001All right, everybody. Welcome. Um, I can hear an echo. Yeah, I think she'll get there. Okay, perfect. Uh, I'm Rachel Gyos. I'm the current vice president of the school board. We have two meetings tonight. The first one being more exciting which is our board organization meeting. We are about to welcome in two brand new board members and we are going to welcome back two former board members who have retained their seats. So this is a really exciting night. Um so we're going to get right to it and first we are going to start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, I think the volume's coming
002from you. Let's see. Okay, here we go. Okay. Uh, so the first thing we need to do is elect a temporary president. So, I'm opening nominations for a temporary president. Go ahead. Yeah. Going to nominate I uh nominate Nha for um temporary president. No other nominations. So, nominations will be closed. And now we turn it over to Nhan to take over as president. temporary. Um, but I will hold the gavl. Uh, so I will I actually am going to turn this over to the secretar's report of the election results. Mrs. McGib Mrs. McGibney will certify the election of the following persons to a four-year term. Shall I should I read them? Andrea Rizzo read. You will. Okay. Okay. Um, I will certify the election results of the 2025 election. Um, as the board secretary, I
003certify the election of the following persons to a 4-year term from 2025 to 2029 on the board of school directors of the Great Valley School District. Andrea Rizzo, region 1. Stacy Khan, region one. Lorie Senberger, region two. and Trisha Chazinoff, region three. That concludes the certifications. So, we'll move on to the um administration of the oath of the new board members. Should we have them come up or how do we individually? Sure. Okay. So, let's start at the top of the list. Andrea Rizzo. Hi. Thank you. I, Andrea Rizzo, having been elected to the office of school director for the school district of Great Valley, County of Chester and State of Pennsylvania, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this
004Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity. We'll do all the family pictures at the end. Everyone looks so nice in the audience. Next, we have Stacy Khan. Is that right? Okay. Hi. Um, I, CeCe Khan, having been elected to the office of school director, the school district of Great Valley, County of Chester, and State of Pennsylvania, do solemnly swear, swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity. Yeah, Mike. Um, can we have Lori Sullenberger next? I, Lori Sullenberger, having been elected to the office of school director for the school district of Great Valley, counter county of Chester and state of Pennsylvania, do solemnly
005swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity. Thank you. Congratulations. And finally, Trisha Bivven Chassenoff. I, Trisha Blivan Chazino, having been elected to the office of school director for the school district of Great Valley, County of Chester, and State of Pennsylvania, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and that I will discharge my d the duties of my office with fidelity. Let's do some photos and then we'll continue with the rest of the reorg. Get some family as well. Okay, no worries. I'm checking out You're very All right, there we go. See
006you guys later. My husband's late, but so I don't know why. We ran out. Okay, welcome to your seats, new members. Um, we are now going to elect uh I'm opening the floor to nominations for the office of president. Are there any nominations? Nominate Rachel Gyos for president. Any other nominations? It doesn't need a second. Okay. Uh, hearing none. I will accept a motion that nominations be closed. Someone like to make a motion to close nominations. Motion to close nominations. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor of closing the nominations, raise your hand. All opposed, raise your hand. Um, I will now accept a motion to elect Rachel Gyos to the office of president. Motion to elect Rachel Gyos uh to the office of president. Is there a second? Second. All those in
007favor of electing Rachel Gyos as president, raise your hand. Okay, that's unanimous. How many are we? Seven. Seven to zero. the newly elected Congratulations to our newly elected president. All right, thank you all. [laughter] I really appreciate it. I'm excited. Um, let's get to work. Okay. Uh, we need a vice president. So, I'm opening the floor to nominations for vice president. Are there any nominations? I nominate Nha Ma for the position of vice president. All right. Um any other nominations? Hearing none, I'll close nominations. Is there a motion to close nominations? Motion to close nominations. Is there a second? Second. All right. All those in favor of closing closing nominations, raise your hand. Great. That passes 7 nothing. I will now accept a motion to elect Nha Ma to the office of vice president. Motion
008to elect uh Namea to the position of vice president. Is there a second? Second. All right. All those in favor raise your hand. Wonderful. Motion passes seven to nothing. So, welcome Nha. Sorry, um Wendy Litzky remains our treasurer as that election takes place at a different time through the year. So um our executive committee is in place and we are excited to get started. So the other part of this organization meeting is our board committee appointments. I've had the opportunity to talk individually with board members in advance of this so we can make this efficient. So we will run through them briefly. Um the communication committee the chair will be Wendy Litzky. Members will be Trisha Chazinoff and I have an old list here. One second. Yeah, I had intended to pull it up. I
009almost put Samantha back on the comps committee. We miss you, Samantha. Okay. Uh, so yes, the communication committee is going to be Wendy Litzky. Um, I will be part of that committee as well. And we welcome Stacy to the communication committee. Um, next up, finance committee. It's a committee of the whole. So all nine board members will participate in that. The chair is our board treasurer which is Wendy. Our policy committee um that will be chaired by Nha Meta. Um members of our policy committee will be Trisha and Stacy. Um facilities committee that will be chaired um by Becky. I need to confirm that when she's um back with us. So we'll put a little bit of a question mark there, but she remains on the committee. Um the facilities committee I will also be
010a part of and Lori we welcome you to the facilities committee instructional tech and curriculum um that will be chaired by Andrea Rizzo and the other members of that committee will be Lori and Tom Richards who is not here tonight. In addition we have other appointments. Our legislative [clears throat] representative will be Trisha. Uh members of participating in our parent key communicator group will be Tom Richards and Becky Spece. CDI will be um Trisha who will continue the wonderful work there and be joined by Stacy. Our IU representative will remain Andrea Rizzo and our PBA and NSBA representative will continue to be NHA and Nha will also be participating in the wellness committee. The foundation will be attended by members of the administration going forward and then we um we may revisit that in the
011coming year. Ah, and the other one is the special education plan board which we may not need to address right at this moment. Correct. So, we'll put a pin in that. Yeah, NHA is in that current. Okay. I didn't know if we were that position need to needed to be filled ongoing. It does. Okay, great. Yep. So, Nha will stay there for the moment. for the moment unless somebody else is interested with Yeah, she is with wellness. Okay. All right. Questions or comments? All right. With that, is there a motion to adjourn the board organization meeting? Motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. All right. Board organization meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. All right. Uh we are now going to move on to the business meeting for December. Let me get to that
012agenda. This is a voting meeting. Um we will call this meeting to order. We've already done the pledge of allegiance this evening. Um the board did not meet in executive session before this meeting due to the uh reorg that needed to take place. We do not have any student council reports or um from the high school or the elementary school. We do not have a presentation from our superintendent this evening. Um, let's see. All right, [clears throat] Sheree, I think we're gonna start with consent agenda items. Section 8 801. And is there anything to say on 801 or 802? Okay. And then financial approvals. Um section nine. Can you take us through there? So under financial approvals 9.01 uh is the right at school contract. Um this is uh the contract that will provide summer
013camps and before and after school child care services from July 1st 2026 through July 31st 2029. Um we did take this out to uh RFP um and right at school uh came back as the uh winning award. 9.02 is our act one budget resolution. Um this is to approve uh the budget resolution that we will not exceed the act one index of 3.5%. 9.03 is for our foreign trip insurance package. Uh this falls from January 1st of 2025 through January 1st of 2026. Uh this is at a cost of $3,995. 9.04 is all kiln services. Um, this is for uh a kiln replacement at the Charles Town Elementary School at a cost of $7,927.75. And the last item under nine under financial approvals is 9.05 uh which you will see two special education agreements. The
014only addition that I would make is regarding 9.01, the right at school contract. Uh we did discuss that prior to the Thanksgiving holiday that was presented and discussed. So just as a reminder coming off the holiday. So anyone who maybe is tuning in now wondering why there wasn't discussion, if you uh are interested in that, I would advise go back to the voting meeting in November and you'll see more detailed information about the right at school contract uh at that time. Dan, I just have a question about that. What kind of tracking will you be doing at all of kind of whether they are providing what we want them to and any opportunities to adjust along the way because it is a four-year contract. It is and um right at school I mean the both
015the summer camp and the aftercare program my office the superintendent's office will have the will be the direct primary contact. So, as we go through, um, not only will they be working with my office, they'll also be coordinating with Ms. Marston on communications, getting promotions out. Uh, we'll continue to support. So, there will be a lot of senior level, district level support given to Wright at school. We'll be looking for the enrollment numbers, what are the concerns as they roll out. So, we'll continue to gather that information. We'll also leverage our PKCs about what they're hearing. So, we definitely will work directly with the company. I know they want to be off to a great start and success. Matter of fact, if this is approved tonight, Miss Marson's going to be reaching out to them,
016letting them know, and they're they're going to launch into advertising, and you'll see that all up and running on Monday. So, uh we'll just I want to assure the board that we'll have a an update uh regular updates from them as we begin this enrollment process. Remember, we will do summer camps first and then next year is when right at school will begin before and afterare. The YMCA will continue in its role for this school year as our provider for before and after care. So again, it is summer camp first and then starting next August uh is when we'll use right at school as our before and after care provider. So uh I plan on giving the board updates too in subsequent meetings as people get signed up so that you know where those numbers
017lie. Is the cost of beforeare and afterare similar to what it's been with YMCA as the most recent example. It's actually considerably more affordable. Okay, great. Which was a prime factor in our recommendation to you as a board. Okay, [clears throat] other questions on anything in section 9, financial approvals. All right, let me get back. Okay. So, is there I'm out of practice already. Uh, is there a motion to approve uh section 9001 to 9005? Motion to approve 901 through 905. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. All right. Passes 7 to 0. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. And we're going to go back to section eight. Oh. Oh. Oh, go back and do it. Wait, where am I going back to? 801. Okay. Is there a motion to approve consent agenda items 801 and
018802? My apologies. Motion to approve 801 through 802. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. All right. Motion passes. 7 to nothing. Personnel approvals 1001 and 1002. Anything to say there, Dr. Gfredo or Mrs. McGibney? No, just well theou that is there as a memorandum of understanding. It's agreement between the school board and the great valley education association basically deals with compensation for a collective bargaining member to serve as our assistant athletic director. They help a clerical task at the high school of a compliance mechanism. So yes, we have a full-time administrative athletic director, but we also have a component due to the high level of compliance in forms. We have an assist an an assistant athletic director to the high school. Um, and this memorandum of understanding makes that very clear with the
019bargain unit members the compensation and the individual who will be afforded that compensation. So it's a very straightforward. The duration of theou to the the end of June 2026. Other questions? All right. Is there a motion to approve 101 and 1002? Motion to approve 101 through 102. Is there a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Motion passes. Seven. Nothing. Okay. Um let's move on. There's nothing under policy tonight. Uh the policy committee meets Tuesday morning uh December 9th and program approvals section 12. So calendar is is first and gentlemen if we could project a draft of the calendar. Thank you so much. Um, so typically December, January, we approve the next school year's calendar. This was shared also in a November meeting. We got some board feedback. Let me just kind of walk you
020through. I know we have some newly seated members. I I'll do this very briefly uh to not be overly redundant. Uh the calendar before you is largely the same. We did denote one error. We had Rashashana being celebrated on September 11th. Uh we were able to make that correction. uh that is on Saturday the 12th. So that was an additional day that we had offered students and staff, we actually slid that day up to September 4th to make for a longer holiday. If we left that day off entirely, the way this calendar works is our last student day would have been on a Monday. So it really, you know, as much as we build the calendar, you also have to look where do things end, how do your holidays space out accordingly. and Great Valley
021has had it in its history where we've had a 4-day Labor Day weekend. We haven't had it recently, but we have had that. Um, if I go month by month though, really looking at August, we traditionally have started students the week of August 24th, that last week in August. Um, two things that I want to just in in full transparency with the board, um, to share. One is we would be hopping right in with a five-day week for students and staff. Um, I've had I think the over running it by parent groups. The majority of support has been that's okay. We can do five days, but I want to share some people talked about a three-day or four day. If you shorten that, those are more days that get added to the end of the
022year and you could easily start to push this into the third week of June. So, we wanted to be sensitive to that. Also, athletics, PIAA athletics start very late this year. Uh, the season begins for fall sports on August 17th. We've never quite had our teachers start the same exact week as the sports. So many times in that opening week, some of our sports programs would run double practices, maybe a morning, afternoon. We are going to have to have some consideration. I did check with other schools uh throughout our league and across the county. Um many schools are starting the week of the starting either the 24th or the 25th. There are some that are going to start the week of the 31st. Um, my recommendation to you is still to start the week of
023the 24th. Yes, we have three days where we'll have to work with fall sports and try to do some workarounds, but if we delay an additional week, that week goes on to the end of the year. And if you look at where this calendar ends, we're already due to end uh on June 8th, that means we would go to June 15. And so, we're really trying to avoid that late start. Uh historically, I love our calendar and the additions, the inclusivity and the diversity within our calendar, but it does elongate it. And so I think moving that week back um getting us into that third week of June, uh I think families, what I've heard and when we've ran this by the PKCs is they they were comfortable with an earlier earlier end date starting
024a little earlier in August and then getting out a little earlier uh in June. But I did want to frame that. Um, again, I would still make that recommendation to to move forward with a a 24th start. As we go through September, I mentioned the change with Rashana. No changes to October. November. December is a change from the early draft. December 23rd on the draft I presented last month indicated December 23rd is a full day. Based on some feedback from both staff and our parent key communicator group, they asked that we go back to that being a half day. This year, December 23rd will be a full day. Um staff had just said with such a busy a variety of holidays being celebrated, family travel that making that half day, which we did do two,
025three, four years ago. Um so that is a change. Um and this calendar will reflect one additional half day over the current year due to that adjustment. So I wanted to showcase that for the board in December. Uh the remaining months are really um no changes. So um that's the recommended calendar that I'm putting before you. I welcome feedback. Uh we can certainly take a vote on this this evening should the board feel ready. Uh you could always adopt it. We could modify it later if you have second thoughts. We could also table it for January should the board um choose to do so. So I'll stop there and see what questions or feedback you have. Just on this topic, can you for the new board members and for anybody who might come back and
026listen later um to this discussion, can you just review the plan for um snow days? Yeah, that was my No, great question. I I should have done that. So our current this is our first school year where we will use flexible instruction days, which many districts around us have done. Gray Valley was a little delayed. We had some reservations of going back to some of the online learning. Our approach for this school year, for this calendar, is to do three traditional snow days first. That means we would add any missed snow days to the end of the year. So this year we would add up to three days. On the fourth snow day, we would start to use those flexible instruction days. Why does it say the first two closures be added in current? That's
027I'm referencing the current school year for the 2627 year. The change if you go to June and we'll scroll down and highlight June. The reason I would recommend two days um for next year is when you look at the end of the date uh the staff would end on June 9th to if we add three days that means the staff have to come back on a Monday and our staff work hard all year long and so that then kind of deprivives them of a week. So, uh, we can certainly add to three days. I would I think we'd be in year two of using FID day. I think we'd be more comfortable. We would still honor where we would add two traditional days, but I want to be very careful not to run this over
028into that third week in June if at all possible. So, that hence the the change in recommendation and I believe that's the essence of your question. So, I just wanted to give the context of where we are now and how it's different for this particular calendar. I just have one comment on that is um I think it makes all the sense in the world to remain flexible since the days of the week you know the calendar never sits the same but I think it just lends to a lot of confusion for parents in terms of you know well what are we doing this year what are we doing next year so I think as we're trying these fid days out um to kind of decide on on some consistency of what we do yeartoear um
029just so so that it's not uh so confusing. Um that was my comment on the on the fifth days and then I just wanted to a clarification question um that we had asked about checking the date on Eid as well. Do you know if that was also adjusted? We did. We we checked with various religious leaders. We looked at specific religious calendars. Interesting enough, in our county meeting, there are several school districts in Chester County who are going to recognize Eid on their calendar as the 10th. Uh we've checked I won't single out any additional there are Chester County schools that are doing it the 9th. Others have checked with their local leaders and they're being honored on the 10th and it really could could vary. Uh I am very comfortable letting you know that
030we validated with multiple sources within our community that the 9th is a recognized day. I understand there is some flexibility with the celebration of this holiday. However, and I know of at least two other districts in our county who were have it down on the 10th at least on their draft calendars. Um, but we did verify that and I'm comfortable reading this recommendation to you. Great. Thanks for the diligence. All right. Anything to add for 1202 heritage language level 2 curriculum unit 4. These are typically just uh descriptions of the new units that are going to be uh used. Yep. Okay. Correct. Yeah. The units largely speak for themselves. I know our team puts in when they would be delivered. There's information that the board has requested previously and I believe that's all there for
031your review. Um and then our monthly enrollment report report is there as you'll see every month. Um this is always really interesting to look at to see how our district is growing and which schools are growing. Are we shrinking ever? I doubt it, but um that's a that's a very important agenda item that we don't talk about enough. Um all right, with that um is there a motion to approve 1201 to 1203? Motion to approve 1201 through 1203. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. All right. Motion passes 7 to nothing. All right. Facilities, transportation, food services, technology approvals. Okay. 13.01 is the bright bright view landscapes um agreement. This agreement would be for this current 100 Londonwood Road property uh which is district office. Uh this would be for snow removal for the
032parking lot and the sidewalks. Um previously it was with uh Bridge who was the owner of the entire complex. They've now switched owners so we need a new agreement. And all right 1302 is our facilities use report which we see every month. also tells you who's renting our buildings and all of that is very standardized and those interested in renting our facilities can find information on our website. Any other questions? All right. Is there a motion to approve 1301 and 1302? Motion to approve 1301 through 1302. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? All right. Motion passes. Seven to nothing. Um, I don't anticipate any public comment, but [laughter] there might be. No. Okay. Um, all right. Is there any other board comments? Okay. Um, and with that, um, the board will adjourn and
033upon motion and we will go into exec session now that we have sworn in all of our new board members and returning new board members. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All right. Thank you everybody and welcome to our new members. Hi. Congrats.