance to earn college credit, which is really useful if you want to bring down that cost of college because the exams cost a h 100red bucks, which is a lot, but in comparison to college classes is significantly less than you'd pay there. And then with AP exams concluding many classes AP honors standard they all tend to switch to projects around this time of the year which is something I really appreciate because it gives
009students the opportunity to work on skills like presenting and speaking in front of their class um and developing ideas that they wouldn't in the classroom. So in AP US history for instance we're allowed to pick any topic we want related to US history and give it a deep dive and present on that. Uh, next the physics field trip to Hershey. That's in a few weeks. And all of 11th grade will go to Hershey. We'll take measurements on roller coasters. We'll uh see angles, do uh time measurements with collecting data to take back to the classroom and analyze. And obviously, we'll ride a few roller coasters while we're there, too. Um, and then finally, Keystone exams. Those are tomorrow and Wednesday. And then next week, Monday and Wednesday. and those are for students to graduate. That's
010a Pennsylvania requirement as you probably know with the math, science, and English keystones. Another event I wanted to highlight is the Charlotte Grace 5K fundraiser, and that is run by a teacher of the high school, Mrs. Radcliffe. Um, and it's a 5K that honors a family impacted by pediatric cancer. and that families given $2,000 to help support them during a a troubling time when they deal with um cancer. And the reason I bring this up is because there's a huge presence of Great Valley students there. The baseball and football teams both volunteered as well as the Interact and Connect for Cancer clubs. So, I wanted to thank everyone for their efforts in that. And also, Mrs. Radcliffe, I had her freshman year. She is quite possibly one of the nicest people in the entire world.
011and I think a lot of her former students come out to support her doing this amazing thing for the community. Another thing that recently happened is the blood blood drive. And I know um last year Neva talked about this because it's an annual tradition that we do and that's where students with parental approval can go and donate their blood to save lives um in our community. And just some statistics about that that I found uh one pint of blood, so that's the amount that most people would donate, can save up to three lives. So with one donation, the students may be saving three times that uh in the future. And then one in every seven people who enter a hospital need some kind of blood transfusion. And every two seconds in the United States, someone
012needs blood. So and then there's another graphic. didn't put this on there, but there's the amount of donations that they have that the Red Cross has and the amount that they need and there's obviously a huge disparity there. So, anything that we can do to do our part in this is obviously appreciated. So, it's a great thing that the Red Cross club does. Next, the world language exams. That's the exams offered by each uh language. So there's the French, German, Spanish exams and students can do that to get achievement and put that on a resume or a college application because a lot of times they would careers jobs. They'll want students who are bilingual, multilingual, they can communicate obviously that'll help students in the future. And just one number I have from that with the
013Spanish, I took that one, but just to highlight the I think 10-ish students who placed in the gold tier, that's the top 95th percentile nationally. And that's an incredible achievement because these students are competing with um other others who have who are native speakers and a lot of some of the students in the high school are native speakers and they get in that and some have really developed their skills and language. So, it's a really great accomplishment to celebrate for them. And then finally, I have a class here that I wanted to highlight because I have heard that that's something that you enjoy and that is AP environmental science. And this is a class I took last year. I had a ton of fun with it and it's a fullear class with a lab period.
014So, that's every six days it meets and or it meets every day for the six day cycle and then once every six days it's a double period for the lab. And then with that, obviously, there's field investigation. So, at the end of the year, we'll go outside, we'll measure trees. We'll conduct studies on that. We'll put air filters in classrooms and we'll compare to see which teachers have the most um carbon dioxide, particulate matter in their classrooms. It becomes a little bit of a competition. Uh and then it's a combination of a lot of things that we've learned over the years. That's earth sciences in eighth grade, biology in 9th grade, human geography for those students who take it in nth grade as well. And it's great for students who want to pursue a career
015in agricultural sciences or earth sciences. Um, especially with agricultural, you learn a lot about pesticide use and how that impacts farms or overuse of soil and things like that. So, some upcoming events, the spring arts festival that is this Thursday. It starts at 5:30 and it lasts two hours. So, that's at the high school. If any of you would like to attend that, it's a great event. They put the works in the hallway for us students at the high school to see every day. And I'm consistently amazed with the artwork that I could never produce, but um our very talented students at the high school are able to do. Uh and then two other events, the junior senior promise coming up next Friday and the summer sendoff pep rally is being planned as we speak
016by student council. That's all I have. I've had a pleasure serving in this role throughout the year. I hope you learned a lot. I learned a ton about the school, about the community, and this was really one great experience for me. I've developed, I think, in my public speaking as well, um, as I've gone on. So, I hope that you enjoyed having me, and I hope that, uh, you enjoy Anna's presentation next week. So, thank you. Thank you, Justin. All right. Um, moving on to student climate results. Yes, we do have a presentation that we'll get and we could work the remote over. I'll just give a little bit of context as we go through. Um, this year was our second administration of the PA student climate survey. We gave it last spring. It was
017just to kind of test it out uh go through the workings. Um, and then we gave it again this December. And so there's only two administrations, so I want to be sensitive not to overextrapulate from these these data points, but also some of it does reaffirm concerns and things that we've been addressing and and working on. So um tonight is really intended there there's nothing for you to do. There's nothing for you to vote upon. It's just to give you this high angle view of the results. Uh, I do want to make sure you're aware that our principles will are have already begun working with their teams on processing the results, seeing how it triangulates with other data points as we start to formulate goals for the upcoming school year. And I know in our
018last meeting in June is where I'll present a draft of the 26 27 goals. So we certainly expect this survey to be a prime consideration in the formulation of of many of those goals. So uh as an overview, this is only issued to students in grades 3 through 11. Uh we have a two-eek window. Uh I will say we have about 2,200 respondents. You might say that's kind of high. Really it it wasn't. And I I want to say one of the things that I want to work on for future administrations is to get the student participation rate higher. Uh for some reason there were some dips this year. We didn't get completion rate. We didn't get the student participation rate. Uh you really want to get at least that 85% participation rate with the
019survey and sometimes we were in 60 70%. So I certainly have to take responsibility for that. Uh, I want to work directly with our principles, find out where some of the snags were. Were they technologically? Were they with student absenteeism during the window? Uh, but I really want to bolster that respondent rate because the more responses you have, I think the the more accurate your your findings can can be. The survey breaks it down or is broken down into three prime areas. One is student support and student support really deals with um it's scale measures on how much students feel listened to, how they feel cared about, uh how they help by their teachers and other adults in the school. So it's their perceptions around the support that they're given. the social social and emotional
020learning aspect. That's really the students perceptions of their peer social interactions and ability to problem solve, regulate what they're seeing amongst their peer group. Uh really behaviorally, emotionally. So there's a battery of questions that really hone on that domain. And last is your safe and respectful climate and that aspect just how physically safe and also emotionally safe our students feel. So, the survey, I like it because it's somewhat brief, much more brief than the youth truth we used to give years ago. And it really hones in on these three areas. How are students feeling in the way of support? What are they feeling and experiencing as far as problem solving and regulation among peers? What are they seeing within that group? And lastly, how how safe do they do they feel overall? So, quick question.
021When you say brief, how brief? The whole survey really only takes 10 or 15 minutes to take. So the questions and actually thank you for bringing that up. Within board docs, I'm not going to present those. I've shared them in the past, but within board docs, you will see the actual surveys, the ones that were administered to the elementary students, and that's in students in grades three and four. The middle levels are students five through eight. So, it was administered at our 56 center and the middle school. And then our high schools is grades 9 to 11. They don't ask the seniors. They're starting to check out. And so, although there might be something to be said there, that's uh not a recommended group that PV has with within this survey. Um, you'll also see
022some other documentation within board docs around disagregated groups. Uh, really unpacking this. We could be here for hours. I just want to give you that highle view, but I think there's some data points within board docs that the board might find useful. So I have those in there even though I'm not necessarily going to present on them this evening. So this is a 40 scale and I'm proud to say that across all levels for what it's worth from last spring to this December's administration collectively all scores went up in all buildings at all levels. So that could be hundreds of a point, a tenth of a point. You know, you're dealing with small amounts, but you look for those large trends. That's collectively at the whole school. I will tell you that and I will
023get into this in a few slides. You don't see that with every single disagregated group. So we will look at groups by race and ethnicity and different ethnic groups had different responses and I have some information there and I'll also speak to that in some subsequent slides. So, here's just some of our what we'll frame as our grows and glows, things that we think went well. Uh, things that we also know we're growing at and things that we need to to work on. So, one that I consider as a point of pride are the interactions with staff. And you could see, you know, you're dealing with almost 97% of elementary students agreed with the statement, "My teacher really cares about me." And one of the things we pride ourselves on at Great Valley is our
024ability to forge relationships. It's it's a major tenant in our interview process at all levels. And we know in educational circles uh before a lot of the rich learning can occur, there have to be relationships. And so our staff really is exceptional uh at all levels, but to really see that resonate at the elementary um I consider as a real glow, a point of pride. Even as you look at the numbers there with uh teachers treating students with respect at both the middle school and high school over 90% agreed with that statement. So good interactions with the teachers uh as far as being respected and cared for. some additional uh glows um I won't read them all to you but you you'll get a sense uh drilling down with that respect or being a students
025um putting others down you know 83% at the high school uh the numbers certainly as you work up the chain up through the grades from elementary through middle through high uh you'll see the numbers tend to reduce a little bit I think as you're dealing with older children you might not see a high satisfaction levels with some of the the domains um but still relatively high. And just know we've only given this twice. We look at one how we did last year. Two is how does a cohort traveling through our school's how does their experience look? So our principles will look at that very hard with just two administrations and again there was one last spring and one in December. Moving forward we will give this survey every December. I'd love to get it in
026the spring. You just heard Justin talk about all the AP testing and the PSSA testing and there's a lot of other time that's already devoted. So that winter or late fall, early winter administration, I think is going to be our our window as as we move forward. school safety. We spent a lot of time approaching school safety from a student perspective and it's glad to see that come through that they feel safe in Great Valley Schools and significantly higher when we look at cohorts across the state of Pennsylvania as well. So, um some very positive metrics there. Here's some of the growths. Um, obviously bullying and this is one of the issues that really drove me to this survey and I know many of the board members here at the table had concerns about bullying
027in our schools and so we really wanted something that got very specific about bullying and as you know we are working on a variety of programs. We have our responsive classroom that we're working on K to8 to build culture to build understanding. We're just starting to scratch the surface on restorative practices. So when students have conflicts, how do we repair or restore relationships? Very early. I I would even go so far to say we're in the infancy stages of doing some of that work. But I do think as we continue to build community within our classrooms, we continue to celebrate differences and we've empowered our student groups uh to do the same, particularly at our middle school and high school. You've seen the variety of festivals and speakers that the students have wanted to bring
028in. they're really partnering with us around this work, but clearly uh we have concerns when it comes to some of the bullying going on within our schools. So, we'll work this summer as we unpack the data. We'll talk more with principles and then we'll look at certain programs and approaches that we can uh start to address this with. But obviously some concerning statements when you see 41% of middle school students reporting that students are often teased or picked on. Um, so whether we eventually go with some focus groups next year and do a deeper dive on some of these topics, whether we continue to refine our our programs already with more emphasis on bullying or bullying prevention, um, we'll be working and as I said, this will be a main data point as we go
029and do our our goal construction um, for the upcoming school year. class engagement. I think this is an age-old I think maybe some of us had that too that you feel bored in school. Uh I don't want to be dismissive of that. I think we have to hear our students. We want to make sure that what we're teaching applies to their lives and they can make connections. Uh but I do recognize that I know from my days as a student maybe some of you those same pieces. So we want to work with that engagement and I can share with you've heard me reference our two student forums at the high school and middle school. A lot of times with those groups, we'll talk about engagement. What are the strategies that they really like that their
030teachers engage in and what would they like to see more of or less of. So, I do want to still continue to to build on that uh so that our students really feel connected. And you can look at the high school statement where you have 61% of high schoolers disagreeing um about the teacher gives them more advanced assignments. So, this idea of making sure we're meeting students where they are. If a student already understands a concept, do we have that ability to kind of give them a little extra so they can go beyond or are we holding them back as we get everyone else caught up? So, we're always looking at those strategies. How do we differentiate and and how do we engage? So, uh I think you'll see more focus on this um going
031into the 26 27 school year. Overall though, I would say that the scores have gone up across the levels and I just have a couple of quick graphics here. uh as you look at the elementary from the from the fall to the spring or really I guess you want to say spring to the fall uh you see each graph goes up and that's what I referenced at the beginning. So holistically at the elementary um you'll see the scores have gone up but as you break it down by uh demographic let me leave this up um a few points that I'll note. So um one thing that we we picked up within the survey uh this particular year at the the middle level for example I'll just start with our middle school um we saw growth
032in all three domains the support the safety the socioeconomic across all levels and across every single ethnic group. So that means every student that we disagregate by. So if you're looking at students who identified as Hispanic, black or African-American, uh, American Indian, every ethnic group, when you look at this this aggregated, they grew. That's a real promising sign when you see that across an entire school, across each and every demographic group. Um, the middle school is the only building, the 78 middle school is the only building where we really saw that. So, um, as you know, that's a a very challenging time in children's formative years and so to see some of that work really start to be reflected. We'll see how it works as we track these cohorts moving through as they leave the
033middle school and go into high school and so on. Do we give the survey in other languages? It's available in Spanish. That's the only other language. Um, but you'll take a look at the elementary level, for example, you saw growth in all of the domains across ethnicities except in two areas. And so, we'll want to do a deeper dive on this. Um, we definitely saw our elementary students who identified as black or African-American actually their scores went down a little bit. And we also saw that with our Pacific Islander group. Again, very small group, but still we want to do a deeper dive on why those scores went down at the elementary. Um, not holistically. For example, um, for our black students at the elementary, uh, it was the social emotional learning domain where scores
034dipped. The others, they exceeded, they grew at the elementary level. So, we want to unpack that a little bit more. It's a data point from just two administrations. We'll look at other data. what are some other pieces that we're seeing? But that's certainly something that is going to be on our radar going into the next school year. Um, for the Pacific Islander group, I would say the same. It's just one domain. They exceeded in two of the three domains. However, when it came to student support, that group felt less supported than the other groups. So, I think we'll want to do a deeper dive and our principles will look at that. At the high school level, uh we saw a a majority of the areas where they grew, but there were some concerns just on
035this second administration that we want to watch. Uh one is with our Hispanic students. So from that spring administration in 25 to the December administration, our Hispanic scores went down in all three domains. That's concerning. So we want to take a look at that specific group. we'll work with our our principal team, see if we can make some sense out of that, what's going on in addition to other points. Uh we also saw similar declines with our black and African-American and our Pacific Islander group in the high school. So again, it's two administrations, but I think all of us know here sitting at this table, we have concerns. Uh we know we have to do right by marginalized group uh groups. uh not every group or ethnic group has the same experience in Gray Valley
036and we've been working year after year to try to improve that and I think some of this data is going to reinforce that. So again, I don't want to put too much into the administration, but it does echo some concerns I think we've all had as a board, you know, holistically here within our system. So, we're going to continue to work on that and I want to be candid and we can be better and our team is going to be devoted as each and every year what we can do to to make more students feel included and to start to see each and every group report success and growth the way the way we want the way we know it should be. So, I do want to be honest and candid about that. So, uh
037room to grow for sure there. Um overall, I would say though that the the scores we are trending in a positive direction. We're above the state average. We certainly don't set the bar at that, but you look uh I think it'll be really telling as we start to get this data longitudinally and we track cohorts as they go from school to school and system to system. So, um much more to be had uh as we break this down. So, next steps uh we'll work with our our principles as we get ready to go into summer planning. What are our goals? What are our data points? This will certainly we'll have a lot of time unpacking this as an administrative team. You'll see it reflected in drafts of the 2627 goals and I think those other
038pieces I've I've pretty much highlighted. So let me take a pause there. I know I talked for quite a bit. Uh there are documents again within board docs. Please take a look and let me know if you have questions or or thoughts there. Um I have a couple questions and I yeah let's take some questions. Um so the bullying data is concerning. Does it match what you're seeing come in as like bullying incidents or are are recorded or tracked bullying incidents far lower than what students are reporting here? Yeah, the survey data is higher than what we're seeing in actual reports which I don't think surprises you or but that is concerning kind of what's happening kind of under the surface or things that aren't um bubbling up and there are a million programs out
039there to address bullying some quality varying but I do think that that's something that should take some precedence given this data um my second question is I think moving forward it would be helpful to pair a focus group with some of these survey questions Um, I simultaneously love and hate surveys because they often raise more questions than they answer. And so, we have this information, but we don't know. And also, student self-reports are great, but they can be unreliable. Um, and it can also be how I looked at some of the questions. It can also be how students are interpreting those questions. There's a lot of room for interpretation there. So, while this is concerning, I need more information before I would be thoroughly concerned because there's a lot there's a lot going on in
040the background here that these these percentages aren't answering for us. Um, both glows and grows, right? Like they can be like, "Oh, yeah, this is great." But in reality, there's some opportunity for growth there as well. So, I would just say in the future maybe plan for some focus groups that will go handinhand with these um at the same time. And then, uh, the last question is more of kind of an opinion question. So, this is the second year we're using the survey. How do you feel this data is informing you versus the data that was coming from the previous survey you were using? With the Pennsylvania school climate survey, I think it's much more targeted. The youth true survey was really robust. I worried about survey fatigue. It was 45 minutes for students to
041take a survey. You wonder as you start to get the tail end, what is this for? I'm being asked to do a lot. So, that that was also a concern. We really like this idea that it was specific to bullying, very very targeted, precise, and again, we can give the administration 10 or 15 minutes and and extrapolate those those trends. We just need more administrations to stabilize those trends and and interpret the results like you said. And I love the suggestion about focus groups. Uh we've used our student forums as focus groups to do deeper dives on a lot of topics, whether it's AI, bullying, school safety. Um but I do think something maybe even more structured uh across other buildings is something that uh you very well will see next year. Yeah. At the
042elementary level just because those are the least reliable self-reporters. Um so sometimes just having a conversation and saying what do you think this means or what do you see on the playground or how do your teachers support you can give you a little bit more context for what's happening. No, I appreciate and I I didn't necessarily share some of the the sample sizes in some of the schools is very small. So, I didn't necessarily put up the end like you you may see in certain schools where one ethnic group it might only be four or five students who identify and so I didn't want to project those to single out individual students in a building or anything like that. Uh but some of that you may see within board docs but just being sensitive publicly
043to single out students in a particular school at a particular level when it's a very small number. uh but that also can skew the results too. So again um we need to triangulate this look at other anecdotal evidence that we have perhaps follow focus groups uh look at discipline data look at our reporting all those pieces uh go into us figuring out next steps to make things better is there an option in this survey um I'm assuming you would have done it to um to allow students free form responses yeah no I do not believe there's um an open-ended component on it. Now, that's not to say we couldn't do something of our own and mirror that together. Uh, so that's something we can investigate if you'd like to elaborate a little bit. That would
044be a great idea because you have the kids thinking about it kind of they're they're in it, their heads in it. Um, it's anonymous, I assume. Um, and you're giving them just an opportunity kind of while these questions and concerns and issues are raised um to just offer up some some thoughts. Um, no, that's a that's a good suggestion and we'll see what we can come up with for next year. Can I can I ask a question about the high school? Just the lower participation at the high school. Is is there a plan to just reserve a period of time where everybody in the high school just stops and takes the survey? Would that is there is there a plan to increase the participation there? Absolutely. It really all levels too. I mean, not only
045high school, but the middle and the elementary. Um, I'll be I was a little disappointed in some of the the success rate. So, I want to meet with the principles, find out more where the issues are. We do have a twoe designated window and they'll have prescribed days. Uh, because of the the shortness of the survey, they are able to do it through a home room structure or maybe a slightly extended home room. But I want to see what are we doing if a student's absent that particular day. What is the mechanism to either get them the next day or whenever they return so that we really do hit that 85% participation rate. Uh that is what PD recommends. So um that's going to be our our benchmark and I'll work directly with the principles
046on that. And then we didn't have I feel like I remember with the youth truth we needed parental consent or there was something issue there's an issue maybe parents could opt the kids out. Has that been an issue with this? No, we haven't um seen mass opt outs. Uh nothing to that nature, but they they do have to um give permission. So, oh, sorry. Just so so parents have to give permission before. Correct. So, it's it is it's opt out, is it? Is it? Yeah, that's what I mean. They Yeah, I'm sorry. So, it's opt in, it's opt out. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I meant to say that parents are consulted and they're aware, right? We're not surveying them without their knowledge. I don't have a question. And I just wanted to say
047I appreciate the honesty of the respondents and I appreciate the transparency in reporting out the results. I know there was a lot of thought that went into what would be the best um module the the best sort of platform by which to administer this survey. So I'm looking forward to, you know, even though participation may not have been, you know, as robust as we would have liked to, but I think, you know, anytime you ask for feedback, it's the most dissatisfied that, you know, tend to answer those questions. So I wouldn't discount um any of the data just because the numbers, you know, may not be it might not be a large enough N. Um, and I look forward to see, you know, how this informs our uh, plans moving forward. All right. Thank you.
048And, um, more to come when I present the goals in June. All right. Uh, moving on to policy section five. Is there a report from the policy committee meeting? There is. Um, policy committee met uh, end of April, April 28th. Um there's a a list of policies there. Most of them are largely routine um reviews with um really none to non-substantive uh changes, but there are a few that I wanted to just call attention to. The first one being policy 218.1 um regarding weapons um in the schools. Um I there was a communication that did go out last week I believe um that uh sort of gave a little bit more information around that. So I just wanted to highlight for those who may have missed it or um or you know just kind of
049reinforce that we do you know as members of the community as parents um we are receiving much more um more frequent communication about uh weapons being you know incidents of weapons being brought into schools and it it can be a little bit disconcerting and and troubling when you're when you're hearing it with such um um more frequency than we're used to. But again, just to highlight that this is response to a new weapons notification law that we are required to report out um not just any weapon, but anything that could be misconstrued for a weapon or anything that resembles a weapon. So, we will be hearing more of these um reports, but part of that communication that went out um just um to clarify that if there's a true um situation or emergency, information will
050be uh communicated in a a more direct way uh via text, I believe. Um so um so if there is anything concerning um I just wanted to highlight that because sometimes when we get such frequent communications there is communicate you know email fatigue um and you don't know what to react to what not to react to. So I just wanted to highlight that um for that policy. Um, and then I wanted to also highlight policy 707 regarding the school facilities use. Um, we had a discussion. And I'm just highlighting it because we talked about it here at one of our previous meetings in terms of what is the procedure, how can the public kind of make themselves a little bit more aware of what facilities can be rented and how um and I believe this
051was discussed as well through the facilities um committee meeting and um there uh will be a much more there will be a little bit more clarity on that process and on the communication um steps that that follow through that um through that process. Um and then there was um not one not a policy listed over here. I'm not even sure if it's in the list. Um we just had an addendum to a a policy that just the administrative guide not guidelines needed um a bit of an amendment. Um it was policy 105.4. I don't see that listed on the on here, but it was um it's 105.4 um the administrative guidelines for alt PE um at the high school. There are paper attachments to that administrative guideline that you know we're sort of moving into
052the 21st century and taking those out and adding e um links uh for those for those forms. So those were um the happenings for policy committee. Our next meeting will be June 2nd tentatively if there are things to discuss. Otherwise, we will roll over until I guess that would put us to next year. I just have a question about the um the all PE form policy that I didn't think about during our meeting. Um do we have a retaining paper a paper option for families who might not have access? It says instead of So, I'm assuming it's going to swap out. Is that accurate? So, will will there be any mechanism for families who might not have access to internet? I mean, I know there's it's probably just a few, but Okay. It looks like
053we'll maybe have to look into that. Maybe report back on Monday if that's okay. All right. No, thank you for the question. All right. Okay, other questions on policy. All right, that's up for vote next week. Uh, moving on to section six, program student overnight trips. Yeah, so typically every May, we bring the overnight trips for the following year to you. These are aligned with what we described last spring. You may recall presentation the board had asked me to bring some consistency to which trips we funded. Um, so, uh, all of these trips have been cross-checked. So, we created, just as a quick refresher, we did create four categories. Um, and then we prescribed specifically with each category what the district would cover and what the students would cover. So, um, I just want to
054reassure you that that was applied here with these these trips for next year. All right. And then 602. Um 12th grade academic English units 67 and 8 are up for review. Anything to add there? Nothing to add just other than it will be implemented for next school year 2627. Got it. Thank you. And then the enrollment report is at 603 um which we get every month. And then moving on to facilities. Um the facilities commi committee met um on May 5th. Um kind of similar to what policy was discussing, we also had a discussion about the rental process language to add to the website. Again, with the goal of more clarity for the rental communities. We have a robust community that uses our facilities, which is great, but we want to be clear on how
055that process works and make sure that community members are also receiving timely communication and information back. And we recognize the push and pull, which is that the district's facilities are for the students. Um and so often we are waiting for schedules to be fleshed out by teachers and administrators um for all sorts of things before we are able to confirm with outside groups what's going to be available. So we're trying to make sure that is communicated and so people who are waiting um understand what that timeline will look like and can make their decisions accordingly. um summer projects. The General Wayne roofing is expected to begin uh um on May 18th with blackout dates for testing and then the bid opening for the middle school high school paving project is scheduled for May 26th at
0563:00 at district office which is standard process and procedure but that hopefully get done this summer. We're excited. Um and then athletic fields update. So the plan we saw the the the the presentation on all the athletic fields and that study came back with a lot of great ideas but what we know is that we cannot do them right now right so we need to build them into the five-year plan which Sheree was able to do. Um, I do want to flag that we do need to show what our five-year plan is and make that presentation and I forget what we had discussed there, but I want to bring that to the board as well because there is a way to do all of this, including the turf field, but again, this is going to
057be over the course of many years. So, we're excited about it, but um, we're not going to have a brand new set of athletic fields going into fall of this year. That's for sure. Shar, do you want to add anything on that? I was just going to add we were bringing that back with the proposal. That's right. We receive it. Thank you so much. We haven't seen the proposal yet. Missing a link there. So, we are going to see a proposal to then go um bring for the board vote to say can we move ahead with this. Again, understanding that we are not doing a huge outlay coming up in this next school year, but over time, which is great. Um I'm very excited for all of our seniors and particularly for all those parents
058in the audience and family members. There will be a jumbotron at high school graduation. Thank God. Um, so this is our first year doing it. The goal will to be always have a jumbotron there whether we rent it or eventually is there a new scoreboard that incorporates that. Those decisions haven't been made, but we do want to be um responsive to what we've heard over the years, which is there's a lot of people that really want to see these graduates and they want to hear the speeches. And so hopefully this jumbotron cuts through some of that and makes it more accessible experience for everyone who's there. Um so that's very exciting. We are going to be updating the cafeteria lighting in the high school uh to make it LED. This will be a cost savings
059over time. And then we are going to be doing finally finally some um library renovations throughout the district which is a long time coming. Again very exciting. We're lucky that we have libraries. We're lucky that we have fabulous librarians and so it's time to start renovating these spaces to uh meet the students where they are and and how they use these facilities now. So that's great. And then our next meeting for facilities is September 10th. Rachel, quick question. Um for the library renovations, was something shared with us about what what that's going to look like or is that coming? Uh I will give more detail. The discussion of facilities was these aren't going to be gut renovations. Take it down to the studs. More minor things um like that. So it's not going to be
060a huge outlay. As much as we would love to make everything look like the 56 center library, what media center I think is what we call it. Um it won't be that. But the librarians have done a really good job and Sher can probably speak more to this and saying we don't need to take it down to the studs. We just need some basic things to make it flexible and welcoming and again more inviting for student needs. Yes. Yes. That's you hit the nail on the head. Um it's paint um more flexible seating, uh moving some uh book arrangements around, um simple basic things and um some car carpet tile replacement things like that. Freshen it up. Thank you. All right. Uh, transportation. Anything under that? Section eight. We continue to transport the students. Um,
061food service. I don't see anything there. Okay. Technology. What do we got? Okay. Under technology 10.01. Uh, we have infinite campus workflow module. Uh this is an additional module to be added at a cost of $15,424. Um this is an add-on product that enables the district to streamline student movement and attendance by using badges and barcode scanners. Um this will uh replace uh eventually pickup patrol and eh hall pass as we know it. So there will be a cost savings of about $7,000 to offset the 15,000. Um, and this will also help in our uh with attendance with our classes, our counseling appointments, and our nurses suites. Um, so this will be a great add-on uh benefit that comes along with our new infinite campus uh module or I'm sorry, infinite campus system. Um 10.02
062is the Microsoft license renewal. This is our annual renewal of the Microsoft 365 license that we do receive through the uh Lancaster Lebanon IU13 um at a cost of $17,044. Uh this purchase will allow district employees and students to access the Microsoft applications including Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Teams. And that concludes technology. Moving it on to finance. All right. under finance uh for the finance committee. Um we did meet and the meeting was held on May 4th, last Monday. Uh this is available uh for your viewing pleasure on YouTube. Um uh but just to do a recap of what we were looking at last week, uh the budget uh for 2026 27, the revenue remained the same at 140 141,70,664. We had expenditures change. We had an expenditure change to reduce the deficit of
063the 817,500 that we were looking at from the preliminary budget. Uh we reduced special education costs by 375,000 due to vendor rate adjustment. And then the other line item reduction was under the capital projects transfer line. Um and we reduced that by 442,500. Uh these two adjustments yielded a uh two changes. Version one of the 2627 proposed budget was bringing the total expenditures to match or uh balance the uh revenues at 141,70,664 giving us a bottomline net zero budget. Version two of the proposed 2627 school year uh was presented with the same changes as version one getting it to net zero but also including an additional amount of 3 million of $3 million uh to offset the current year 2526 projected budget reduction of the capital projects funds transfer line. Um and then to just
064give some clarity um between what that looks like, uh the version uh will reduce what the capital projects fund balance looks like on the general fund. Um and that would pass through the line item on the general fund as the capital projects transfer line and then move those funds into the capital projects line. Um, and it's essentially a balance between what we're looking at from the capital projects fund um, fund balance and balancing that out to what it looks like in the capital projects fund separate uh, two separate accounts, general fund, capital projects fund. So, it's essentially moving monies from one account to another account. This will at that point bring the total expenditures to 144,513,164 giving us a bottomline deficit of $3,442,500. And there's also an additional flowchart um that is added in there
065for the board to be able to review as well as the full pre the full presentation of um all the previous slides that you've seen throughout this budget process are also attached as 11.02. Um the attachment is available um for the board as well as the public to be able to review. Uh this is also known as the public inspection prior to the budget final budget um adoption which will be held on June 1st of at a special meeting of the board. Also included in the attached is uh the PD the PDE act one index showing a 3.5% index the act one index components and its history. the real estate tax assessment and its history uh local tax revenue based on the act one index. There's also uh a slide on what it means to
066the taxpayer and it's 202627 preliminary budget uh moving on into the 2627 proposed budget version one and version two as well as the fund balances uh what those designations look like and the amounts associated uh to a fund balance and also the five-year budget projection. And again, we will have final budget adoption on June 1st at a special meeting of the board. That concludes the finance committee report. 11.02 is the 2627 budget review. Um you'll also see a budget resolution attached. Uh the annual tax lev levy resolution. Um and the homestead farmstead exclusion res resolution. Those are all here for your review. again won't these will not be approved next week um at the May 18th meeting they will be approved at the June 1st meeting um 11.03 well let me stop there are there
067any questions regarding the budget timeline um or anything okay 11.03 is the senior stroll trip uh this is for high school seniors to visit the four elementary schools and the 56 center in June uh 11.04 04 is the GHR agreement renewal. This is a staffing agreement addendum for uh July 1st through June 30th. Um and you can see the staffing fees as follow on uh the board agenda. Uh 11.05 is ProAre uh contract renewal. This uh contract provides various staffing services going into the next school year. Um 11.06 is the Valbridge property advisor agreement. Uh this is to identify and appraise all the properties that may be under assessed in accordance with board policy 627. Uh 11.07 is the reappointment of our solicitors Whistler Pearlstein LLC. This is a one-year agreement from July through June.
06811.08 08 is the reappoint of our auditors Barbara Kane Thornton and company. This will also include the single audit for one major program. Um and then there is an additional uh contract that will be for a sec second major program um audit for ESSER any remaining ESSER funds. Um and then the the cost breakdown is attached for your review. Uh 11.09 09 is the student athletic insurance for the school year. Uh 11.10 is the Neores Foundation medical service agreement renewal. This is for uh the sign lot sideline medical coverage for all home varsity uh games. 11.11 is the educational service contracts. There are six contracts there for your review. 11.12 is the fair funding resolution. Uh this resolution uh will call on the state to increase public education funding in accordance with uh the guidance
069from PSBA and 11.13 I thought I was almost done. Um 11.13 is the election of the school board treasurer. Uh, this will assign a one-year term from July 1st through June 30th of 2022 22nd 2027 per school code 404. And that concludes the financial section of the agenda. Any questions? Okay, Sheree, sorry, I have one quick question on the auditors 11.08. Can you remind me how long they've been working with us? Um, this will be our third year working with them. Third year with them. Okay. Thank you. All right. And as a reminder, the budget presentation which just highlights, we do have a committee of the whole for finance. Um, and that is available if people want to watch that whole presentation on our website as well. And then moving on to personnel approvals 1201.
070Um, anything to add here, Dr. Fredo? No. Okay, those will be up for a vote. And 1202. Yes, if I may, I'd like to discuss with the board the possibility of restructuring a current position. Last year, the board was gracious recognizing that we did not have a dedicated human relations person uh created a position for a supervisor of human relations and that person in essence works under one of the assistant superintendent. Um very helpful. I'm I'm here this evening to ask for your consideration of elevating that supervisor supervisory position to a director and that means it would be a senior cabinet level position. I think our organization has grown considerably in recent years in both the student enrollment that we have, the number of employees that we have, the number of contracted employees, uh and
071obviously this just the sophistication around staffing public schools and uh all of the re re human resource related process and processes. uh many of those responsibilities would reside with the assistant superintendent but with my intention is to have the assistant superintendent function more as a highlevel senior leader to I think one help with stewardship of educational directives u help with student programming support systems strategic and operational oversight policy and labor relations support but a very high level view we're an assistant superintendent should be not necessarily engaging with direct employees over HR related claims or processes. So you'll see within board docs I have two updated job descriptions. One for the assistant superintendent as we go through that search and other is for director of human resource where we hand a lot of those HR processes
072to that director. That director would then report directly to me as all of the other cabinet members. So, uh, we'd have our director of finance, our current assistant superintendent, our other directors are all direct reports. Um, human resources is just far more complicated in this day and age. Uh, we've talked about Title 9 implications. We've talked about labor relations and and a variety of other tasks. So to have a fully dedicated person is very helpful, but to have that individual remain at a supervisor level doesn't quite give that individual the autonomy they need to really take action and really advocate and advise. There's still a lot of checking in with the assistant superintendent. Is this permissible? So, um if the board would be so gracious is to to expand this position. Um ideally we could
073approve it in our work meeting or our voting meeting on May 18th. Uh upon that we would do a a posting and then work to fill the position, you know, as as quickly as possible. I think there was a time I'll go back to when I was the assistant superintendent and the H I was the chief HR administrator and the assistant superintendent. You don't see that in systems or organizations anymore. We continued that trend with Dr. Wexler. Uh I think as she's moving on and because of our growth now is the prime time to make to make a move like that and have a fully dedicated individual. This individual was really focused solely on HR processes. So the individual is going to look at comprehensive HR administration, personnel systems and compliance, recruiting, staffing and employee
074relations, HR legal compliance and oversight and supervision of the entire HR staff and team. Uh we've had a time where both myself and Dr. Wexar as assistant superintendents bore that responsibility. And to me, I just don't think we're maximizing the role of an assistant superintendent who can really support schools holistically, develop principles, support highle programs and adjustments, uh, as opposed to meeting with individuals and really getting into um what I'll what I'll relay is grassroots HR type type of issues. So, let me stop there and see if there are questions that you may have or uh anything within those job descriptions that um you want to inquire about. Dian, I have a question about um just kind of best practices. So, what do other districts do in the county and as far as this level
075position and then the reporting structure? So, reporting directly into you as superintendent. Yep. I mean, that that's very common as you look at other organization charts. It's my understanding I think even within Chester County, we're probably the only school district that does not have a dedicated HR director of someone at that level or higher. So, um, we are, uh, certainly behind and I know Mr. McInny and I did some analysis as we we looked at other structures and other roles. Um, we did not see any other districts in Chester County without a dedicated HR person. Certainly none that are layering it in with the assistant superintendent. So, a a dedicated HR person reporting in directly to the superintendent. Okay. Correct. That's the common structure. Yeah. They tend to be cabinet level positions. Mhm. Would the
076HR director have direct reports? Um, right now our HR team is staffed by three individuals. So, we have an HR generalist, we have an administrative assistant, and then we have a clerical aid. So, we're looking at that. We're looking at all of our staffing as we grew really quickly and our HR department did not. So, uh, that is something that's going to be under further review uh, as we we move forward. But there would be three direct reports for the individual. And then I continue to be confused by our physical requirements in jobs and I don't know if this is PD like you know PD requirement or whatever but you know sitting standing lifting and moving for an HR director I feel like those could be uh flexible and also feels a little bit limiting
077in the pool that you can have. So I don't know if at some point you can just provide a little more guidance on how these come to be and if we have any flexibility if we have really great candidates who say are in a wheelchair or who cannot do this lifting. No, I'll be prepared to give more context on that next week. I appreciate the question and I'll I'll look into that. All right. So again, no action tonight, just simply there. If you have questions between now and next Monday, certainly let me know. I do appreciate your consideration on the position. Um, and that's it for me. All right. Uh, nothing under 13. Any other committee reports? Section 14. Nope. Okay. Our draft agenda for the 18th is ready for review and we are at
078public comment601. um 3 minutes. There will be a 30 second buzzer. Keep talking. State your name and residency when you come on up and otherwise come on down. Nick Nickrock, Konos Stoa Road, Malvin, I'm here tonight to continue to call upon the board to approve and move forward with the construction, which is inevitable, of new playgrounds at the three elementary schools that currently do not have equitable and inclusive facilities comparable to that which already exists at Katie Markley. I noted that these playgrounds were absent from the facilities committee update earlier this evening. This issue is fundamentally about equity. As a district, we speak often and proudly about inclusion, accessibility, diversity, and ensuring every child has the same opportunity to succeed and feel valued. Those principles should not stop at academics or inside the classroom walls.
079They must also extend to the physical environments where our youngest children spend their time every single day. Right now, one elementary school out of four has a modern, inclusive playground environment that provides a significantly and quantifiably better experience for students and families than what exists at the other three schools. That disparity is real. It is clearly visible and the community recognizes it. Playgrounds are not luxuries. They are essential developmental spaces where children build friendships, confidence, physical coordination, and emotional resilience. And for students with physical, sensory, or developmental challenges, inclusive playgrounds are especially important because inclusion should not end where recess begins. An inclusive playground at each of the four elementary schools sends a message to every child. You matter. You belong. We are all Great Valley. But when only one school receives that level of
080investment, it unintentionally sends another message that some students have access to better environments simply because of where their home was located relative to the redistricting lines which were drawn up by the administration and approved by most of this board. It is my sincere hope that this does not reflect the values of this board or the constituency that each of you represents. Every year we delay taking action means another class of children, including my own, passes through elementary school without access to the same opportunities that a minority of their peers elsewhere in the district already receive. Budgets are statements of priorities. If equity inclusion are truly priorities of this board, then this is the moment to demonstrate that commitment in a tangible and meaningful way. I respectfully again call upon the board to approve these playground
081projects and move them forward with urgency. Thank you. All right. Any other comments by the board? All right. With that, we did meet in an executive session to discuss legal and personnel matters and we are at 1702. So we can adjourn and we'll see you all Monday.