001All right, welcome everybody. Um, I my name is Rachel Gyos. I am the Great Valley School Board President. Welcome to our January 20th board meeting. This is a voting meeting. Um, super excited to see all our students here. That's always great. And so, we're going to kick things off by saying the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. All right. Um, a couple of procedural announcements. Um, the board did meet in executive session to discuss legal and personnel matters. Um these meetings are recorded. I say this every time. So you can find them online. Um we are going to start with section 2011. There is and let me
002just circle back. There will be two points for public comment. One after the voting um agenda items and then again at the very end of the meeting for the voting agenda items. Your public comment has to relate to that. I will remind everybody of this. There will be more reminders throughout the meeting, but just so everybody has a lay of the land. students after you present um we will have a brief moment if you choose to leave with your family so you don't have to sit through the whole thing. Um, all right. So, with that 2011, we have our recognition schedule for the 202526 school year. Um, and I don't think we have any recognition right now at student council. Correct. Just the board recognition. Uh, all right. And then we have schoolboard recognition. That's
003exciting. So, this is actually the board's month. Congratulations. January is board appreciation month. And so here at the the table when you came in, there are a few items just small tokens of appreciation for all that you do for the staff and students and the community at large. So you'll see a Great Valley t-shirt. Uh that's a bit of a unique design. You were the only ones that have that one. So a unique custom design. We thought you could wear Great Valley uh attire. Um certainly with pride. You'll also have a picture. We uh have representation from all of our students uh at all of our schools through the students. So you'll see there's a a picture there with a thank you uh with our many students just extending their their thanks and gratitude just
004to share um you know public education is really important. It's a cornerstone I think uh in American society and when you look across the country nine out of 10 children are educated in a public school. And so for you as the stewards of the Great Valley School District, uh serving the over 4,800 children, um it's just a one, it's a tremendous and awesome responsibility, but you do it time and time again with class. Uh you do it with dignity, and you do it always, always with the best interests of our students and staff at at heart. And so, uh, as superintendent of schools, I want to thank you not only for the programmatic decisions that you make, how you shape our programs, the fiscal decisions and the allocation of resources, the policy decisions that you
005determine, and those large governance items that you lead uh, make a profound impact. So, although at times we we know this is an unpaid volunteer type position, your impact is so wide and so vast. Um, but I know I'm speaking on behalf of our entire community when I say thank you so much for all that you do. So, on behalf of the administration and all of the staff here with the Great Valley School District, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do and I appreciate that applause. This is a very special group here at the table. Thank you. Um, I know we all enjoy this role very much. It's hard work, but it's good work and we're invested in our community and our kids are in school with you all and so
006we're very grateful for that recognition. Thank you guys so much. Um, with that, the exciting stuff begins. Let's hear from our student council. We have KDM here and the 56 center. KDM, tell us what's happening. Come on down. We have a Oh, sorry. Good evening, Great Valley School Board. My name is Orina Devdy and I am a fourth grader at Katie Markley Elementary School. I am a member of the KDM Student Council Executive Committee. We would like to recognize that January is school board recognition month. We would like to thank our school board for your hard work and dedication to our schools. We know it takes a lot of your time to make sure the district is the best it can be. We appreciate all you do for all of us. Please accept our cards
007and posters as a small thank you for all you do. We made them just for you. Thank you also for giving us the opportunity to speak with you tonight with you tonight about all the wonderful things KDM is doing this year. We have been having a great year so far. Our student council meets as a group once a month at 8:00 a.m. to work on activities and projects that will make our school a wonderful place for everyone. Our executive committee also meets with Dr. Hoffitz every month during our lunch and recess to share our ideas and plans. Thank you. Hello and my name Hello and my name is Max Morris and I am a fourth grader and also a part of the executive committee at KD Markley. Another thing our KDM student council organizes is
008on the first Friday of every month we sponsor KDM first Fridays. On this day, all students and staff are encouraged to wear KDM grape valley or blue and white spirit wear and and white spirit wear to show their school spirit and pride. Our KDM grape valley or blue and white spirit wear to show their our student council members can be can be seen wearing our own blue student council t-shirts. Everyone looks forward to these Fridays. In November, we celebrated World Kindness Day. We challenged the students to do nice things for each other. Play with a new friend, say hello to someone new, and do something nice for yourself one day. We had a great week. The student council got our pictures taken this fall. The next time you are at KDM, stop by and see
009all of the photos of the student council members on our wall outside the cafeteria. You'll see a lot of smiling faces that you'll you will recognize. Hello, my name is Ever Turk and I and I am in fourth grade and part of the KDM student council. This year we have sponsored many different spirit days. In October we joined high school and spirit days leading up to to homecoming. We had fun days like in November we hosted our turkey trot run and our theme was run a mile, give a smile. Our goal was was to collect 500 canned goods for the Chester County Food Bank and People's Pantry by race day. I'm happy to I'm happy to report that we exceeded our goal and we were able to collect 576 cans. In December, we had our
010own set of holiday spirit days before our holiday break. These days were filmed with pajama day, white out day, dress as dress as your favorite character day, ugly sweater day, and and many more. Along with with our dressing up, each student was charged with performing an act of kindness such as a high five, such as high-five a new friend, give a kind note to some to someone, and other kind things. Hello, my name is Alaski. I'm a fourth grader and a member of KDM student council executive committee. Next week or this week at KDM PTO annual bigo night on Thursday, January 22nd, we will be selling snacks and drinks to those families who attend the event. We plan to use the money we raised to go shopping in the spring and buy food for the
011people's pantry in Melvin. At our last student council meeting, we decided that we wanted to do something kind for our community. In February, during the two weeks leading up to the 100th day of school, we are going to collect personal care items. We made a goal to collect at least 100 personal care items for the people's pantry. We are hoping that we can reach our goal. If we if we are able to reach our goal, we are hoping to have an all school recess one day in the spring. Thank you for letting us share what our awesome student council has been doing so far this year. We we look forward to coming back in a few months to tell you about the latest projects that we are working on. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so
012much KDM. Mrs. Over and Dr. Hoffz, thank you both for your leadership. Dr. Hoffitz, I'm working on the t-shirt cannon. We're going to make it happen. All right. 56 center. Come on down. Hello schoolboard members. Thank you for inviting our 56 center student council to your meeting today. On behalf of all the fifth and sixth graders, we want to begin with a big thank you for everything you do for our school. We appreciate your leadership and your wait. We appreciate your leadership, your time, and the support you give to our students and teachers. Happy Schoolboard Appreciation Month. As a small way to show Ascreation, we are giving you each a plant and a bookmark. The plant represents how you help our school grow. The bookmark shows that you're an important part of our school story.
013We want to tell you a little bit about what has been happening so far in the 56 center. This year we held a guessing contest raffle during lunch and recess to raise money for our adopt a family project. Thanks to everyone who took a part, we raised enough funds to adopt five children through the holiday program and helped make their season brighter. Before winter break, our student council helped organize a treat cart with snacks and coffee for our teachers and staff. It was a simple but meaningful way to show our appreciation for everything they do. We enjoyed two exciting spirit weeks this year. One during homecoming and another right before winter break. Students had fun participating in thememed days like pajama day and winter white out. Our school spirit was stronger than ever. We also
014celebrated the 67th day of school with a special 67 spirit day. Since 67 is a popular trend right now, we we leaned into it and had a fun day full of themed activities and dress up ideas tied to the number six and seven. Students loved jumping in on the trend. Thank you again for everything you do for our school. We appreciate you and we we're excited for all the great things ahead this year. Wonderful. 56. Thank you, Mrs. O'Neal. Dr. Hammond, thank you so much for your leadership with this group as well. Um, we are so grateful. All right, high school. What's happening? And is here Hi everyone. It's good to be back and share some updates. Fantastic job from KDM and the 56 center. It's always amazing to hear those reports. And now moving
015on to the high school report. So starting off with sports, our winter sports season have been going really well so far. Before winter break, we had our girls basketball partner with our Best Buddies program at Great Valley to fund raise for Best Buddies and they were able to win their game 45 to 35 against Sun Valley as well. So amazing accomplishments and as our sports seasons move to a close in February. We have a few upcoming senior nights coming up. We have girls basketball as well as swim and dive this Thursday and then we have wrestling a bit farther on February 10th. So, as our sports seasons are ending, we hope to bring more postseason accomplishments with chess months, districts, and more competitions coming up. And next up, I wanted to touch on the art
016department at the high school. We had a recent field trip from the AP art students to the Philly Art Museum which had a vast collection of art pieces and they got to learn a lot more about the history of these art pieces as well as explore a lot of more of the modern pieces at the museum. It was overall a very fun experience for both the students that went and the staff that went as well. And also on the topic of art, our National Art Honor Society has been busy with their accomplishments as well. We had their members complete 20 of these portraits, as you can see from the photos, for the memory project where students um hand paint or handdraw posters for children in other countries. This year it was Armenia. And so the
017three photos there you see are created by members of National Art. I actually made the one on the right as well. And the other two are also handdrawn by other members. And we also fundraised a lot during winter before winter break. We sold hand painted cards during in the cafeteria and we were able to fund raise over $100. So that was an amazing accomplishment that we can use those funds for as well. And then I also wanted to talk about Mr. Great Valley. This is one of the biggest events that student council at the high school runs this year. It's happening on a Thursday. It's happening on March 5th. And student council is still finalizing more details about that. We're also testing out the waters with some new changes this year. Um in the photo
018you can see um four judges, which are teachers from the language department, the math department, social studies, and English. And this year, we're trying to add more input from the audience and potentially adding other student judges as well. So, we're excited to see the new changes for Mr. Great Valley this year. And I also wanted to mention that this all the funds from Mr. Great Valley go to the Chrissy Character Award, which honors Miss Mr. Chrissy's legacy at Great Valley High School. He was a social studies teacher and he made a big impact on our students in our school. And also, I wanted to talk about a very interesting class at our school. This is physics of sports and hobbies. This is a physics elective that's available to seniors at our school. So, some of
019my junior classmates, including myself, might be thinking about taking this class next year. It's taught by Mr. Wuest, and I was able to talk to him about this class in their recent field trip to iFly where they were able to take their learning and um really implement that into a real life setting. So, I wanted to share some photos from the trip. They had a fun time there. They were able to be in this sort of vacuum chamber without gravity and they were able to experience basically flying. And our AP physics teacher who retired, Mr. Johnson, was also able to tag along. He took all of these wonderful photos and they had a fun time as you can see. And looking in the future, we have a few events at the high school coming up.
020We have Jazz in the Valley happening February 13th. You you're able to come to the auditorium and see our own jazz band perform as well as other jazz bands from local competing schools. And then we have the high school's second year of running the cultural celebration this year. It's February 27th, so we're excited to bring some more news about that later. And lastly, KDM and the 56 center said it beautifully, but it is a school board appreciation month. So, I wanted to on behalf of the entire high school show a big thank you to all of your work and your dedication in running the school board and allowing all of these clubs and fun things like physics of sports and hobbies and the anatomy class and all these fun field trips that we have at
021the high school possible. Wanted to thank you for your effort as well as for allowing us as student reps to contribute um to the school board and share our opinions as well. So, thank you so much Anna, thank you so much for being here. We always love hearing about the high school classes and the the sports and the activities. So, we appreciate your time. All right, everybody. If you would like to take a moment and exit with your families and get back to your warm houses, we understand. But thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Thank you to the parents for your support of these kids. Yeah, I think so. I think so. All right, thank you everybody. Um, before we move forward in our agenda, we'll be starting with section five.
022I wanted to read a brief statement in light of very public recent events. Um, so we're going to talk about it. Um, as a school board for the Great Valley School District, we are entrusted with establishing policies that guide our educational community. We recognize that this responsibility comes with public interest and attention. Above all, we are committed to serving all students in our community with dignity and respect and to providing them with the opportunities they deserve and are entitled to receive. This commitment remains steadfast, particularly during challenging times. We are aware of the Office for Civil Rights Investigation recently announced by the US Department of Education and continue to work with our council to prepare a response. The district takes it takes its obligations under Title 9 and all federal civil rights laws seriously. We
023also take our responsibilities to comply with the legal rulings from the federal courts in this jurisdiction and to provide the protections afforded our students by Pennsylvania statutes just as seriously. We routinely have our board policies reviewed with legal counsel for compliance with all local, state, and federal regulations, as was the case with longstanding policy 103.3 that's been in place since 2016. We will be responsive to the Office for Civil Rights throughout their review process. We remain focused on providing a safe, inclusive, and equitable learning environment for every student we serve. And with that, let's continue on in our agenda. Uh 501, I already announced we met in executive session as a board. Um 502, secretary's correspondence. There's no correspondence this evening. All right. 503. Is there any update from the IU that you wish to
024share? Dr. Rizzo? Um meeting is tomorrow night. Great. Um legislative reports. Meeting is next week. Okay. Um any other board committee reports to discuss? Um the newly renamed learning and innovation committee. Love it. Um met last week. We had a very ambitious agenda thanks to Dr. Oul and Dr. Beck, but I'll just uh share some of the highlights. So they did do an overview for us of the different um assessments that we use in the district and what they're used for. They did a great job of helping us understand how this information is used and um what we're using it for and how it really is part of of one piece of information that we're using to make decisions. Um we talked I talked a little bit last week about um how our fifth grade
025world language and culture class is starting in February. This is really exciting. We have talked about world language for what seems like decades and now we're seeing some really great movement um and excited for that to start in our fifth grade classrooms. Um, we have had some feedback about our 12th grade English class and we talked a little bit about the changes that are being made there responsive to student and teacher feedback. So, there's some really positive changes happening with our 12th grade English um, academic level class. Um, so that was some great things happening there. We are transitioning to a new student information system. We all know this. We're moving away from um, Skyward. So, we're moving to Infinite Campus and there are some deadlines. We're going to start moving things now. Um, if
026you are registering a kindergartener for next year, you will be able to use Infinite Campus to do that. Um, but some other things will still have to have to happen in Skyward. Um, I believe registration for classes next year and things like that. So, we're kind of eating our way through this transition, but it will be complete um I believe by the fall. And um that's the highlights of the highlights. Awesome. Thank you very much. Um you said something that joged a question, but now it has left my mind. So we'll come back to that. Oh, kindergarten registration. I always ask about that this time of year. Is it open? Are we able to sign up kids? No, we're not welcoming. Not open yet. U the actual date. Yeah. Dr. Tul can at least speak
027to Yeah. get us in the ballpark when that opens. I always like to nudge parents along because that's one of those things that sneaks up on you if you have a youngster and all of a sudden it's August and your kid has Yeah, I just want to say kindergarten like 10th grade uh from another meeting. Um no, so kindergarten registration because of that transition, we want families for enrolling into next year to use Infinite Campus. That will actually be later than typical. Okay. So, we're looking probably at the end of March, early April uh for kindergarten registration just because we want families to be able to utilize the new system and all new uh students in the new school year for 2627 will use Infinite Campus. Great. Thank you. All right. SE section six, superintendent
028update. Yes. Thank you very much. Uh two parts to this evening's update. one, I have a a slideshow that I know they'll bring up just highlighting some some more good news going on within the district. Like to showcase some of that and the second part, Dr. Wexler will give a brief equity plan update. This will be our second installment of three across the year. She'll um give a brief update on how our progress is is working there. So, um I'll just have the slide. Shri, you want to just advance me? It's not a whole lot. Um, so this is the image that is framed and before you. These are our students. Uh, I want to thank Miss Marston for going around to our seven buildings and getting some representation from all of our children just
029to say thank you for school board month. And um, I thank Teresa for taking that initiative uh, to do that. And so you have a picture to take with you this evening. Um, continuing on to our our high school, I'd like to introduce you to a student. I think this is a student we're going to be hearing more about in years to come. So, um, this is, uh, Farida Esmile, and she's a 10th grader at the high school, and she started her own nonprofit. I don't know about you all during your sophomore year or 10th grade year uh but creating a nonprofit um is just an amazing outreach and again a real testament that you know our focus on the whole child that we we want those strong academics but we want kids who are
030nurturing and supportive and willing to make the world a better place and I'm very confident that with Freda we're going to hear uh a lot more to to come. So wanted to showcase and I think you'll even see some other news and press releases around this initiative. It's getting a good bit of attention. So it's a name I want to get out in front of the board uh early on and and much more good news uh to come. Second, we have our science fairs that have been been going on and you see some representation from across our schools. Everything from rocket launch to you know mixing some chemicals and going on and I know we have various staff that go out. Uh again, just reassuring you that that focus on steam and STEM and math
031and science and bringing it all together with presentation skills. Uh you can see we're doing that at some early ages. And I think this is a point of pride and I would say expect to hear more about a lot of these students as well in the spring as they go on to place in county and state science fairs. Uh because every year we have students excelling and and shining in this arena. All right, KDM, I I wish I would have addressed this a little bit more when Katie Markley was here. Um, some of you saw this on social media before the holiday break. Uh, but Katie Markley started this planning, Dr. Hoffritz, Mr. Ellis, and a lot of the teachers and staff at KDM started planning for this last school year. U, they recognized that
032there is a fair number of students at Katie Markley that this is their first experience with snow, let alone to go sledding. And so they stockpiled snow gear, pants, gloves, everything working from last year into this year. Uh and then they were able to go and enjoy and I think if you saw some of the videos or the images, uh the smiles say it all. And so it was a good fun day for Katie Markley and I think a good team effort uh to bring in experience to to students that maybe haven't had a a prior experience. So, uh, definitely tipping my hat to the team at KD Markley, uh, for organizing this and all the work that went in to make sure every child could participate and enjoy. So, thanks to KDM. And then,
033uh, continuing with our heart awards. So, we only had one meeting in December, so we didn't have a whole lot of time uh, to really showcase. So, December's we're going to do both December and January's heart award winners. And so, you could read the the wording up there. I just want to really thank and acknowledge Kelly and Miley, Paige Morbido, Sophia Penock, and Jason Rosolei. Uh again, you see everything from an administrative assistant to a teacher of gifted students, our multilingual family liaison who works here out of the district office and Jason Rosolei who's been our head custodian uh at General AI for many years. He does a great job. Great to see the recognition come in from staff, from students, and our our families. So, congratulations to the December award winners um and their
034presentation. Miss Marson will go out and make sure they're presented with their heart award. We have the January winners here um Joelle Ims, Connor Tayback, Katie Urick, and Britney Wolf. Again, representing a a wide array of team members. We have an admin assistant, an autistic support teacher at our middle school, one of our counselors at the 56 center, and an ELD or an English language development teacher uh Charles Town with with Britney Wolf. So, we have January's winners. Um, I just again want to thank Miss Martson, our director of communications, for launching this program. Uh, we get far more recommendations that come in than we have room to honor. We're picking four every month. Uh, I just want to encourage our community, our staff, and our students. Students are nominating people who go above and
035beyond on their behalf. Uh, it just is a great point of pride and I'm glad this is initiative that uh looks like we're going to have it sustained for for many years and every month we'll continue to to highlight the award winners. Uh, so again, congratulations and I'm going to ask for a round of applause for these eight individuals. Uh with that, that highlights uh some of the going ons in the district. You heard from our students. Now, we'll have Dr. Wexler give um again our second update of the year, our second of three um with the final one coming later in the spring. So, Dr. Wexler. All right. Good evening. Thank you. As we said, this is a brief update. We're mid year on year three of our three-year board approved equity plan. Uh
036just a reminder, these are the six areas by which we have been um setting some action plan and priorities. And just very quickly, I'll highlight some of the work that we've been up to over the past couple months since I was here in October. Um under area number one, we've continued our our building principles and their building based equity teams have been leading professional learning at their respective faculties around um how to create again that proactive positive uh approach with students. Um we've examined some of the research and uh done some professional learning around proact I'm sorry bias and discipline that uh bias that can lead to discipline. Um and also what we call vulnerable decision points. So, our staff have learned um sometimes what triggers them when they're working with students who might have
037behavioral or social emotional challenges and learning to neutralize. So, that was a really uh well-received professional learning that we did with Dr. Holland Sims. Uh we learned that together as a large group and then our our wonderful faculty took that and turned it around with their with their teams back at their building. So I'm very thankful for the work that they've done and in doing that they've also made a conscious conscientious effort to collect some feedback from their faculties just very generally about how they think student discipline is working in their buildings. What are some areas of need that they're seeing and what are some areas of opportunity where they would like enhanced communication, more training, more transparency. And again, the goal with all of this is to help us lay a foundation for some
038policy revisions that we'll look at later this spring. Um here I just want to highlight very quickly there is some work in language in the plan that talks about um hiring bilingual counselors and as we come into budget season I just wanted to share that we're actually navigating this without having to hire additional staff and members of our TNL team have put in a lot of work where they're really collaborating with the high school particularly around credit analysis and transcript analysis and using our multilingual family liaison. Um, so I just wanted to note that because I know as we get into staffing and staffing requests that did that did come through often in that plan as a recommendation, but I think right now we're internally navigating it really well and thank you to the members
039of that team who are always on the ground level supporting the high school and those needs. Here is just again just a reminder with a lot we talked a lot about needing additional interpreters that was embedded in the plan. It was three years ago that we wrote that, but as technology has improved, we've really seen some highlights in this area, not having to rely on people as much as some of those technology tools. And we're continuing to train and work with our staff. And then I just want to highlight here that Dr. Gfredo's been working with the foundation to um secure some activity busing. That was a a big priority for afterchool activities and we're going to focus that at 56. So more to come on that. Um here again is just looking at um
040areas of instructional support. So, we've been working with our CST teams to help them be a little more strategic with how they're supporting students with behavioral health needs. Uh, how they're structuring their counseling sessions, etc. So, that's been a focus that we're just right now doing an inventory because as we get into the next slide that I'll talk about with restorative practices training, it does require some of that counseling support. So, we just want to make sure that we're adequately staffed um and helping our counselors work a little bit more strategically and smarter with how they structure some of their interventions and groups. So, I don't want to get too far into that tonight, but more to come on that I think in a subsequent update. Um, particularly again as we look at staffing needs.
041This is a lengthy slide, so I'm not going to read it to you, but these are all the things that we've been engaged with with area number four, which is engaging in self-reflection and professional learning. Um, our admin team did get a very robust trauma-informed practices training, which was led by one of our school principles and counselors from Sugartown. So, Dr. forest and Jackie Golieri. We were very thankful they came over and led that training with us recently. Our all of our administrators have an overview of restorative practices which is again leads into some of that discipline work that we I had mentioned earlier. And we had a really great two-day training here at district office where we had a cross-section of cabinet level leaders, principles, teachers, and counselors that participated in two two full
042days of circle uh where we learned about how to effectively communicate, build strong relationships, which can then lay the foundation for teachers and staff to run what we call restorative circles. So, it's it's a lengthy training, but we many of us have gotten that two-day foundation, myself included. It was really a great uh training. And then we will be looking to do a train the trainer model with that leading into May where we'll have some additional staff take a three-day training. So a lot of good stuff happening there. Very wellreceived. Um we had people walk out of the room. A few teachers said to me, "How do I get an advanced degree in this?" Like they were really energized and loved it. So when I see that, it just it energizes me as we're leading
043the work because I think the buyin is there that our staff are so invested in supporting our kids in a really proactive way. Um and then just a couple things here. We've tried to revise some of our we don't have a walkthrough tool yet which is listed in the plan but we've revised some of our uh observate excuse me observation questions to guide our work when we're observing our teachers. So uh that's a pretty lengthy slide but again if you have any questions I'm happy to come back to it. No new updates really in area number five. Although there's been quite a bit of work as I've referenced before with uh and making sure we're tying what we call restorative I'm sorry, responsive approaches and responsive classroom that initial framework with this some of the
044other practices that we're engaging in with what we call restorative practices and helping our staff see the relationship between the two. And then lastly, just with hiring and retention, um a focus here, I think it was last month, the board approved, um a frontline a new addition to frontline central, which will help streamline the hiring processes and the onboarding processes for staff. It's kind of cumbersome right now, not very user friendly. So, we do want to improve that. We're consistently uh doing an exit interview process on paper and through onetoone meetings if needed, which has been helpful in looking at trends and we'll continue to do that. And then we're just tightening up all those investigation processes. So, our admin team received a very lengthy, I think almost three-hour training a couple months ago related
045to how to conduct thorough investigations. And that's really important for protecting our staff and students from any type of harassment, discrimination, etc. So, I felt really good that we were able to execute on that and continue to create those safe environments for our staff and our students. Um the one thing I did want to highlight too is next month I've been working with um Miss Lutz who leads our GSA and the student leadership group that's committed to um the equity work within the high school and we will be looking for your approval for a speaker um who will be coming in to kind of kick off that cultural celebration that the students just talked about our student rep talked to you about in February. Um, and it's a lot about overcoming adversity and getting in
046touch with your identity and, you know, how to navigate some of the challenges that they experience in the high school. So, the students self- selected this speaker related to an organization that we've used in the past that was very, very wellreceived. So, we're excited about that. Um, and then and anyone is welcome to attend. So, if you're interested, we'll make sure we provide that information. I know the students take great pride in that day. Um, and then lastly, we just tried to create a little bit of a visual of our progress on the areas. And you could, this is not like scientific by any stretch, but um, kind of gives you a little bit of a gist of where we're seeing a lot of focus right now, I would say, like in those engaging in
047reflection p excuse me, personal learning and then classroom culture and climate. Um, but we are continuing to work on all the areas and we'll have another update for you in April. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We know it's a lot of work, but we appreciate the focus on all these different areas of the educational experience for all of our students. So, thank you so much, Dr. Wexler. All right, we are moving on to section eight. [clears throat] This is our uh voting items. Before we get there, this is our first opportunity for public comment. This public comment is limited to only section 8 voting items. So, if you have public comment related to those things, come on down. If not, we'll keep moving through the agenda and then there will
048be a second public comment at the end. Questions, comments, concerns. Great. Okay. So, we're going to move on to consent agenda items. Mrs. McGibney, take us away. I do have a change to uh consent agenda item 8.20 for the Gazsby 75 valuation services. uh the services will remain at the max of the $8,000 but the attached uh document has been updated with an increased hourly rate of $5 to $10 for the different services. So I just wanted to note that the attachment has been updated. That's the only change to the consent agenda item. Right. Is there a motion to approve uh consent agenda agenda items 801 through 8.25? Motion to approve 801 through 8.25. Is there a second? Second. All right. Is there any board questions or comments related to these things? We discussed a
049little bit last week, but any other follow-up? All right. All in favor of approval? All right. Motion passes. Nine to nothing. Dr. Rizzo, do you want to add something? No. Okay. [laughter] All right. Um, I don't see anything under 901 financial approvals. Is this accurate? Okay. And then under 10.01 personnel items. Is there a motion to approve 10.01? Motion to approve 101. Second. Any questions from the board? No. All right. Okay. All in favor? All right. 10.01 passes. 9 to nothing. Uh policy approvals 11.01. Is there a motion to approve um the policies for first reading that um we discussed last week? Motion to approve 11:01. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any questions from the board based on these policies we discussed? Nope. Okay. All in favor? Good. Uh, any opposed? Sorry, Tom.
050Did you vote? No. [laughter] Okay. All right. I appreciate it. He's dialed in. Um, all right. Motion passes. Um, nine to nothing. We have nothing under program approvals. Uh, facilities 1301. What do we have under facilities? 1301 is a new item uh presented to the board. This is for the asbuilt survey for the 56 center. This is required by the East Whiteland Township at a cost of $15,750. All right. Is there a motion to approve uh excuse me 1301? Motion to approve 1301. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any other questions about this? Can you just confirm that's the drawing that we were talking about? Okay. Yeah. Yes, that's correct. All right. Still finalizing what's happening at 56. That's good. All right. Um, all in favor? All right. Motion passes. 92 nothing. All right.
051Nothing under 1401. Um, or is that that's our second public comment? Okay. Second public comment on anything we all want to talk about. Here's the situation. You have three minutes. We have a timer. It'll be up on the board for you to see. When there are 30 seconds left, there will be a very obnoxious sound. Keep talking. You have 30 more seconds. We have a crowd. If we go beyond the three minutes, I'm going to have to cut you off, and I don't want to do that. If things get unruly, I have a gavl. Listen, I'm a lawyer. This is the closest I'm going to get to this gavvel, and I'm desperate. But please don't make me do it. Do not make me use this gavvel tonight. I think we can have a really informed
052discussion and be heard, but let's do it as a community and within three minutes per person. So, with that, come on down, state your name for the record, and we're glad to have you. Vincy, please. You have to be a resident to speak. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. My name is Susan Greenberg. I'm a doctoral candidate in education at the University of Southern California, and I live in Melvin, Pennsylvania. I would like to speak from an evidence-based perspective on student participation in school athletics under title nine. Peer-review research consistently shows that participation in sports during adolescence supports cardiovascular health, bone development, academic functioning and mental well-being. These benefits are particularly important for transgender and gender diverse students who experience higher baseline risks of depression, anxiety, and social isolation. A 2021 article in JAMAMA
053pediatrics found that excluding transgender youth from sports participation may worsen physical health outcomes, mental health, and education engagement during critical development periods. More recent studies have shown that sports participation among transgender youth is associated with reduced depression and anxiety, stronger social connections and a substantial reduction in self harm and suicidal ideiation. Importantly, the research also shows that inclusive school policies are associated with higher overall participation in school activities, including [clears throat] athletics, across the entire student population. When schools adopt inclusive policies and clearly communicate expectations around respect and safety, students overall report feeling safer, more welcome, and more willing to participate, benefiting not only transgender students, but cisgender students as well. By contrast, exclusionary policies can create unease that discourages many students from participating. Title 9 exists to ensure equal access to educational programs and
054activities. For the record, I am submitting a brief district ready summary of the peerreviewed research cited today to accompany my comments. I'll bring that to you, Miss. I respectfully urge the board to continue grounding its policies in peer-reviewed evidence, educational equity, and student well-being [bell] to carefully consider the documented health and participation benefits of inclusive [clears throat] policies for all students. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. My name is Christy Larent from Malvin, PA, East Whitland. So, I am here to support the school district's policy on supporting all students and their ability to participate in activities and classes per school board policy 103.3, which is now at the heart of an investigation brought on by a previous school board member, the president, no less. For someone who claims to care about the best interests of the
055students, as he cited in his complaint that he sent to what is left of the Department of Education, it seems hypocritical compared to his complaints back in 2024 about the Tik Tok incident where he stated, quote, "Our community has now been tarnished by the incident and we appeared to the world as incompetent and helpless with leadership with no leadership." Sorry. This is quite unquote. This is quite rich since he is looking to bring national attention to a policy that impacts such a small number of students and I am disgusted by his apparent bigotry towards the LGBTQ plus community and his desire to in his words quote tarnish the community unquote. Furthermore, Mr. Chambers must be aware that executive orders cannot overturn the US Supreme Court decisions, you know, the boxtock ruling and cannot repeal existing
056laws, including Title 9, Title 7, and section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. which makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender, interex or non non-binary people in the axe healthcare system. I understand that there is a need for all students and not just a minority to feel safe, but I feel assured that the board can and will handle all concerns from parents and students with great care. And I look forward to seeing the board stand up for all the students. Thank you. anyone else? Oh, it's cold outside, isn't it? That's what I thought. All right. Any other board comments? Anyone out and about? I'm attempting to get to some winter sport games because that season is ending soon. So, I look forward to seeing some of our athletes. Um, I just want to say that
057the KDM sledding as a parent was terrifying because I didn't think anything was going to come home. I thought I'd get one boot and somebody else's gloves. Um, but everything came home and it was literally the highlight of his winter so far. It was so much fun. the pictures like props to the school, everyone who made this happen because these kids, it was like the best day of their life to go out there and sled and and do all those things. And I know it's a lot of work because we know what kids come home with at our house when we have sledding and stuff. So, thank you. It was pretty amazing. And I think you have mine was sick and has not forgiven me for keeping him home that day. I know. I know.
058The way this winter is going, we might have a sequel. Listen, listen from your lips. We're waiting for that call at the crack of dawn on Monday. Um, all right. So, with that, a quick thank you. Listen, it's been a hard week and it's going to continue to be a community situation, but we're all in it together. So, let's all be in it together and let's all be heard and let's remember that at the end of the day, our focus as a board and our focus as a community remains these kids. We have different ideas of how to get there, but we're going to get there. And I'm committed to that and I know you all are too by showing up here tonight for whatever your reason. So, thank you. Get home safe, everybody. Is
059there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All right. All in favor. Let's go home.