Great Valley School District Board Meeting - October 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM

001I'm Rachel Gyos. I am the school board vice president. I'll be stepping in for Mr. Barrett tonight. Um, as most of you know, these meetings are recorded. You can see them on our website um to watch back later or to watch live now if you're at home. Um, and with that, we will move on to section two, our student representatives. You may have to push the button. Yep. It's great to see everyone again. I hope you've all had a great day. I know that it's pretty gloomy outside, but I'm excited to bring some cheerful news out of hopefully um cheer you guys up. So, first of all, our fall sports have been doing really great so far. They're all in their home stretch so far. Moving on to post postseason stuff like chess months and

002districts. We have on the left we have field hockey goalie Sana Smiths who celebrated her 400th goal saved. I know that last time she was celebrating her 300th. So, it's been amazing to see how quickly she's progressed. We have our cross country runners in their recent invitational. We have three great valley runners that represented our school. So, we have Kate Deidio on the left um representing varsity girls. We have Braden Barber in the center for varsity boys and Jake May on the right who represented junior varsity boys. So it was good to get some representation from Great Valley as well. Our tennis team has also been doing a fantastic job. They broke a big record as Chessmon champions for the first time in almost 40 years. Actually the last time was 1986. So that was

003a big record. Very proud of the team. And the photo also shows our Chesmont doubles champions who were also champions for the second year in a row. So, it's been nice to see some um good records continue to be broken. And then on the top we have soccer. They had a very close but great win against Unionville High School and this was during their senior night too. So, that was a well-deserved and great win. And moving on to homecoming. We had a great great homecoming this year as usual. We had our pep rally last Friday actually and the events were run by student council. We had a lot of fun events. The photo shows a photo of um dodgeball from the pep rally. And then the um senior class also sold homecoming shirts to fund

004raise for the senior class as well. The football game was later that afternoon against Restston High School and students were able to get face painting from National Art Honor Society which fundraised there as well. And then the dance was last Saturday. It was a blast as usual. Um the theme this year was city lights. It was a very fun theme. Our seniors were Philadelphia, juniors were Los Angeles, sophomores New York City, and then freshmen were Nashville. So, it was great to see some very um spirit um a lot of spirit from our students during homecoming. And also, student council were able to raise almost $2,000 just from selling the shirts and um selling snacks during the dance. So, it was great that we were able to raise a lot of money for the senior class

005for things like prom in the future. And then today I wanted to highlight a class that has recently been added to our school. Um, anatomy and physiology is in its third year at Grey Valley High School this year. And I talked to some students and some teachers. They all really love this class. So, it's great that people really appreciate this new class that's been added. It's taught by Mr. Joy and Miss Riro who teach st um, excuse me, honors and then Miss Concaid teaches standard. And this class is very special because it's very hands-on. People do a lot of like dissections and then hands-on labs in this class which are really fun. I know that Miss Rur talked about a chicken wing lab that students did last month where they were able to learn basic

006dissection skills and then just like um learn about like the muscles and the tendons of a chicken wing. And upcoming I think next week actually they have a heart dissection where they are they are able to like hold an actual human heart and then learn about all the blood and like all the muscles and organs that like run through the heart as well. So that'll be interesting to see. I'll pop in and see what they're doing in that class as well for that. They have a cat dissection at the end of the year which is basically their big project. Um, it features like everything they've learned throughout the year in this dissection. And students are able to also look at some interesting um, organisms. They look at pig lungs throughout the year. They look at

007sheep kidneys. And they're also able to examine some human skulls and human bones to learn about our facial structures. I know that this class has some pretty heavy memorization and like a lot of content thrown at you, but it um prepares students for um life and college skills as well. So, it's a great class that helps you like prepare for college. I know that some past students who are in college now have shared that this class was really a great help in getting used to like college workload and then preparing for classes in college so that they're not overwhelmed at that. So overall, everyone I've talked to, I talked to Neva as well, our past student representative, and everyone really likes this class, and they think it's a great way to learn more about anatomy

008throughout this class. And on the next slide, I have some photos from our actual students doing the labs. The left one shows um our students from last week, actually, doing the chicken wing dissection. So this was again their introduc introductory dissection. They learn some new techniques. And then the middle photo shows the torso model that students use throughout the year to learn about body systems. And the right one shows the cat dissection at the end of the year, which is always really fun. This was from last year, actually. And the student found out that their cat was pregnant and then that was the baby cat that they were holding. So that was a great surprise. And overall, yeah, these dissections are very fun for students. And obviously it's very fun to see like all of

009the different organs and then all of the different organisms that you're able to examine through this class. And next week, next Tuesday actually, Justin will be um highlighting the cyber security course. I know that one is also pretty new to our school, so he'll be talking about that. And then computer science at our school as well. We have a lot of clubs at our school, so I think it's great to use our platforms to highlight some of the clubs. So, we will be talking about some of the new clubs at our school as well. And then I know that we're in like an academic push right now. So, um PSATs and AP exam registration is coming. So, Justin will be highlighting that next week as well. And that's all I have for today. Thank you.

010Thank you, Anna. Anna, thank you. And also just knowing that you're visiting the class for us and then reporting back to the board. Really appreciate that extra step. So, thank you for your presentation and that that extra effort. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to policy 3.01. I'm sorry. Sorry because I I can't find my eyes right now. So, you'll have to bear with me while I um You think they'll help? Just magnify. Oh, yeah. That's really good. Thank you. Just call me Dr. Gfredo. Um all right, getting on with the actual business. Um so, policy um 8 was a revision of the organizational chart um which is just a simplified version of something which actually the original did look pretty convoluted. Um so uh roles were consolidated and one thing of note

011is just that the the older um organizational chart had had a solicitor as part of that but this simplified chart just represents district administration um but no other uh changes in the in the structure. Policy 146.1 um traumainformed impro approaches. This was a proposal for a new policy based on um a new PSBA offering. Um some of the content for this new potential new policy would overlap with the work that's already being done with the equity plan. Um but after discussion on this policy, it seemed a bit too in its preliminary stages to adopt as policy at this time. So, a little bit more um development and um structure to that policy is going to be uh worked on and then we'll revisit that um as a potential new policy at a later date. Um

012policy 236.1 on threat assessment, just minor revisions here with the language. Um policy 254 on educational opportunity for military children. This was a new policy um that is uh being put in based on uh uh state law that was recently passed. Um policy 308.1 uh employee resignations. This is also a new policy that was recommended um which just uh sort of teases out the amount uh of notice the time frame that a staff member is required to give their resignations and also clarifies that once that resignation has been approved by the superintendent that it's unable to be revoked. Policy 317 on conduct and disciplinary procedures. These are just minor revisions based on um PSBA updates. Um policy 317.1 on educator misconduct. Again, just minor revisions on this policy. Policy 320 um which was previously called

013freedom of speech in non-school settings. This is just a name change on this policy based on PSBA recommendations to employee freedom of speech. Um this policy really applies just to personal um the employees personal emails, accounts and platforms and not to district sponsored ones. Those are covered in other policies. Policy 903 on um public participation in board meetings. Again, this is a name change to reflect um PSBA guidance. So this is now going to be public comment in board meetings. Policy 9004 uh public attendance at school events. This is a revised policy to reflect um last year we had updated the tobacco guidelines in our 200 and 300 series policies. This one just um sort of uh dovetales with that and it's updated to include tobacco guidelines, service animals and weapons at school events policy.

014I'm going to skip 217 for a quick second. Um policy 105.3 on academic standards. Um again just uh new language based on the new standards which was suggested by council and administration. Policy 104 105 on curriculum development. This is again um language that was added regarding um some of the special observances and instruction that is required per new law. um things like Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, Arbor Day, Bill of Rights week, um holidays, which I learned a little something about myself during the discussion. Um then we have policy 802, uh school organization, and this was updated to reflect the new 56 center. Policy 827, uh conflict of interest, revised to reflect the new federal requirements. policy 336 and 343. These two policies we had actually discussed last year, but for some reason they never

015came forward for a vote. So, this is just a carryover from the work that was done um last year for approval. Now, um so I'm going to uh go back now to policy 217. Policy 217 is um was an update on the graduation requirements to reflect the 0.5 personal finance credit that was added. Um this one still needs a little bit of discussion as to how to handle the graduation requirement the total number of credits whether we want to increase the total number whether we want to take from one and you know to u make time make space for this extra.5 credit. So, this one we're going to um bring back again once that um has been uh teased out with the high school administration. Um and then two otherformational um items for policies. Um

016we have policy 218 on student discipline um where work is currently being done with the consultant and ad administration. They're meeting in October and November. So, we'll get an update on that um sometime after December. So probably I would think probably in the new year we'll get some updates on um some of that work that's been done and how we can incorporate that into policy and um and we still have on the docket slated the exciting conversation that is to be on overnight trips and our policies on that. So we're planning to revisit that um from last year um in our next policy meeting which will happen on October 28th. Any questions? Yeah, just on 217, you said that that, you know, there's a change because there's now the statemandated half credit for the personal

017finance course and that the high school administration is going to discuss how that would affect other graduation requirements. So, my understanding that they'll come back and make a recommendation that we're either just going to outright add a half credit to the whole pile or we're going to take a half credit off of something else. Correct. And then they'll bring that to the committee and the committee will make a recommendation to the board for discussion because this is a for me that's a big one, right? Yes. changing what credits are required for high school graduation. So, when do you expect that all will come back or I think that discussion is happening currently and so it should hopefully be soon. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Nha. Um moving on to the superintendent's update. Thank

018you very much. Um not much for me today, but I will present next week. I have some exciting updates, some positive news sharing, some things on an afterchool elementary activity bus partnering with our foundation, some other pieces. So, I'll have more information, but I'm I'm going to reserve that for our meeting. And just to get that plug out there, next week's meeting is on a Tuesday because we are off on Monday for Dewali. Uh, so we will be meeting on Tuesday, October 21st. Um, this evening, however, Dr. Wexler and Miss George are going to work as a tandem and they're going to give the first of three updates on our district equity plan. I think everyone on the board is aware we are in our third year of a three-year plan uh on equity. And

019the plan really consists of six main large action areas. And so tonight is just one presentation out of three. The goal is not to unpack the full equity plan this evening, but to give you this high level look and then we'll come back probably in January and then again in the spring. But those six high leverage action areas, one develops uh deals with developing and enacting a shared equity vision. Uh we have other areas uh such as family and community engagement, instructional practices and systems of support. Uh, another area is engaging in self-reflection and professional learning. The fifth area is classroom culture and school climate. And then our last action area within the plan is hiring and retention. And so, uh, we work in that context. And there were a lot of sub goals underneath

020of those areas. And Dr. Wexler and Miss George will give you a a think a pretty good overview of where we stand. So, thank you. Appreciate your work here this evening. Sure. Thank you. And I think this may be the first time we've done an update in quite some time. So it may be a bit repetitive from things that you've heard from years one and two, but it will highlight where I think the team has spent a lot of their time and trying to move the system forward. So um the first area that Dr. Gfreda mentioned was developing and enacting a shared vision. Um we are we've our equity our building based equity teams are up and running. That was a goal last year. They've been working with their principles in um working with Dr.

021Holland Sims and myself to develop professional learning to share with their faculty. There was a big push from our review to make sure that the whole organization understood our equity policy, definition of terms in there, what belonging and dignity and inclusion mean, and examples of that in action, what that looks like in action. They're working with a text called belonging through a culture of dignity. Um we've also done work where all of our faculty have learned strategies to interrupt hate speech and harassment. Um so how to call in and call out that's been shared with all staff. They've developed some repositories around that for their faculties to have as resources. Um there has been a tremendous commitment from the board and as a district to have principal and leadership coaching and coaching for me as

022I'm trying to guide and lead the work with Dr. Holland Sims. Um and also Miss Lynch plays a role in that because responsive approaches and how we intervene at the classroom level is also embedded in that leadership coaching. Um this year a big focus for us as as uh Dr. Ma mentioned is looking at um our discipline dashboards and our discipline policy. That was a goal that we established. Um we wanted to do that last year but again it's a really heavy lift. So I've committed to really focusing on that this year. September 24th, we had all principles and I'd say about 30 to 35 professional staff here at the district office for a full day where we learned about best practices in discipline. We talked about restorative practices. We looked at our data, so

023alternatives to exclusion. So we know that sometimes we need to use suspension and expulsion, but what are we teaching our children in terms of when they make mistakes, when repair has happened. So we learned together as a team and what was really I think exciting for me to see was that the people in the room were really eager to bring it back to their faculties to have more discussion and learning with their staff because if we talk about making some revisions to our policy we want the whole system to understand the why and why we're trying to move in that direction. So that was a great day. We'll come back together in December and continue to pro provide feedback to our policy committee about what some revisions could look like in that area. Lastly, part

024of this vision piece was improving our leverage of social media. We had some feedback from the community. I think our CDI, which meets quarterly, that we weren't really doing enough to promote the work that we're that we're doing. I know sometimes we just get focused on doing the work that we forget that we want to share it. So, I know even in September and different trainings we've held, we've been more conscious about having some photography taken and just sharing that more publicly, creating someformational videos, and we'll continue to do that because I think it shares the message of the district's commitment to that. So again, that vision work, a lot of what we discussed was the professional learning, establishing the building based teams, getting people kind of on board with the why and all of

025the things that are all-encompassing around equity in an organization because there's a lot of pieces to it. As Dr. Gfredo mentioned in the beginning, when we do professional learning with staff, one of the things that Dr. Holland, Sims, and I'd like to do is collect feedback. So this is just a slide that kind of tells you like after we've had some of those sessions and then they go out and deliver it to their faculties, what's the feedback that they're receiving. So um you can see those there. I mean there's a lot of commentary about the staff being really open-minded. I've sat in on some of those even last year. I'll do that again on Friday. We have one at Katie Markley. Um I think our staff are generally feeling good about sharing the the information

026and the learning with their faculties and collecting feedback. Um, a lot of our staff like our book studies. So, you'll see that that's happening in some schools as well. And some of the grows like opportunities that they think we wish we could do more of. You can see there, too. Professional learning time is always a challenge. So, when we're doing some of this work for equity, we've been embedding it sometimes in faculty meetings or when we have those like half-day sessions. We're capitalizing on those as well. People want to see what it means in action. So I think in the second update we'd like to share more with you about at each school like here are the some of the things that you'll see happening um that are kind of tangible things that people can

027grab on to um and that concrete application piece. So those are just areas of of growth and um what Dr. Holland Sims like to ask this is her quote if you could dream out loud what would you want to see and you know it's things themes that we hear often like people feeling like I wish there were more support for they hear that sometimes for our multilingual learners sometimes we hear it more for students with more behavioral and emotional health issues that's been a struggle that we're trying to collect feedback from staff like what would more support look like and we continue to analyze that we've made some improvements at 56 missins more this past year we added emotional support more behavioral health support there at that building and it's made a really big difference.

028Um there were some concerns about transportation barriers. You heard that mentioned earlier working with foundation to potentially have like an afterchool busing option for students so they can access um different clubs and such that happen either before or after school. A lot of again as I just said concerns about mental health and behavioral support for students that think we have support but is it is it enough? And this year will also be a year that I'll be working with all of our principles and staff to just make sure we have a solid inventory of what all of our supports and interventions look like academically, behaviorally, and social and emotionally because it's all three, right? Like they're they're the whole child. Um opportunities for teacher and student voice. People love to be involved and and part

029of the work. And then of course we've heard this that a position that was just for this work would be helpful. Um, but I think we've added, which I'll get to at the end, about, you know, adding our HR supervisor has been a great help and support to for us to focus on some of these other systemic issues that isn't just HR. Um, there's many other aspects to it. So that's just I'd like to just share the feedback with our staff because um in the absence of having a dedicated person, which we know we we we don't necessarily need to do right now, but it does require us to rely on our principles and our faculty to learn and grow as a community and then to share that with their faculties. kind of how we've

030been really rolling out the information and the professional learning to set the vision and help lay the foundation for uh the work that we're trying to accomplish. So family and community engagement um was also a area there of one of the six action areas. So, a few of our one of our schools at the middle level, they did, and this was pulled right out of the equity review. Um, they did host a multilingual learner family night in August. Um, that was volunteer staff volunteered to bring that forward with their uh the support of their principal. Um, we have a counselor who wants to is working on her internship to be an administrator. So, Miss Deetsz, who is also bilingual at the middle school level, she um volunteered to start a family mentorship program. So, we

031recruited a few parents to begin that. We just haven't had any families sign up to be a part of it, but I will continue to follow up with her to see if we can expand that maybe out of that building. Maybe there's more to do at elementary or high school, but that was something that was in the um equity review and something that we had set as a goal that we're still working on. In the equity review and in the plan, there was several recommendations about hiring translators to support some of the needs of our multilingual learners and families. And I think what we've learned and credit to Dr. Oul, we have technology that we can also leverage instead of relying on people as much. So I know he's done a great job of um

032working with Terresa Marsden. Parent Square has been a huge enhancement and we've worked with all the principles to understand our come alive feature which is another way to get interpreter and translation services but not necessarily relying on having to have like a whole cadre of interpreters available for conferences or other things. We can we're going to first try to work with some of the technology to enhance that. So there has been a lot of shifting here that's really to help communication overall, but in the spirit of that, it's making information accessible to to all all of our families who are speaking multiple languages. It's not perfect. We've gotten some feedback that it's not perfect, but it's it's it's an enhancement. I would say it's it's better than it it was. Um, so the next area,

033instructional practices and systems of support. Um, I know Dr. Beck and Dr. Oul talk a bit about this in their um curriculum and instructional text subcommittee, but it's those consistent frameworks particularly in math so that our students know what to expect in a math class no matter what level they're in. Um and I'm sure she would be happy to talk even more about that with you if you have more questions. It's not my area of expertise, but I can speak to it broadly. Um and also there's been a tremendous amount of work in focusing on small groupoup instruction. So that's required some staffing shifts and some scheduling shifts for our students, but we believe that that's the best practice in helping them to learn and acquire the skills that they need. Um, and we're creating

034individual learning pro profiles for students. That's all occurring through Dr. Beck's leadership with the ELD department. Um, where they're individual learning pro profiles for students K through six and then we will expand into seven through 12. So that's that framework component that's really focusing on the supports and needs of some of our students who we know have been somewhat vulnerable and needing more from us as a system. You um I think it was last year we talked and this was in the in the plan as well about our grant positions. This is going back in history but I just want to share we're thankful for having some additions there. We added more supports at the high school through a mentorship program. Um so that's again those systems of support. It's like how can and you

035see that pop up in the climate survey. Do students feel they can get what they need when they're in distress whether it be academic, behavior or social, emotionally that enhances a student's um perspective of how they experience our system. So it's important that we take a look at that as a district. Um also job embedded support using an inquiry model. These are all things that were embedded into the plan. We talked a bit about that tonight in the subcommittee. Our teachers really appreciate I think when we have we have external consultants that we are working with but then they're coming in and they're observing classroom lessons or they might model lessons provide feedback to our teachers in real time. So it's better than just kind of going to a conference getting information and coming back.

036It's more that job embedded support whether it be through some of our external consultants or even through our internal coaches. And then lastly, um I alluded to this very briefly earlier, but the review of our CST and MTSS support. So those are all the things that happen like before a child might be referred to special education. And we just want to take this year to really audit that. We have a new supervisor of student services. She and I are going out and meeting with all the teams just to hear from them about what's working well, what are areas of vulnerability and struggle for you and supporting students. And that will help us even with budget season when we think about like are we adequately staffed? Do we need anything different or any changes um that

037we're trying to gather that information now? Engaging in self-reflection and professional learning. This is actually a photo of our September 24th um training with one of our newly hired counselors. So I hope she's excited to already be in a picture. She just started this year. But um so our administrative team um has worked with Nicole Holland just as a team. So we've received some professional learning from her on workplace wellness which then you know adds into that recruitment and retention effort. She's come out and presented and worked with us as an admin counsel. As an admin team we've used the belonging through a culture of dignity dignity text. So we even had some goal setting as administrators dispositions for dignity. What are the things that we need to be working on to be like receptive

038to feedback? All the things that you need to be sort of equipped with to do equity work because it it can be challenging at times and we just wanted to look at that internally as administrators and then use some of the work from the text for goal setting. Um referenced earlier, but the our principles and their building teams, they can work with Nicole Holland Sims at any time to set some strategies or goals for their school buildings. Um, we had a staff member step up and provide some trauma-informed practices um, training at Sugartown and that was very wellreceived by staff. Um, we've learned recently that we can get a module through what we call vector. So, we're making some shifts in our HR department to help streamline some of the online training. That's a requirement

039and we think we can add an enhancement here for trauma informed. So, we're looking at that. We'll have hopefully have that in place for next year because again that challenge is time and relying on people to get all that information out to our staff. There's a lot of requirements and then there's all the other things that we need to do just to help our folks be equipped to be in the classrooms and leading instruction and all the things. Um and then lastly, we did add a professional learning uh time to new teacher induction. So I go in for about one to two hours. I try and bring the new teachers up to speed on what I've just kind of talked with you about. Like this is the work that our building based teams have been

040doing. If you're interested, this is how you join. And then I'm also very conscious of sharing like our title nine and our harassment policies so that they know as an employee if you feel like you've been subject to harassment or something that is interfering with your ability to feel like you belong or having a good experience in the system, these are the policies that you can rely upon and here's how you get in touch with people that can help you. So, we're just more explicit about that with our new staff and, uh, we'll continue to do that with all of our staff. Okay, we have two more. Um, classroom culture and school climate. So, we administered the climate survey in spring for students and I believe there's we would like to do it again in

041December and I know Dr. Fredo has spearheaded a lot of this, so I may turn it over to him for questions. Um, under this subtitle too, we made a commitment to coding harassment and so rather than just coding an incident is like inappropriate behavior. We're more explicit about what happened and our building leaders do get in touch with either myself or Dr. O tool so that we're in the know about that. So, as a system, we're really aware of how often it's occurring. Um, what the consequences are and how we're teaching students about the harm that was done and why that word might have been offensive or what they did was completely inappropriate, how it could be a violation of policy. So we were doing a lot more not just like a suspend and code

042is it appropriate behavior. It's much more explicit and there's more teaching involved which has been helpful right because we know that our students one of the things we talked about on September 24th in discipline is that it takes a lifetime for people to learn not to act on their impulses and we have kids that are making mistakes. Um, sometimes there's, you know, intentionality of course behind it, but we we want to look at it as much as possible as a learning experience for students and then be able to build off of not only the consequence, but the teaching. So, there's a lot of work that's been going on with that. I referenced the discipline policy practices. Um again with school climate and culture like how our students experience discipline. Um the sense of fairness about

043what happens to students when they may have been targeted for harassment or such like that all plays into how our students experience our system. Um and then as we've referenced earlier with policy meeting um our principles and faculties will engage in a professional learning both in October and November. Buildings will be doing it at different times where they're going to be looking at discipline data. Um ways that bias shows up sometimes at the classroom level with how we intervene with kids and some training around that. Um and then ideas about best practices in student discipline through an equity lens. And I'm happy to continue to share more about that as there are questions. I'm just trying to stay there's just been a lot that's been done. I don't want to inundate but um we we

044had a great day together in September and I'm just looking forward to that um moving outward to the faculties and we'll collect feedback too to see what questions our staff have. Um there is a lot of misconceptions sometimes around using restorative practices. So we want to lay that out and gather feedback about even staff concerns like if we were to go in more of this direction continue upon what we're doing as staff. What concerns do you have about that? Like will you you know because some staff may feel as though yes the teaching is important. So is the consequence. So, we have to find a way to make sure we're all as much as possible on the same page organizationally about the why behind the work and the learning and and the pieces that go

045into to changing a system in that area. So, more to come on that and we will provide more updates. Um, the climate survey data there's there is a lot to this and I don't for purpose of time we didn't want to go into all of it. So we're just sharing with you some very high level averages in the in the big clusters and um we can share with you that all of our data is around the state it's above the state average but um at the secondary level I know that the metric for what's considered like favorable would be slightly above that I think at about a 3.4. Um so you could there there are some areas where although we're above the state average we you know according to what our students are sharing with

046us there is there is some work to be done and this is our first sort of dipstick into it. Um but I think if we do it annually we can hope that we see trends and maybe some shifts depending on what we're actually doing in terms of the equity work. Um so I'll just pause there because I know there may be questions that maybe we can answer. Can you talk a 3.9 out of 20? Yeah. What are we What does this mean? Yeah. So, do you want I don't know if I'll turn it over to you and you can. I'm happy to. No, it's a good question. So, uh all of the scores are on a zero to four basis. So, there are different thresholds. So, the way PTE breaks it out, um if you

047have a 3.5 or higher, really a 3.6, 35 is the cutoff, that's kind of viewed favorably. you're on the favorable side of student responses. Then you have this band in the middle. And believe it or not, all of our schools fell within this second band, which is the neutral band. We weren't quite favorable, but we weren't unfavorable, which is like at about a 2.5 and below is the cutoff for unfavorable. Now, I realize this is just one data point. This is a one-time administration that we gave last spring. We'll give it again in December. And now we'll start to have multiple data points that we can certainly thread. The student climate survey is really broken into three areas. The first is on student engagement and support. So we know that's aligned with our equity plan.

048We liked it. The second is social emotional learning. And I will say across our three schools, this is an area where we saw lower marks. So this is certainly going to be a focus for us moving forward. The social emotional set of questions. And then lastly, there were a set of questions around safety and respectful climate. And actually, our scores were pretty consistent and a little on the higher end when it comes to safety. A lot of things relative to bullying and so on. So, it's hard. I don't want to overextrapulate from one survey in one moment in time, but as we move forward, we'll have areas of target. And I really do think you'll see within our district goals this year the social emotional learning component helping students to regulate how they interact with

049one another. You just heard Dr. Wexler talk about building community responsive practices also restoring relationships. So um our students were very candid in their responses and we do recognize this is an area that we're going to need to bolster and um hence we've been working on a lot of these areas and we'll continue to. So uh the bands hopefully you understand where we are. Um and let me see if there are other questions. Can you give an example of a question under the social emotional learning just so I understand what Yeah. One might ask students um it'll ask them about how well they regulate. Uh they self-regulate like I'm able to control uh my emotions when I'm with people I disagree with. Uh it might be a question like that. So they're outward questions. Some

050ask about how they feel about student interactions amongst themselves and some are reflective questions where students are asked to process how they deal when they're with those that they disagree with or that they don't approve or that they feel others hear them. One other question might be, you know, I feel heard when I share my view. So, it's kind of this tug and pull of both outward and inward type of reflections. One thing that it's it's interesting because I think it aligns with what we hear from other administrators that we feel as educators we're having to do more teaching of the social emotional learning skills than we've done in the past. Um, and that's part of what I said about meeting with our CST teams and the counselors, getting feedback from them about how are

051you intervening, what types of groups are you running, are they targeted, do you need more curricular resources? Um, so those are the questions that we are having. I think the data show that it it aligns with some of what we already intuitively knew, but our students, it seems as though we we're still trying to meet that challenge of teaching all the things, but also making sure those SEAL skills are really embedded in in learning. Yep. And to your point, Dr. Wexler and I didn't frame this, but within board docs, there are some reference documents, and we actually put the blank surveys in there. I apologize for not indicating they are there but certainly check those check those out and you can review those those questions. So, um when we talk about um we said we

052were looking at a different climate study um to administer, how will we standardize um from the one that we administered this year to the new one so that we know that we're tracking progress accurately the same one, right? We look use the same tool. Yeah, we are going to continue to use the PDE student climate survey moving forward. Now I remember in a prior meeting we talked about the youth truth survey. I remember member Mishwan in particular asked about youth truth. We last administered that right before the pandemic but there is some pretty good alignment between this current survey and youth truth. Again different tools but similar um youth truth for example had lots of questions about engagement. Many of those questions were similar to what we see on the PTE. There uh were questions

053about academic rigor. Students were asked about the relationships, how they interacted. Specific questions about bullying existed in both surveys. Um, there were questions about peer collaboration and culture and youth truth. You will see some of those manifest in the the PD climate survey. So, we think there are some trends. They're different tools. We recognize that, but there really were similarities and that's why we felt more comfortable going in with this newer tool moving forward. Does that speak to it? Thank you. What are the plans to follow up on? Um, so you said you're going to readminister the survey in December and so my stance on surveys is always they raise more questions than they answer. So now we have all these questions about what's really happening with this data. What are your plans beyond December

054once you get those scores back to follow up on individual bands of questioning beyond another survey? So focus groups, student, I don't know, feedback, but something to better understand what these scores are telling us because to your point, we don't know right now, right? And we might know a little bit more after a second data point, but it's still very fuzzy. So what are your plans to follow up with students to follow up on this information? Yeah, we always want to look to triangulate the data. I mean, certainly the fact that we just have one data point. Um, you're aware that we have student forms, right? We have a middle school form, we have a high school form. We use that as another avenue. We have parent key communicators who I meet with more than

055quarterly. We have so we almost have these built-in focus groups that we can often take questions back to and analyze. And then we don't run um in the past we've run various groups. Um years ago we ran uh freshman focus groups. We picked 50 freshmen. One of the questions came up around transitions and what does that transition to high school look like? So we corded created focus groups with 50 nth grade students and a counselor and administrator sat in we asked questions we we worked through it. So we have a lot of different tools ways that once we get the information from the survey it's okay how else can we verify validate and triangulate some of the data. So those are some things that we've done in the past and we're certainly open to doing

056them you know as we move forward. Yep. Also, we we have additional surveys, followup, more in-depth things that we can do, too. Those tools have really expanded in recent years. Trying to think we got this data um when the results came. It was right. Was it near summer? I'm trying to remember when they It was We did administer it in April. We want to get more on like a midyear cycle so that we can report out to you as a board and our community in the springtime. We don't like the idea that we gave a survey last year and we're talking about it now. uh we want to make sure we administer the survey and talk about the results in the same school year and that's why we're going to move up the administration to

057December so that we can come back to you in the spring and share trends and so much more to come and I'm welcome to um suggestions that you might have when it comes to uh acquiring additional information. I think I was going to say one thing we can commit to this time of year we do usually meet with principles about their goal setting for the fall. So this would be a good opportunity to just some of our principles have done that but I think to revisit the data and say we know you got this in the summer. Let's take a look at it together. Is there anything you would want to do in your building to help elicit more feedback from students because um I think those student groups naturally exist in some of the

058secondary schools but they tend to be kind of hand selected. So I think Dr. tool and I can brainstorm about that as we meet with principles in the next one, you know, month or so where we're gearing up for their evaluations and help supporting them in goals that tie to like our comprehensive plan, our equity plan that they're leading at at the building level. Yeah. Um, so that's I I'm just for year three I'm very thankful that we were able to actually get the climate assessment done. We spent a lot of time talking about which one to do. It is a metric that we have that we continue that we can continue to administer at least give us some sense of whether we're making shifts or not. I mean the discipline work you know looking

059at our supports for students all the work that we're doing curricularly to make sure that we have consistent frameworks and that kids feel engaged. It kind of all all everything we're doing systemically feeds into it. So it is just kind of like a at least it's a dipstick into how how our students are perceiving the system. I'm sure it's not perfect, but I do like the idea of talking more with kids as much as possible. So, um, and then we only have a couple more slides. So, I would just just for per I'd love for you to meet, uh, Miss George who joined us, um, in the summer in July. Thank you for that position. It has been a tremendous asset to our department. um we've worked together and Bertu has really spearheaded some significant

060changes in our department and I would just like an opportunity to meet her and hear from her and um I'm going to turn it over to her. Good evening. Thank you Dr. Wexler for the opportunity to come and uh meet with the board and uh present some of the improvements we've made in our hiring and retention uh practices. So we started with you know expanding our outreach um for diverse candidate polls you know by uh posting our positions in various um job sites like Indeed. Uh we have some interesting uh posts on LinkedIn um uh thanks to our communications department uh about our vacancies um so that we can we are expanding our outreach uh to increase um the visibility for our um job posts. We're also posting it you know on handshake so that

061you know all our new college students um are um seeing our posts and also the DVCE sites and various other you know employment websites to expand our outreach. We also uh made improvements to our job postings uh to make sure that our job descriptions are um very transparent about what exactly the expectations of uh the position is and to communicate the responsibilities and the expectations of the positions. Um um um also including the compensation and the time um so that when people look at the posting they understand you know what what does this position entail? what are they looking for? What's the qualification that I need to apply for this position? Um, and what are the hours like and how much does it pay? And we are also uh including our equal opportunity language on

062all postings um to to um reiterate that you know we are committed to um the um equal opportunity employment. Um when it comes to uh interviews, you know, we've developed a structured interview process uh wherein, you know, the interview questions are consistent um throughout um the uh each position. Um and the candidates get you know, tailored interview questions for each role. And um we do include questions on cultural competence and diversity awareness to ensure that that aspect of our priority is captured. And there is a section in the interview form that is dedicated to um how the candidates handle diversity in inclusivity and cultural sensitivity. Um we ensure that the um interview panels uh include people from various different backgrounds so that uh we eliminate um bias and that there are different perspectives coming into

063making decisions about hires. Um um we also have developed guidelines to um interview panelists on best practices when it comes to interviewing and guidelines on um questions that can and cannot be asked um and how to eliminate bias and um making decision making um etc. uh we are um keeping a priority to ensure that all the candidates are kept engaged irrespective of whether they are selected for the position or not because a candidate that is not a right fit for one position may be an ideal fit for another position. So we ensure that we communicate uh with them consistently about where they are in the process and where the next steps are. Um and uh another new initiative that we have is um exit interview. So, we're going to begin uh doing exit interviews for

064all staff that are leaving uh the district to understand, you know, what motivated them to leave and what the reasons are and to get feedback and make improvements accordingly. Yeah. And then Dr. Wexler is going to talk about the investigation process. Um, and then just very briefly, again, I referenced this earlier, but just being very clear and transparent with staff and even families when there is a complaint, like what policies we're investigating under, making sure we're offering Title 9 investigations. We do that routinely. So, it's just continuing to coach, particularly principles who are often at the ground level with those student and employee concerns. Um, but the enhancements that have been made, you know, Ratu has done a great job of streamlining some processes. We're also going to be coming to you later in the

065year about an enhancement to our um our system which will make us even more efficient and less reliant on people um to move some of this work forward. So, she's got a great eye for that. I'm just really thankful. So, thank you because we had a lot of paper processes and there's just way too much compliance oriented things in our department. not only with hiring, of course, we want to hire the best people, but we also have to handle a lot of mandatory trainings, investigations, like it's it's multiaceted. So, we're really looking to create just more effective processes. Um, so thank you. I like to share our data. Um, I will say like many districts I've spoken to, we've we've seen more interest um at the administrative level with diversifying our hiring. That is where

066we've been more successful. We're still struggling at the school-based level. Um, so these these are the data that show um the ethnic and racial background of our staff and of course the priority is to have our diverse staff with our children. Um, but we are we are still struggling and one of the great assets that I think Miss George brings here is that she led recruitment and retention for the whole county of Lancaster. So, I'm just hopeful with more support that we will be able to do more engagement. We've not done great with the local partnerships with just not having the time and the capacity. So, we'll focus more in on that this year. Um, but that is that is the data as it exists right now. Um, and then just lastly, the action, and

067I'm happy to come back and answer questions on any slide, but just school-based action like our staff, even community, what does it look like? What are you doing? So, in the next uh presentation, we'll share really just from each school, some highlights, but I just, you know, included a few here on the next two slides about things that are happening. Here's a great example. Sugartown Voices. This is a group of kids that we have that's already been formed that Dr. Forest has been working with. So that would be a great followup for some of the discussion we had earlier related to the survey. Our CDI talked a lot about partnering with secondary and elementary. There's some examples of that of our high school and middle school partnering on some initiatives and our high school partnering

068with an elementary school. Um we have staff that are becoming more engaged on some of the proactive discipline approaches through a book study is another example. Um, let's see. At the 56 level, their monthly house meetings have been very focused on many things, but inclusion and belonging, empathy, and celebrating diversity. So, they're embedding it into their house meeting structure. Um, you can see some examples of Heritage Fest, having it during the school day rather than at night. You know, the high the high schools on their third year of their cultural celebration. We've restructured some of our staffing and the edrs at the high school level to really support this work. Students came forward and there previously had been a black student union, but then there wasn't and they wanted to bring that back. And so

069we have advisors and that's been reestablished. I believe that was last year and some of our admins have gone and met with those students to hear about their experiences creating those spaces for kids to share their experiences in a safe place. Um, so yeah, so those are just some examples and we'll continue to provide more of that um in I guess in the January presentation. So I apologize that is a lot to throw at you. I just it's just been a while since we've had the opportunity to really kind of go broadly with it. Um, we have an accompanying document that is just keeping track of like where we are with each action step, which I think we could eventually maybe this year make public as well, so that people are we're very transparent about

070what we've accomplished and where we're still working. So, thank you. Any questions? We do know that was a lot. I mean, we're unpacking a three-year plan in a half hour, but uh I think you did a great job. I appreciate all the hard work both administratively and with our our teams. questions. Yeah, I actually have two I have two questions. But first, I want to say like I I acknowledge like I think we all know that this is not a simple task that it's it's more of a a paradigm shift. Yeah. Like multi-layered paradigm shift and not just kind of initiative. So like I I think you know we recognize how complicated it is. Um so so my two questions are one one is really simple. the um uh the grant program at the high

071school. Um uh I know that there were some the mentor. Yeah. So so I know kind of in this time of kind of questionable grant funding like where where do we stand with that? Oh yes. So good. That's a great question. Actually those were the Esser grant positions. We had quite a few. I think at the time we had maybe 10 or 12 for the whole district. So we had written into the plan that we would examine the need and bring it to the board and we carefully selected to keep two of the several that we had because we did not have support at the high school level. All that being said um in that way those additional mentor so it's already been but it's budgeted for so that's not rellyant on grant. So they're

072there and they're in their second year. Yeah. And now that you remember now you I remember that we talked about that. So I'm sorry. And then my my other question is more about um can you speak to any of the the metrics that are being used to measure success of some of these initiatives that are already in place? So we have some better recordkeeping um some more I I mean I know we don't have the responsive discipline like in place officially yet but I know there's it seems like there's been a move towards that and another things oh or the interventions from the the the teachers in terms of how to interrupt hate speech. So you mentioned like another a bunch of different things that are actually happening now and are there ways of of

073measuring the success of those interventions? Yeah, I think that's it's complicated. I know even with our discipline work some of the education that we've done is that to set metrics based on like certain groups having less discipline is not usually advisable although we want to see that. Right? So that's like depending on what area of equity we're focused on like it might be student achievement and are there opportunity gaps between certain groups. So that could be something that we would study. We could look at our climate assessment annually to see if there are changes. Um obviously our hiring data we would want to So I think there's there are data points but they're very they're I don't know I don't know that they're super sensitive. Um so I think it's that combination of using some

074of those quantitative data that we collect and then I think also maybe focus groups and just continuing to engage. Um, outside of that, one of the things that Andrea Dinsbour and I talk about too is just the percentage of special education, um, monitoring that very closely. So, I go back to those systems of support. Like if we don't have a great support system, we do tend to see that we'll get more students being eligible for special education and that can become a problem with our state data and then we get put so we're always monitoring that too. So it's it's so multiaceted but I think you know maybe the more that we can reference data change that might be helpful um in in each you know in those different areas. I don't know. Yeah I

075have two questions. Sure. One on the work and one on the plan. Um one of the previous slide the the you know if you could dream slide. Yeah. Many of those reflected the desire to be heard and valued voice. Um yeah are we so the some of I see that that's included in some of the work that's being done to be able to create those spaces but we do have avenues already built in you know for those um you know for people to be heard and valued. Um, are we doing enough to make people aware of those channels that are already existing? Yeah, and I think, you know, this is I will say that this is from our staff, too. So, I think that's like this year we're we've always done this, but trying to

076be even more intentional about including our staff into input and decision- making. So I think with the AI piece, we have some curriculum councils that we'll be working on through teaching and learning. The discipline work, we're involving professional staff to get their voice and get their feedback and get their input. So but from a community standpoint, if that's more your question, I don't other than like the CDI and some of those other PTO groups, the one thing that we could do is assess the community. That's like another facet of climate assessment, right? but engaging outside of those vehicles. I'm not sure if we have any other or ways to promote it. Is that maybe what you're or I mean just visibility of the avenues that are already there because I think I think if you

077if you survey I don't think you need to survey I think this is a universal you know societal need these days is just the desire to be heard and valued. Yes. Um, so I think no matter what subset you um you survey, you're going to get that same response in some way, shape, or form. So just being conscientious, especially since we're doing a little bit more work with communications and being proactive, like are we making those um are we highlighting the avenues that we already have in place um for voices to be heard, not just staff, but all around? Um it's probably a good reminder about the Council for Diversity and Inclusion. That's been a fairly consistent group for the past couple of years. We expanded it, but just to highlight that and see see

078if there is anyone else who's interested in joining. That is another great vehicle. The P I think the PKC's I'm not sure how that's managed with like who sits on those and such, but you know, we do have to remind ourselves that sometimes you have the same people sitting on some of those committees for a really long time. So I think that's a a good point. So I can talk with Teresa and Dr. Cafredo about that. It would be a good opportunity to survey again or at least share again that these venues exist. Yeah. Especially with our multilingual family, you know, getting them involved and hearing giving them an opportunity for their voices to be heard too since we're trying so hard to be able to um support them, right? Um and then my second

079question was just that as we're working with the consultants, you know, this year, are we also simultaneously being mindful of putting um um putting people who are working with those consultants in a place to be able to carry on that work internally once those consultants go away? Yeah, it's just I mean Dr. Holland always says, "My goal is to coach my way out of here." So she's been pretty she has she's I know has a lot of work that she does all across the state and the nation. Um so yes I would say I think for me I've just I have relied on her expertise because there is so much systemic shifting and I think our principles have benefited as from it as well but um I know we've had those conversations with Miss Lynch

080too and um with the training that we've the professional learning we've worked on with Dr. Holland Sims, it is more of a you receive, you digest, and then you share. So, that seems to be working now with her sort of background support. Um, but I would say we would hate to lose her, but we can always look to see if we don't need her quite as much. Um, and she's she's just been a great asset. I think she can do a lot behind the scenes to keep us moving in the in the right direction and sometimes just problem solve things that come up, ways to manage a situation, like things of that nature, just to tap into her skill set and expertise. So yeah, and just now I appreciate the question and I part of

081the goal with particularly Dr. Holland Sims and I remind the board uh there was a time several years ago where she ran the Pennsylvania Department of Ed's equity hub for the entire state and so the fact that we were able to contract with her and continue to work with her. But I think Joanna's work and with the team's work, investing in those building baseased core equity teams because they're the one at the grassroots level that's going to make this this um this work happen. And going to Miss Chaznoff's point, this is a systematic change and it can't be just solely top down. And I think we've been good messengers saying here's what we stand for, here's what we believe, here's our equity plan, but we need partners at the building level to really make this

082happen. Teachers, principles, everybody who engage. And so working with Dr. Holland Sims and investing in those core equity teams. Last year was I think the first year that we did that, right? They all turned around their own building based staff development throughout the year and I think that was a really good launch. So um I totally agree we are setting that up where we want these teams to be self- sustaining with some additional support uh and help. And I just want to frame too, we forget this because it's been so many years, but if you recall, we took the 2223 school year to partner with the University of Pennsylvania and they did a deep dive across our district and met with every affinity group you could imagine and that's what informed this report and I

083think we have to go back to that because it's so far in the rearview mirror. But this report is solely based on the feedback that we got from the community three years ago. And so although things shift and change, I think that was really powerful because prior to that, we were kind of throwing darts at a at a at a board hoping we hit and we said, "No, let's take the time to do this, right? Let's thoroughly investigate." Penn came in here and it took all year and at the end of the year we came up with a three-year plan. So, um, that's important, too. And I think that's a testament that we have been listening to our community. Um, but we need to keep doing it. Uh, we need to do more and more.

084Uh, but I do think it's important that we bring everyone with us on this journey. We're leaders, yes, but we can't do it alone. And you've been a great board. Everyone's really clear on where you stand. And, uh, I I do think we've made great progress over these last three years. So, um, thank you. And let me just see if there's any last questions. More question. It's not not something I can answer tonight, but when I look at this dream slide, I kind of wonder if you ask people what they want. If they could dream out loud, then I think they deserve a response and a sense of where we are with it, right? So, I would love to see things like where are we with inclusive representation and curriculum and disrupting stereotypes? What are

085our mental health supports and behavioral health supports? So, I feel like some of this may have been accomplished. Some of this is very attainable with current resources. Some of them may require a resource ask, but I think if you're going to ask people, then it's clearly something that's important. So, then we have an obligation to kind of address it um rather than just leave it out there. So, it's not for tonight, but one of the things I would love to see in a future presentation or just some information moving forward is how are all of these lining up with activities we've already accomplished or are currently accomplishing or can accomplish in the future? Otherwise, this is literally just a dream slide, which yeah, is what it is. No, that's Thank you. That's great feedback. Thank

086you. All right. Thanks. Thank you very much. I appreciate both of your work. uh and also the presentation this evening. Um Miss Gus, back to you. All right. Uh moving on. Um 501 us talking about steam. Is there Yep. And we can approach all of those if you have any questions about those units. I know Dr. Oul's here. Uh they're just there and they'll be up for your approval next next Tuesday. All right. Uh facility 601. Good evening. Uh there is no facilities report uh but the next meeting is scheduled for November 20th of this year. Uh 6.02 is 41 Moors Road due diligence proposal. Uh this is to be completed within 90 days and it's scheduled to be completed within 30 to 40 days. Um the once upon a time we were bringing somebody

087in to look at all our space to talk about I think athletic fields and things of that nature. Did that get reported out on on what the recommendations are? Um we actually just received the recommendations back uh two weeks ago. Okay. Um so we still have to push it through the facilities committee meeting. So that will happen at the November 20th meeting and then we'll bring it back to the board. Thank you. And if I could just ask a question. And I know and it's not necessarily uh relevant to this particular bid, but kind of just bids in general. Um what is our process for for re soliciting bids on projects like this? I know this is a big, you know, $42,000 item. Um and I understand kind of the time time sensitivity with regard

088to this particular issue, but I just want to make sure that like I understand the process that um for for soliciting bids so we're not just going with the same vendor. Yeah, there are thresholds that we do have to follow. Um, they do change um because federal thresholds are different than state thresholds. Um, but in particular, we usually follow the 215 threshold. So, anything above that. So, normally, yes, this would be a bid, but because of time constraints, uh, due diligence is not a required bid. I have a question on this also. So, um, it's an architectural firm doing the due diligence and we have, if we approve it, um, that we have used before. Uh, but I'm just thinking of, you know, as an individual homeowner, when you do an inspection on your house,

089you have different, you have an inspector, but you also have specialists that come in for the different pieces, and it looks like the specialized parts are included there. Does Shraider have all of those capabilities in-house or do they subcontract to firms who do things like the environmental piece and this and that? So all of the environmental pieces, the studies, um that will be done by TNM Associates. They are also the same group that um prepared the field study report for us as well. It just looks like one document here, but it's they're separate. We're paying them separately. Or is Shraider like a general contractor? SH is like the general. Okay, got it. Thank you. Correct. Is it okay to move on to transportation? Yes, please. Under transportation 7.01 01 is the driver approvals for the

090Atlas drivers for the 2526 school year. Um the Norcross, first student, first ALT and Craft were already approved at the August and September uh board meetings. Can I just ask just very quick because we get driver approvals every so often, are they actually helping to alleviate our transportation, you know, whatever issues may actually be? Um they actually each contractor serves basically a different purpose. Um so craft um does the majority of our district. Um nor cross would probably be second. They're doing more of our athletics um activities, things like that. Uh first Alt and uh Atlas um they're doing more of our specialized transportation services um for special needs or um special accommodations is what their drivers are comparing it. I mean to the point though, we're not in the dire straits we were a

091few years ago with driver shortages, but it is tightening up. It is getting a little harder. So, we want to be candid, but again, not where we were where we were doing lots of double bus runs. I think we all remember that. Uh but we are noticing a little bit of constriction perhaps with driver availability. Am I correct? That that is correct. Um over the last uh two weeks, we have had some constriction on the driver capabilities just because of illness. Um, so if you get a couple drivers down, that does impact uh what a bus run looks like. So, all right, moving on to food service. Under food service 8.01, this is the hood's proposal. This is an agreement uh for the cleaning of the kitchen exhaust systems. And under technology 9.01 01 is

092a renewal for Swank annual services. This is a license to allow showings of videos and movies for family events, film or foreign language clubs. May I continue on please? Okay. Under financial approvals 10.01 is also a renewal that is partnering with academic excellence. This is uh for 12 days of coaching. Uh and the total will be reimbursed through our title two funds and this is literacy K through 12. Um and there will be multiple staff members receiving um or participating in this coaching. Under 10.02 this is the engagement letter of Saxton and Stump. This is to retain a solicitor for our legal matter with with the partnership with Whistler. Uh this is for our thirdparty investigator for title 9. 10.03 03 is attainment company subscription. This is a three-year web-based subscription uh for go talk

093and it will assist students who receive special speech services. 10.04 is Riverside insight subscript subscription. This is testing materials for school psychologists. This includes training and administrating administering the tests through Riverside. This used to be paper and it's now electronic. 10.05 uh is our educational service agreements and they are all attached for your review. 10.06 is a donation to the middle school and the high school. Uh this is to Sweltzer Engineering Laborator Laboratories Inc. for staff members who nominated the middle school and the high school to receive a $100 donation. This is to encourage students to develop a lifelong love of learning in math and science. 10.07 is the per pupil budget for the 2627 school year. 10.08 is the Neorus Foundation medical service agreement. This is for uh sideline medical coverage for our home

094varsity football games. Westchester. Sh. One. Yeah. Oh, did I skip? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. 10.08 is the Westchester University affiliation agreement. That is for our student teachers uh to be in our GVSD buildings for the 25 26 26 27 and the 2728 school year. And then 10.09 is the Neores Foundation Medical Service Agreement. Uh this is for the sideline medical coverage for all home varsity football games. Sheree, can I ask you a question on that? I know this is picky. Um, is that starting now or has that been all season or what's the deal? So, that is starting now. Um, We have one more home game. Um, but with this, this will allow us to be able to utilize them moving forward as well. Does that do other sports get that? Um, no other

095sport receives the side the sideline um actual medical uh doctor. Uh but they do sign off on all medical services throughout the school year um for any sporting event uh if there's an injury or anything like that and they need and the athletic trainer needs a medical doctor to sign off on any type of uh services that are provided. Is that because of the violence of the sport or like that they get that 500 more or am I reading it wrong? Um I know this I know this is very little. I just I'm the nature of the contact of the sport. Um one could argue that you know others might also um need to have that provided. Uh but at the current moment um it is recommended for the football team. Why are we making

096that switch now? Uh it's always been a practice that we've had a doctor on the sideline. We're just using new mors moving forward. We used to have a different doctor. Got it. Got it. Ever since I've been here, we've always had a team doctor only for football. It is the best practice. It's recommended. It is exclusive to that sport probably as a cost containment piece. Uh you have high impact in the injury and also you have large roster sports. So that one does stand out, but you could certainly make an argument for for other sports as well. I understand the point. The previous doctor retired, so that's why we had to get a new doctor. Um and we wanted to make sure that we were using um a medical uh practice. um or multiple doctors

097so that if one is not available uh there's also another doctor who can fill in. And then what do you mean by signing off on trainers who need service? What is what is can you give? So if a student becomes injured um they have ongoing um physical therapy or different type of recovery that's needed. Um and our athletic trainers make sure that they're getting taped uh prior to an athletic event. um checking on them before they're actually allowed to go back out on a field um for practice or play. Um so that's what our athletic trainers are doing and the doctor is providing those orders. So if a student is has to be out for three weeks um it's the athletic trainer that's following those orders and that doctor signing off on those orders. But

098is that doctor seeing the student? So, if my son gets hurt in a soccer game, not at a football game, and and never interacts with Neores, what is Neore signing off on if they've never examined my student? They're signing off on the athletic trainer to be able to provide this. Yeah, use your microphone, but they're not being supervised. the the trainers have to have a a medical professional sign off on any orders or type of now that Yeah. So as when we were subcontracted they were being supervised by they are required to be their work has to be supervised by a physician. So now we've engaged in this agreement so that we have somebody supervising them and they're part of our collective bargaining agreement now too. Does that make sense? So yeah. Okay. All right.

099Just to make sure because I know the mic we heard it here in the room. It might not have been broadcast but Dr. Wexler shared that uh our trainers work under the supervision of this doctor uh just how our school nurses work with a we have a school doctor that helps them. The same thing for athletic trainers. We have a separate doctor who u they supervise and work under. Right. Thank you for the clarification and for the question. Does that satisfy your question or No, I didn't have a question. No, I was looking at Mr. Richards. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. Thank you. I just wanted to make the argument that I think that it should also be for soccer and lacrosse. I mean, if we're and wrestling and cheerleading. Yeah, that's that's where

100we go. Yep. Noted. Maybe conversation for I think it makes sense to you right to look into it and see what other schools are doing, what are best practices in the medical field. I mean, not that we you know, we really have and it's only football. We've been spending months and months on this uh probably since before the school year started. So that's why Sheree and I think are and Dr. Wexler are pretty well verssed and able to answer your questions. Who's making the best practice? Who's that coming from? Normally PIAA and also just common practices across the Commonwealth and across our league. I would be curious to know what like the Academy of Pediatrics or what an orthopedic specialist re you know what I mean? I I appreciate PIAA but I wonder when they're

101making sports decisions what lens they are viewing that through. I will say diplomatically when we were out um trying to find a replacement doctor uh they were not easy to come by um only because of I I would assume a Friday night or um what does that look like on the weekend? Uh so to find a doctor that was willing to be a part of uh the organization to be on the sidelines um a lot of schools already have them on their sidelines. Um but uh this doctor is awesome and he was willing uh to be able to provide the services for us. So I just wanted to ask on that. I imagine I mean I maybe I'm I'm just conjecturing here that we're paying them to be on the sidelines. It's not a lot

102of money for what doctors get paid. But at the same time, I'm sure they generate referrals from that, you know, they they're there and they see. So, it's of interest to them to be there because then if something does happen in future or even then that family is likely to come to that practice, right? So, it's kind of like a an intake thing for them as well. So, I I would imagine that if we needed to expand potentially, you know, that that makes it more um appealing to doctors. And I Yeah, I would just say I think um I get it. I understand that the the violence of the sport etc. But you know women are four times young girls are more prone four times to get ACL injuries than guys and so playing soccer

103or lacrosse. So I I think especially on turf and yeah I think and number two I think just and not to be cynical about this but I I was at a place where the doctor on the sideline was a dermatologist right like you know and he couldn't help at all. So you can put a doctor out there who's a doctor but you know I think you got to be careful about and I know they're very well you know good reputation etc anymore but you know I'm just saying to you this is an orthopedic pediatrician yeah we will stick with orthos I I want to make sure I'm processing is is the board giving asking us to investigate what it would look like to have a doctor at every home athletic event at Great Valley because

104that's what I think I'm hearing. But I just want to so know where what our takeaway is here from this evening. Before we go down that path, I would love some data on injuries. Like let's can we have data on injuries that would require this type of doctor per sport for every sport? Like can we just see what's happening and not like we handled it like no we should have had a doctor there for this. So, can we look at data before we like I want to know what's happening. Our data or just general data? No, I want to know our data. I want to know our data more than anything. We could give you fall sports, winter sports, basketball, wrestling hasn't begun. We haven't had spring sports. So, I think any data that we

105would I don't know if we could go back and look at last year's records. So, we can certainly do our best to obtain data. I just want to say with only onethird of the sports seasons wrapping up, that that may be a challenge. We can certainly look at what other recommendations are out there. I just want to get a sense of how much time you want us to investigate um the team doctor issue to what level. I'm just looking for that clarity and direction from the board. Uh we can pull data. We can look at other recommendations. We can look at whatever you want us to do. We're more than happy to do that. I'm just I'm just sitting at a point of uncertainty right now as far as what what would like us to

106do or bring back. Yeah, I'm not wearing that hat today and I'm not wearing my glasses either, unfortunately. But what I would like to understand is what is the what is the specific purpose for this physician here because there are degrees of injuries and we have athletic trainers which are capable of handling sprains or some of the minor things. We don't necessarily need a contracted physician for sports that lend themselves to those type of injuries. My impression is you're having the physician here because of the concussion protocol, CTE type, you know, some of the the more um the things that may require a little bit more immediate medical attention. Um, and if that's the case, then I think it is worthwhile. I I think it would be fine to not scare away this doctor and

107let them get their feet wet with football, but I think it is worthwhile. I mean there is no reason I mean the data is out there that football is not the only one and in fact a very close tie to football are some of these other sports. So um you know so I think it will be worth our while to do that leg work. I don't think it ne necessarily needs to be done right this moment but identifying exactly what why we're hiring this person and then identifying the other sports that require that level of medical attention. Can I just add to I don't know if this was stated but our trainers will not practice without an active agreement with did you say that like that is that was the impetus I'm sorry but you

108can use that because you've been involved yeah they due to their um certification and lensure they have to work under there has to be somebody in the background supervising them so that was the impetus for getting the agreement and historically they've had them at games, football games, but we did ask that. We even talked to others in the county. Not everybody universally has a doctor at the football games. So, there is that, but really minimally we need that the agreement so that our trainers because they were saying we actually can't be on the field and practice if we don't have an agreement with somebody in the background. So, that's kind of the and Neores has reached they reached out to us last year and we met with them with the trainers. They've been looking for

109a partnership. So, it kind of was a win-win. I have no problem personally, I'll speak for myself, no problem with Neores. They have a fabulous reputation. Yeah. Um I have no problem with having a physician, but to Tom's point, not a dermatologist, but somebody with actual expertise in sports injuries on the sideline. I think that is great. I think it's one of those situations where again, I wonder if the people in charge making these recommendations are looking through the appropriate lens knowing what we know about women's sports specifically and also what we know now about the other sports in general, lacrosse, all of them. all of them lead have really questionable practices. Um, and my kids play all of these things, so I'm part of the problem. But, um, so I think going forward now

110is fine. And then to Andrea's point, what is the data? Are like are student athletes at what rate are they getting injured? And do we need somebody looking to say, "Ah, you're out. You need to see somebody else. This could be ACL or tape it up, rest, we'll see you tomorrow." we can certainly engage our our two athletic trainers and start to track that moving forward and then revisit this maybe later in the year based on some of the feedback. So I think I got a little more clarity on kind of where we are. We'll do a little bit more investigating and I think um Miss McGibney, Dr. Wexler and I we can maybe pick a date in the spring where we can we can come back and and speak to this. All right. All

111right. Appreciate any additional questions on that. Uh Miss McGibney, I think we left off on 1010. 1010. Last item at least under finance. Um 1010 is the independent uh contractor agreement for Peterson Strategic Solutions. This is to provide negotiation services and business office contracted services during the 2526 school year um at a cost not to exceed $100 an hour or 250 hours. That's it. All right. Uh, okay. So, that brings us to any um board comments. Any public comment? Three minutes. Come on up. Your name, where you live roughly. Doesn't need to be specific. Hey, everybody. Uh Nick Rock 461 K Knosogga in Malvin. You didn't think I'd attend a school board meeting and miss the chance to address the board, did you? I I did want to come up and say thank you to

112Dave for his years and years of service to the community. I know he is stepping down this year. Um please relay that to him. And I wanted to applaud the board and the school district for the recent property acquisition. Uh you have opened up a world of opportunity with respect to our educational facilities. Uh, the district's facility strategy is clearly and must be in a perpetual state of planning to be ready for whatever the future may bring. And I'll say it again, construction and/or renovation is inevitable. We just need to be prepared for it. I also applaud the board for the communication that members of the community received immediately after the acquisition was announced. I appreciated that coming from you, Dr. Gfredo. And uh, I also wanted to wish the board members seeking re-election good

113luck on November 4th. Who would have thought that volunteering to serve our community could draw such eye from certain members of the same? Uh lastly, um in light of the meeting today, I wanted to say that I am excited to see that there is datadriven work and planning underway that aligns with the albeit amateur research that I've been doing specifically pertaining to the student experience at GBSD schools. I do appreciate that approach and and the request for data regarding some of the conversations that have happened today, specifically the um conversation about safety on the sidelines. Um and I think I share your c your cautious optimism as a result of the reports uh from the three-year plan that was enacted. Thank you, Dr. Wexler, and thank you all. All right, any other board comments? I

114have one question. um that I don't really know too much about, but I'm hearing a lot about is um the headache with some VPN um which I don't even know what VPN means, but there's like some glitch with the iPads and it's disturbing like teachers are having an issue accessing sites or materials. Students are having issues. Do we know can somebody speak to that at all? uh VPN, if I can recall, is a virtual private network and um I do know that we did roll out um a new software called Zscaler uh to all of the staff and all of the students and that does limit uh different websites that they are able to access. So there could have been sites that they were accessing p previously that they can no longer access. Um I

115will talk to our um technology supervisor to determine what makes a site accessible and what makes a site nonaccessible. Um but that would make the change uh to the iPads and Zscaler is a protective software that we put on devices to help protect our infrastructure and our our devices. So as that new program there might be some blocks that we're working through with that new program. Yeah. I'll just say I had that at work. I had that at work for years. It's very common and it was Zceller was the brand that we had. Yeah. And and was that the um issue underlying the problem that the kids had with the um SATs this past week this past week? Actually, Miss McGibney could because you work closely with Miss Evans on that. I think we fought

116well with Dr. Kemp. Are you able to speak to that? That is a separate It's a separate separate issue. Um that was an issue that was actually um at our neighboring district uh Tradition Easttown. Um and our director or our supervisor of technology did reach out to their uh technology director um and they had firewalls up um that prevented our iPads to be able to access. Uh they have since rectified the situation um and she also reached out to all of the other districts in the county to make sure that um our iPads were able to be used within their firewalls as well. So everyone has been alerted. So what so it wasn't a great valley issue, it was a TE issue. Correct. Were kids prevented from taking the SAT because of that? Uh, they

117actually had loner. Um, I Oh, they had loner. Okay. All right. Because that would be terrible to be ready and not be able to correct. Is it my understanding too that the the SAT board also recommends private devices for this reason and that that communication had been out too. Uh, you can bring your own device. I know a lot of students do use their provided um technology to be able to take the SATs because you do have to have a certain piece of software on that device and they do recommend that you download it prior to but our systems already better. Yeah, our systems already have it on there. Okay. All right. Agendas are up for next week. We meet on Tuesday. As a reminder, thank you everybody for being here and for your time

118and attention. and we'll see you next week.