001who is not uh with us. So, we will go ahead and get our August 11th meeting uh started. If I can ask that we all stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. I aliance 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. Um All right. Um, as you all are likely aware, we record these meetings. You can watch them after the fact. You can watch them live. Um, we will now move on. Recognition. We don't have any recognitions yet, but we look forward to getting those started as the school year kicks off later this month. Uh, no student council reports, but again, we look forward to hearing from our students as we get our next school
002year started. And we will also have new schoolboard representatives from the high school that will be presenting as well. Um the school board met in executive session before this meeting to discuss personnel matters and legal matters. Um any secretar's correspondence? No secretary's correspondence this evening. All right. Um is there a report out from the IU Meeting on Wednesday. Um legislative report. There was no meeting since the last time we've met. Um just I think we all know the state budget's still not passed but this committee for Chester County hasn't met yet. Okay. Thank you. Um foundation report no meeting in July. Next meeting's on Thursday. Okay. All right. Uh board committee reports which will resume in September. We'll hear from our communication committee who meets September 4th. Instructional and technology and curriculum committee meets September
0038th. You can find details of those meetings on our website as well. Uh superintendent report. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um couple of updates uh real quickly and then the second part will deal with uh hopefully the finalization of our district goals for the upcoming school year. Um certainly we're getting excited that anticipation is starting to build. Our students are going to be back. I know for some of the parents and maybe even some at the table, you're probably excited to have them come back to us, too. So, we're we're uh uh we are excited and I I just want to start off really uh with the group that makes everything possible and that's our facilities team. So, this summer you may be aware I think you are uh that we hosted several camps. Our
004extended school year camp for children with special needs, our English as a second language camp for students who are uh continue their development and and acquisition of the English language. And we even hosted several township camps in our building. So, hundreds of students were served this summer in Great Valley Schools, which is wonderful, but it does put a bit of a burden on our facilities team because as they vacate, they have to rush in and and make everything shiny and polished. And they have been working really hard and our schools will look beautiful on that first day when our students arrive on August 25th. So, uh just want to give a public thanks to our facilities team for the good work they do. Uh there is no summer off for them. they they are on
005continually and uh so thank you for all their efforts and Miss McGiny I know you uh one of the stewards of that team so we appreciate it. Uh also the excitement about a lot of new staff that are going to be joining the great valley team this year. We have close to 25 new teachers who will be joining us. Um and their induction starts tomorrow. So all new teachers uh go through an induction period with our district. They learn about our practices, our values, our philosophies, our strategies. And so we'll bring a lot of them in. They'll be here in the district office. Uh they'll not only get um an acclamation period to the entire district, but each one of those new teachers will be assigned a mentor and they'll have time to even work
006in the buildings, work with the mentor, and Dr. Beck and the teaching and learning team helped to make that uh those days really productive and useful. And every year we get compliments on how induction was so helpful and it's just a a great start for those new team members. So again, um about 25 new teachers that will be joining our our team this year. Um as a a growing district, we're also continuing to watch enrollment during the year. Uh I gave the board updates at various points where we are. Uh I do want to share kindergarten enrollment ended up being smaller this year. Uh right now we have less than 300 kindergartens and kindergarteners enrolled. Um last year we were taken back because we had a low number of kindergarten enrollment. So uh we are
007going to continue to watch that with large fourth grade classes that left our elementarymentaries last year and smaller kindergarten elementaryaries that are coming in. We are seeing some small reductions in our elementary enrollment. Uh, however, if you look at the birth rates, if you go back and look at birth rates in Chester County for 2021 and 2022, they I believe they were at 10-year highs. They might even have been all-time highs. So, many times we use birth rate data, local birth rate data to kind of anticipate. So, although we're seeing some lower period, knowing that 21 and 22 were spikes, we do anticipate that those kindergarten numbers uh are going to going to rebound. But, I did want to point that out. Right now, the kindergarten class of the 13 grades that we have is
008the smallest. Uh we only have three grade levels that have less than 350 children, and that's grades one, grades two, and the freshman class at the high school. Uh every other grade across our district is at 350 or more students. Let me see, you might have some questions. I think Dr. Graff, you mentioned that last year's kindergarten was also lower than expected. Did we then see any kind of jump to first grade? I'm just wondering if maybe more parents are putting their kids in private kindergartens even though we have full day. Yep. Like do we see I know we have done calculations in the past like the percentage increase from kindergarten to first grade. Yep. Uh the kindergarten number from uh last year to first grade this year actually grew by a handful of students.
009So singledigit increase as they they move forward. So hard to tell. Uh we're trying to probe a little bit more to see what's going on with the kindergarten numbers. as you know, those that were on the board several years ago, that's where we saw the surge. We were seeing 120% retention rates in those early grades. Um, we'll see. We do think it's going to rebound based on those birth rate figures that I shared, but um that is something that we'll we'll continue to watch. Um, but again, we're watching all grades um all across the the board. Um even though as I mentioned K1 uh K kindergarten and first grade used to be the biggest classes uh were kind of going off even in the ninth grade you're going to see a reduction in the number
010of students at our high school but it's it's going to be a temporary one-year bump. We're not going to see things skyrocket. Our enrollment is leveling off. But the senior class last year had 370 students in it. The incoming ninth grade class that was a small class even in eighth grade. uh it's 40 to 50 students less. So you are going to see a drop. We will have fewer students in our high school. However, as I started to look, I believe our seventh grade class is exceptionally large. Uh so I think what we're going to see this year is probably a dip in high school enrollment by about 20 or 30 students. And then the following year, you're going to see it get back up to the rate that we had last year. But we're
011really not going to be growing, you know, substantially at at the high school at the high school level. There are some some pretty big classes. Um, and I do think it's things are starting to stabilize. I know the real concern for us during the summer is watching the elementary classes. And um, right now the overwhelming majority of our classes at the elementary level are within our class guidelines. And so, as a reminder to the board and anyone listening, uh, our class size guidelines for K to one are 18 to 22 students. In grades two and three, it's 20 to 24 students. And in grade four, it's 22 to 26 students. Um, the way I we're we're viewing it as of today with those numbers, um, I think all but maybe two or three classes are
012within the guidelines. somewhere I want to say in one of the buildings we might have one class that is one over the guideline but we've always been willing as a as a board and as a district to go one or two over some of the guidelines. Fourth grade has been the concern that we've been watching really closely this year. So we are seeing our our fourth grade numbers at General Wayne and Sugartown are right there at that max of the the cap of the guideline. Uh so we're continuing to watch that. Right now, I am not recommending to the board that we add additional sections. We have run classes at both General Wayne and Katie Markley in the last 5 years where we've run upper elementary grades 26, 27. I think one year we might
013even had one at 28. So, we do have to balance that. And it's important for any parents who are listening because I know there is some concern in the community and some of you have reached out to me. Um, yes, we have a classroom teacher, but there's a whole cadre of supports within the building. So if children are in special education, we have resources, right? We have aid support that we can offer up. Uh there is a whole, you know, school psychologists and counselor. So there's there's a whole cadre that goes in to support the the children. I would not make a recommendation if I didn't think every child in those classes could be successful. Um but again, if you know, my understanding and expectation has been they are guidelines and we're always willing to
014go one or two over those guidelines. That being said, if you look at the 20 different, you know, you have five grades at each of the elementary schools, so you have 20 bands, uh, only two or three are even close. So, class sizes on the whole look pretty good, but we do have a few areas where they're they're on the higher side, but certainly within all the norms as we move forward with um, class sizes and and expectations. So, uh, we'll continue to watch that. We do wait till this point in time to finalize our class rosters. So I do know our principles will be sending that information out in the days to come because it it fluctuates and so some of the enrollment figures that we saw in June and then in July are
015not where we are in August. So it is um a system that requires some patience and uh I do feel where we are we're in a comfortable spot speaking in terms of elementary class size. All right, let me take questions if you have them. I just wanted to um it's a question and also a comment when you talk about us looking at birth rates overall and I'm I'm not talking about a given class. I'm talking about you know the overall growth county the growth you know you mentioned that lower kindergarten you know a little dip in high school but it's coming back up. My recollection is as a district we don't just look at those birth rates. Yes, that's a calculation method, but we also have regular discussions with the township. So, we know about
016the developments that are coming and we are keeping that in mind as you talk about the high school growing or not or the elementary schools, you know, growing or not. You have we know Nickerbacher is coming and other things, right? So, are you still having those regular discussions? So, that's part of the calculus. It it is and thank you for bringing that up. Mrs. McGibney and I meet each quarter with all the municipal leaders and one of the agenda items in every one of those meetings is please let us know any proposed housing developments, what's what's maybe in the queue for the township. So yes, those continue and we remain communication over the summer. Several points we called and said, how is Nickerbacher looking? We know we have that large development. It's populating a little
017slower than we thought, but in a way we're okay with that. Gives us a little time to catch our breath. We know we had some significant growth in the last few years, but thank you Mr. Tran for um reminding me of that. Um and just I guess two statements. One, the the guidelines are just that they're guidelines. They're not hard and fast rules. There's no data that says this number of students, you know, needs to be in a classroom or not. They're there are guidelines that help us make decisions based on a whole host of other factors. As you pointed out, the supports we have in a school, what is coming up the pipeline, what has been in the pipeline. So I think you know there's there's no magic number that anywhere out there in
018the data in the research anywhere that will tell us exactly the right number of students in a classroom. And um also just want to point out that there are already services in all of these classrooms regardless of how many students are in a classroom. There is you know pull out push in for students with special needs. There's pull out push in for gifted students. There's speech you know pull in push out. So at any given moment of a day, a teacher will not always have all of her students or his students in the classroom. So that's also something that there are, you know, there's some fluctuations throughout the day and those are other things that we you plan and you support and you account for when we make these decisions about how many students are
019in a classroom. No, it's great. And yeah, I would add even our our English language learners also. And so many times either children may be being pulled out depending on their need or that adults pushing in where we have another set and many times they're assisting with other students. So um sometimes people get lost in that they look directly at the classroom teacher to student ratio and we have so many students that are getting those additional supports. Uh it's not uncommon to walk in and see more than one adult in an elementary classroom at any one given time. Many of you have seen it because you volunteer in our schools. So um thank you for that clarification as well. I had a question on the your um opening comment involved the new teachers and orientation
020going to start soon. At the end of the school year, we saw a lot of resate um retirements. Have we filled all of the spots needed for the open teachers in the various schools? We may have one or two vacancies still pending. I'm I'm trying to go through the roster here as I as I think you're right. We had about nine or 10 resignations, a significant number at our high school. Many were in hard to fill positions, Latin, French. We were able to secure uh great candidates for those those positions. We had some special education positions. Uh we had two positions for our multiple disabilities and autistic support. I think those individuals are up for your consideration this evening. So, um I think for the most part, we may have one or two that we're
021still working on. uh we may have of those 25 new teachers there may there will be a certain number that could be held for up to 60 days. So we will have to fill those in with a short-term sub until those new hires are released from their current district. But in those cases, our principles communicate with families. We talk about the transition. When that new teacher does arrive, we make sure there's significant overlap so that the handoff from one classroom teacher to the other is is smooth. Um so we will see that. Um there was a lot and I want to give our team a lot of credit particularly our high school team. They began interviewing very early. They knew we had some challenging positions to fill. Uh they helped with recruitment and they made
022interviewing a priority. Uh also I must say the addition, thank you so much of Miss George in our HR office as our new supervisor of human resources is a tremendous support to the system. She was able to start this summer and get a sense of our of our process. Dr. Wexler, can you add some additional That's kind of going through it in my mind. Um, I think we're down to one LTS. We are making some internal shifts, so there's some things happening in reference to enrollment. Um, but I don't know that I'm on thought I was. Um, but to Dr. Gfredo's point, the all of the uh principles have been working really quite diligently over the summer, particularly the high school. Um and they've had some hard to fill positions and Miss George coming has
023really been focusing on recruitment which has been a necessary missing piece for us just given the lack of staffing. So we're she's doing a lot of work behind the scenes and that those French particularly those they were hard to staff but we were able to secure. So I think we're in pretty good shape. Yeah. Yeah. We're really excited about our new team members and you're right she kind of came in in the middle of the summer and helped to recruit some candidates that we hired. Uh impact was felt right away. So, thank you for for allowing her to to be a team member. And I have one more question, even though I'm not even thinking about the high school because I've got a rising middle schooler here I need to deal with. But, you know,
024you talked a little bit about this being the smallest incoming nth grade class. And then we're going to see a little bit of a bump with kids coming out of the middle school. But, we're still good. We've got space. We've got teachers. We've got facilities. we are we are able to accommodate what's coming up through the pipeline with who's in our schools right now, especially in um upper elementary and middle school grades, we're we're good. So, we're going to see the dip and then we're going to see the bump, but we're perfectly capable of absorbing that bump of students in an appropriate way with with the resources we have right now. We are and that is something we watch very closely. I've always done this as a former high school principal. Um if if you
025look unlike the elementary school when you get so many students you have to add a class you need a whole dedicated separate classroom at the high school level you just need to have one of a hundred empty rooms open where a class could be plugged in. So it's a very different dynamic at the high school you have that cushion. So on average, with the exception of one period, if you look periods 1 through 7, there are at least a dozen empty classrooms each period in the high school. There's one period where there might only be seven. But that's a significant number. And so I'm keeping a close watchful eye on that uh because if we ever do need to do any sort of work, I don't want that to creep up on us. But also,
026our high school team is on top. I mean, they they just send it to me without me asking because they know it's that important that we have to keep tabs on. The only concern really is going to be in our our high school cafeteria, but we are comfortable. It looks like we're going to have fewer students this year, the next year, even in the following year. It might just bounce up to the 2425. And then, but we'll keep looking out short-term, long-term. Mrs. McInny will do projections, present those to you in the fall, and we will continue to use a third-party provider. Um, we'll bring that back to you to get that other outside independent recommendation, too. So, a lot of time, energy devoted to watching that. We built one school and if we ever
027have to do it again, we we know there's a long lead in time, but we're feeling pretty comfortable right now, particularly at our at our high school level. And just why we're on it because we didn't talk about the five, six or middle school. Let's give them some love. Um, both of those enrollments are pretty pretty static. Uh, give or take 10 or 20 students from where they were last year. So, we're feeling pretty good on all fronts. All right. Um, that's the first part. Any additional questions on any before I get into the district goals? All right. Um, so within board docs and I appreciate the input. The last meeting was very helpful. You'll see an updated document that really highlights in yellow the changes that we made to the district goals as a
028result of your input during the June schoolboard meeting. Um, yeah, if you could just um we'll go through. So the board the first category the board was looking for um more detail around the AI and the technology goal. I remember being asked you know what really is going to be the outcome. And so as we get together a think tank of internal stakeholders all staff the goal of that think tank will be not only to learn about AI but at the end of the year to make some meaningful guideline recommendations so that going into the following year we have some consistency. uh AI is ever developing. I don't know if we'll ever be in front of it, but we want to engage our staff, our teachers, support staff, principles in some discussions about what practical
029uses would look like, but we also want to make sure we're exploring the benefits of AI. We know higher education students are required to use it in their collegiate coursework. We know tech companies are requiring you to use it in the workplace. So, you know, we have to do our role to make sure students are using it judiciously and properly. And so I'm hoping this think tank will help to devise uh some of those guidelines. So that would be the output of this group and um I tried to respond to the board's concern there. The last uh feedback in in this category um was about our uh K12 math and English language arts teams. So these teams they said the board had asked in June what is the outcome? So what this will be a
030cadre of lead teachers who will help to support colleagues with our practices and instructional frameworks. I like the idea of engaging some of our teachers investing more deeply in a smaller group so that they're familiar with expectations best practice our instructional frameworks and then they're used to help support the larger larger work across the district. Uh and these teams will provide some guidance on professional learning and teacher needs. So this teacher engagement uh I think is going to be really really helpful uh as we we move forward um with math and English language arts. So let me stop there um oh you know what there was one additional one with our responsive practice framework particularly in the middle school uh that we will work to get um as they go through training we'll do some
031check-in points with the teachers to find out what their feedback is. Is it meeting their needs? Do they need more? Do they need less? And that was something that the board wanted to see within the goal. So again, these are like subsets. Um, but I want to paint a really clear picture for the board on what the targets are. Any questions or feedback regarding this first set of goals. All right. All right. Thank you. Um, if we may, the the second set. All right. That's going to be our culture and well-being. uh the the only feedback that that I captured from the last board meeting was around our staff climate survey and this would be a survey given to all staff. So this would go to support staff, this would go to teachers, principles and
032so on. Um so uh one we will hopefully either select or develop our own instrument by the end of October. This is going to be a priority. We want to get this survey together, get it out, get it administered. so that we can then report back to the board in April about the results and how it's going to inform our work moving forward. And I think those were two pieces that the board wanted to see with regard to the survey. I I just I I understand it says board presentation on results. April, you just said presentation on results and how it will inform. I don't want to be super picky about words, but I want to make sure that at that point it's it's not just results, it's results and recommendations or prioritized recommendations. So,
033I mean that that's what you're thinking because you just said it, but m maybe you add a word or two there just to make that clear because you can present results of surveys all day long, but actually like a plan to act on it uh or recommendations or something like that. Y thank you. And again, these sub bullets are really just for the board. I mean, to paint the picture when we publish these, we'll go with the main ones, but I wanted to make sure as stewards of the district that you really knew where our targets were. I'll still make that change. I because it's it's aligned with it. Um, but I really I know the board wanted greater detail with the goals and that's what these sub bullets helped to do. All right, but
034thank you for the feedback and we'll add the recommendation piece. All right. Uh, if we could segue to communications. Um, there were some questions about timeline. So those are highlighted there in yellow when various pieces will occur. You can see those. Uh, when the reports will be posted. Um I you know the feedback that I recall receiving was just more about timeliness and when some of these items were going to happen. I think the highlighted language spells that out. Um does that kind of reflect the desire of board? All right. And then the last one and I do want to talk about this particular goal. Um it is a bit lofty. We want to expand our cashless processes. The part about consolidating systems, we've added I I can't remember which board member had highlighted that
035our real goal with this is truly just to start transitioning caches, but I know the board is always saying, Dan, how how are we going to collapse? What is this going to replace or what is it going to do? That really wasn't in the essence of when we created the goal. So, I'm fine leaving it there, but I do want you to know that does make for a stretch. Just launching some of these cashless processes, getting them off the ground internally, getting them communicated to parents, and then making them work, um, is a lot. If we're also looking to consolidate, um, that might be a little bit of a stretch. I do know, I think Dr. Rizzo, you might have been the one that mentioned school photos and some other pieces. So, I just kind
036of listed some of the things in there, but I would say the focus one is with activity fees. the board has made it clear we need to have a really clear tracking system for those activity fees. So, that's a high priority there. Um, our clubs are certainly within that. And then some of the internal financial tracking um with whether it's fees attending an athletic contest, how students pay for their lunch, their their meal programs, those that was really the essence. I'm not sure if that's going to be our focus, how much we're really going to consolidate systems. I just want to be candid now. Now, if the board says, "Dan, we hear you, but you need to find a way," we can we'll we'll try to see what we do. But I I wanted to
037have a little more discussion and maybe get your your input around your expectations um and just reaction to what I have there. I think I'm particularly interested in uh tracking activity fees because they seem to be it varies a little bit, I'll say, generously on who collects, how they're collected. I know teachers hate being the ones to be like, "Rachel, pay Henry's band fee." You know, they no one wants to be the the collector. Sure. Um but we also need to know what's being collected. I think that is separate than moving to cashless. Um that's just an an accounting thing that needs to be cleaned up um and made clear about who who's in charge there. um the the cashless part for the rest of it. I'll leave it to my fellow board members. I
038didn't I don't have strong opinions there. I'm always worried about the people who are bankless who are using cash only, but I'm not boots on the ground to know really what that looks like. I know that from a professional experience and and the folks I work with, but I don't know that in a school setting. We will and I don't our understanding is to really move more casually. you're seeing it in all facets. We still will have consideration for those people, but we really want to do it in a very diminished capacity because we do want to segue people there, but we don't want to leave anybody out or leave anybody behind. So, there will be sensitivity around that. I also know we don't want wads of cash lying around at school events. I know
039that that is also bad for accounting and just puts people at risk. I I understand that that push and pull as well. And and and the reality is all over our society, you know, it these days you can just walk around with your phone and you don't need much else. So for better or for worse. Um as a parent, I would love a one-stop shop, like let me do everything from one app, but I know that that that's not always available to you, right? And so I guess for this goal, there's there's two parts. One, keep us posted, even if it's every other month, just saying like, "Hey, we're we're looking at this. we're not really making progress on consolidating, but we're getting there with cashless payments. Just so come April, we're not like, "What
040do you mean you didn't make any progress?" Um, I think that would be helpful just so you can realign our expectations. Having heard you that like, hey, that's lofty. We sometimes forget that. Um, and then also I think this is an ongoing thing like every time something is up for renewal. Let's really explore it. Is this really what we need? Can we consolidate two things? So I have, you know, just two things would be better than having two separate apps or two separate login. Um, so just ongoing review of what it is we're using, how we're using it, and is there any way we can start to streamline? I I want to get away from it's the way we've always done it. Can we do can we be better? And if maybe the answer is
041no right now because it doesn't exist, or maybe it's yes, but nope. I appreciate that and we will continue to do that and report more regularly on on the progress. So I appreciate that feedback. All right. So I I you know if the rest of the board is comfortable I mean with that understanding that we'll kind of report out it is a bit lofty and uh I do like the way you worded that Dr. So if we have that common understanding I think we're comfortable moving forward and it sounds like perhaps the board is as well. Okay. All right. Um with that being said we will work to communicate. Uh thank you so much. I mean in my five years I think this is the first time where the goals are finalized before everyone comes
042back. we'll be able to communicate them on opening day. We'll be able to share them with families so that everybody knows really where some of the focal points are within the district. So, um I appreciate it and we'll work with Miss Marson in communications and we'll we'll get these out uh across our district and our community. So, thank you for your input and I'm I'm really excited. I think all the things uh that you just saw are going to make a difference not only for the district but for our students and families. So, with that being said, that concludes my report and thank you. All right, moving on to section seven. We have our enrollment report. Anything you want to add different than what you kind of covered in your superintendence. Where are all the
043kindergarteners? I don't know. No, you can see it's it's, you know, well under 300 students. So, uh, that report speaks for itself. We're probably at about 100 and 125 less students this year than last year. Uh, and a lot of that really is attributable to, I think, kindergarten and we had a pretty big senior class. So, okay, with them exiting as well. All right. Uh, the facilities use report is there for everybody's review. Um, and then moving on to section eight, public comment. This is one of two opportunities to give public comment. This one is for voting agenda items only. At the end, it's open again for anything and everything. Both sections, three minutes per comment. Just tell us your name um and that you're where you live in the district. Um, and with that,
044if there's anybody that wants to speak now, all right, we'll hold till the end. Oh, no. That's a good question. The question, in case people couldn't hear in the audience, was are we voting on enrollment or numbers like that? And the answer is no. Um, so thank you. But those comments can be shared at the second public comment period at the end. All right. Consent agenda items. Uh 901 through 903. 901 is minutes of the business meeting. 902. Okay. 902 invoices. Anything to add there from anybody? And 903 non-resident students for 2526. Very short list. Um we are not voting on those. We are voting on these. I'm out of practice. Dave Barrett, where are you? Okay. So, is there a motion for consent agenda items 901 through 9003? Motion to approve 901 through 903.
045Is there a second? Second that motion. Okay. Any comments on those or questions? All right. All in favor? Motion passes five to zero. Section 10. Um, financial approvals 10:01 to 10:17. Sheree, do you want to go first and give us what we need? Yes. All right. Uh, so 10.01 is the 2026 2027 budget calendar. It's back already, I know. Um, 10.02 is the depository approval. There is no changes from the 2425 school year. This is per the PA state code of uh state code 621. 10.03 through 10.07 07 are all renewals for your review. 10.08 is the general healthc care resource addendum. This addendum is for staffing for staffing fee schedule and this was originally dated last September and it's up for renewal because we're trying to align everything with the July through June date.
046So you'll see that with the July 1st through June. 10.09 09 is the educational service contract with the Meadows. This is a three-year contract from 2025 all the way through 2028 school year. Uh this is for educational services as on an as needed basis. 10.10 is the Lakeside Youth Service Agreement. Uh this agreement is to reserve uh two spots for the 2526 school year uh for special education services as well as inschool counseling services. 10.11 is the independent contractor agreement uh with Dr. Karen Teratusky. This is to perform psycho educational evaluations and associated services on behalf of the school district for the 2526 school year. Uh 10.12 is the educational service contract with the Timothy school. Uh this is for onetoone aid. Uh 10.13 is the educational service agreement with cottage 7 education. Uh this
047is also for 180 days of services uh for students. Uh 10.14 is the Westchester University agreement for student teachers for the 2025 school year through the 2028 school year. 10.15 is the stop thebleleed kits. This is for 41 kits that will be distributed throughout every single building in our district uh to be housed in multiple locations. 10.16 is the Shaun Poe LLC proposal. This is for the sideline medical coverage uh for our varsity football games and injury evaluations out on an asneeded basis. 10.17 is the uh special ed agreements. That concludes the financial approvals. All right. Is there a motion to approve 101 through 1017? Motion to approve 1001 through 1017. Is there a second? Second. And are there questions surrounding any of these? I have a question, please. Um 1006, uh one of the
048uh one of the rates there, I know that it's a renewal, but how much did we use the non-English language interpretation support um service last year? Um, I'd have to take a look to pull the numbers to see how often we've used it. Um, I know when I did go back and review it was something that began last year uh for the very first time. Uh, the rate was $60. Um, so it increased to 6150 this year, but I'd have to determine uh how often it was used. I'd have to go through the invoices. Is that specific to um is the the language interpretation for anything that happens throughout the district when a family needs interpretation services or is it limited to only when we're talking about X Y and Z that we're looking at
049this particular rate? Does that make sense? I don't know the exact answer to that, but I would probably believe that it's only based off of the services that are provided for those students with uh that consulting service. Got it. Not throughout the district. Okay. But um any type of service that they're providing for a student that would need it. Okay. I'd like to um not that I need the details from last year, but just moving forward like to make sure that we're utilizing all of our um staff and abilities that we have for those services before we start paying search charges um for things that we can handle internally or Google Translate or something, you know, something like that because it's a pretty hefty search charge. But to be clear, this looks like it's like
050you said, it's for a little. It's just for I mean I don't know how little or not, but it's for behavioral intervention. It's not general interpretation. It's it's specific like to when there's a behavioral intervention need and that need also includes interpretation interpreters. Correct. It's only solely for behavioral assessments. So, but that could be who what whatever student is in need of that service provided. I have a question about uh 1012 101 uh Dr. Terat Tusky. So I uh recognize that there is an ongoing need for these services. They're very hard to fill. Talked about this at the IU as well. Um but there's no cap on this contract. So I'm channeling my Dave here. So I just want to understand where we think we're going to, you know, at what point do we realize
051that this was something that we should have taken on in house? How are we going to track? How are we going to say we've reached a certain amount? or is it one of those things where these things have to get done, we have another provider who would do it. We're just having to go through Dr. Tartaskki and we don't know what we're going to get this year. I guess I just don't understand the parameters around this these types of services right now. So, this type of service um is a service that uh cannot be provided solely inhouse. So, we do contract out for these types of services. Um by contracting with Dr. Terara Tusky uh were able to receive these services at a lesser rate uh than we would if we used an outside vendor.
052Um she is a previous employee so she is familiar uh with our system, how we operate um and with the students. Um there's no way to determine how many evaluations are going to be needed throughout the school year. So that's why there's not a cap on uh what that amount looks like. Um, and just also keep in mind, um, when you're receiving these services outside as well, there's no cap on what that looks like because this has to be provided to determine what the evaluation per each student looks like. Does that answer your question? I have two questions. One, I think the simplest one is I I'm interested in this um, student teachers. It's great that we use student teachers. I'm curious just because I don't know h roughly how many do we have each
053year and are they in all of our schools or is it only elementary? And then my second question is for all these renewals or other educational facilities that we've used from time to time and have a contract with just in case, do we just take the rate they give us each year or do we have any opportunity to negotiate those those rates because I'm sure they change from year to year. Um let me see if I can piece some of the questions together. Um so um so the first question about the student teachers that we have um I don't have an exact number but I know from what I see come through uh the business department there's roughly maybe 15 um that I see come through the business office um student teachers that we and
054across all all schools it is very common. Yeah, our high school's so large, the elementary go through. Uh it's actually become a great recruiting pipeline, too. Um that helps us if you get some young talent uh within your building. So, uh we do encourage it. Yeah, 15 sounds like I don't know. I we have so many kids. I I don't know if it was 15 or 50 or 75, right? So, that's um 15's good. More is better, right? So, all right. And to answer your second question about uh the services and and what the pricing looks like, um absolutely you always want to negotiate. if you want to uh talk about what the pricing looks like, um what the increases are looking like from year to year. Um and that's also why sometimes you see
055multiple services so that we have the option to be able to use uh the cheaper service. Um but a lot of times if you're utilizing the cheaper service, everyone else is as well. Um so to be able to get in the staffing that we need to provide the services if they're not available then we might have to use um the higher rated consultant. Thank you. That's helpful. I now that also makes sense why we have several we don't know some of these educational facilities if we're going to use them or not but it depends on what services our kids need and then also on what uh the availability is. So thank you. Thank you for that. I don't know if you can you don't won't have the answers now and I I think what I'm
056curious about is we're these are a lot of services we're reserving a lot of spots at different um facilities and things like that. Would it be possible even to pull from last year what percentage of our students are receiving some sort of behavioral intervention or psychosocial evaluation supports and then what percentages are placed in a different um location. So, just to see like are we talking about we're doing all of this for 10 students or are we do we have all of these contracts for 200 students? Just trying to get a a mental fix on the percentage of our students that were being that are being served with um these necessary but different supports. Absolutely. I'll work with Miss Dinsmore to be able to pull together that information and be able to supply that to
057you. No questions. And just circling back to Dr. made his point. Um, we did get confirmation that the translation service that you you had inquired about uh last year we actually did not leverage it. So, it was there, it was provided, but it wasn't leveraged. So, if that gives a little more context um to the discussion, can everyone in the audience hear us? Okay. I I No, because the air condition I don't Is there anything we can do for the sound? I just got an indicator. know with regard to that language interpretation. Now the flip side of that question is are families being told that that is um an opportunity for them as needed? Is it? Yes. Okay. Okay. I don't want it to be one of those things that you have to know to
058ask. Um I want it to be presented to I mean to everybody just to make sure we cover everybody but so people know. Okay. All right. Um is there So we did um any a motion and a second for 101 to 1017. Any other questions from the board? Anybody else? Okay. Um, all in favor of P uh voting in favor of 101 to 1017. All right, that's five to nothing. Um, next up is personnel approvals 11:01. The board, you'll see um that agenda item there. Any questions? And is there a motion to approve 11:01? Motion to approve 11:01. Is there a second? Second. Any other questions or comments? Just a comment. I'm pleased to see after all our discussions of EDRs for clubs and activities that we now have some additional we're approving some of
059those EDRs for the clubs that didn't have that before. So that um it's you know even we're doing the same process across across the district. So thank you for all that work to get that done. All right. Um all in favor of approving 11:01 so we can open our school. Good. Good. Good. The motion passes five to nothing. It's great. We'll have teachers. Um and then moving on to 1201 and I lost my agenda here to 1207 program approvals. Is there a motion to approve 1201 to 1207? Motion to approve 1201 through 1207. Is there a second? Second. And any uh well actually let's move to Sheree. Anything we need to know here? No. Okay. And then any questions from the board around any of these? Just a question on the handbook. Have we thought
060about turning this into a digital entity so that people can actually click through the different sections? Um my understanding that is it still exists? We just receiving it as a PDF. Correct. Correct. It'll still reside on the on the district website and links will be shared. Yep. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. every document unfortunately the way board docs works it has to go to as a PDF so we we lost that in translation but uh yeah rest assured it'll remain a digital document other questions all right um all in favor of approving 1201 to 1207 all right motion passes 520 All right facility section 1301 to 1310. A motion to approve. Motion to approve 1301 through 1310. And is there a second? Seconds. All right. Um Sheree, is this you? Walk us through some of these.
061This is me. Um under the facilities approval, there is the Oliver heating and cooling agreement. This is a three-year contract for $23,570 annually. And this is the facilities department requested three quotes. And this one came in at the lowest. Um, under 13.02, transportation approvals. This is for the annual driver and monitor approvals for the 2526 school year. And under technology, 13.03 through through 13.08 are all renewals. 13.09 is a new quote for Traverse, which is a social studies class. is for social studies classes grades 7 through 12. And this will replace the discovery education resource and it's an interactive tool that allows our primary allows for primary and secondary source content to align with the social studies curriculum. You guys hearing me? Okay. Um and the last one 13.10 10 is the illustrious illustrious math
062digital resources for grades 5 through 10. Um this is for math courses algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry. That's it. As the school year gets ready to start and everyone's anxious about buses, I always like to ask these questions in August. Um, number one, when are we going to hear our bus time and pickups and all of that? So, you should be hearing them around usually by the end of this week. Uh, just trying to coordinate that so that it goes out similarly when the schedules go out. Great. Um, what if we forgot to sign our kid up for the bus because we thought somebody else was driving them every day and that fell through? You can still get on a bus. Okay. We will still assign you a bus and you will still get
063picked up. Okay. Should they reach out to the transportation contact on our website or their school principal? Uh, no. If you go out on the website, uh, there is an email. It's, uh, GV transportation um at gvsd.org um, and somebody will respond to that email. And then if your kids are on the bus during that first week and they don't get off at their bus stop and you're frantic and so you start texting all your neighbors and your kids soccer friends, who really should we be contacting when we can't find our kid that first week asking for a friend? So, the first person that you should be contacting, and this is out on the website, um is the uh bus telephone number there, which is the craft uh bus department. Um the reason why you're
064contacting them is they can get you the fastest information that you're looking for. Um because they can dispatch immediately, okay, to the bus driver on the bus. Okay. It's shocking that it happened to both of my kids the first week and I am on the board. Yes. And and once you reach out to them, they do reach out to us as well. Um and we also reach out to the school principal as well. Okay, great. You're not on Yeah. buses. What's a what's a monitor? My kids are well out of the schools. I just So a bus monitor is usually on a bus um to aid the bus driver um if any incidents or anything is happening or occurring on the bus. Not every single bus has a bus monitor. You just deploy them. Are
065they just deployed as needed? If certain buses have had a history of concerns or different services. Okay. Or services. Thank. And then we know how many double runs there will be this year. There will be no double runs this year. Oh, that's great. Okay. As of today, there will be no double runs this year except for all those people I just reminded to sign their kid up for the bus. Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. Um, other questions? All right. Um, all in favor of 1301 to 1310. Didn't I do a motion and I did a motion in a second. Yes. Okay. And Becky second. Yeah. Okay. Um, again, all in favor just to be clear. All right. Motion passes. Five to nothing. Um, all right. That brings us to section 14. It says technology approval
066presentations by the public, but I think that's a typo. So, this is the moment where public comment again. You have three minutes. Tell us your name, where you live. You will hear a a very annoying buzzer, but that's telling you you have 30 seconds more. So, keep talking. Um, and we are glad to hear from everybody, and we appreciate you being here tonight. So, whoever would like to speak, if anybody, come on down. Oh, sorry. Hi. Good evening, everybody. So, um my name is Milah Khichi and my son is a fourth grader at General Wayne Elementary and I live in the Atwater community. Um I'm here to respectfully request the addition of another fourth grade section at General Wayne. With the current enrollment of 105 students spread across four classrooms, we are already exceeding the
067recommended guidelines for the 22 to 26. So it's 26 26 26 27. Um it leaves no room for accommodating new enrollments without further straining the system. The situation is not sustainable and does not support our students or staff. Overcrowded classrooms significantly reduce the ability of teachers to effectively manage classrooms. Couple this with several students who have behavioral challenges um which require additional attention and cause disruptions in class. When these students are concentrated in larger groups, it further limits the teachers ability to provide attention to those who are there to learn, maintain a positive classroom environment. I know we said that we have the support for these kids. They're getting pulled out of class here and there. That's not like very seamless. I don't know if you've been in the schools. I've been there just as
068a room parent, PTO doing all this stuff. It is a bit disruptive to having that happen. Then you have more kids in each class having that happen adds to more disruption. So yes, that body is maybe not physically there for that time being. But again, all of these things add to the teachers, you know, attention going somewhere else, the students getting distracted, who's coming in, who's going out for what. Um, and then again, when you put more kids with issues together, it also again takes away from everyone else learning. Um, additionally it impacts not only classroom teachers but also the specialist teachers who are already stretched thin between different schools. Then they're coming and then they're having to match like have these larger classrooms then to maintain whether it's for gym or music or you
069know steam um library like again they're all going between different schools and then coming back and then having to deal with even more students in the classroom. Um, we need a proactive solution to this that puts students, learning, and teachers capacity to do their jobs first. Simply cramming more students into already full rooms is not acceptable path forward. Um, I'm also representing like we just got the numbers kind of Friday put out just like a quick survey to parents of just the fourth grade. Um, we had a good response. 60 pair on it and they all would prefer manageable class sizes. Um they would say like 20 to 22. So 21 being that lucky number. There is a magic number. It is 18. Most school districts are a bit higher than that. Locally if you
070look at New Jersey, Delaware, New York, they're all for elementary. The bigger range is 20 to 25, but mostly it's like 20 to 22 for K to 4. um national average for even over. So, we're going. Thank you so much for your time. Good evening. Uh my name is Chisten Robin. Uh I am a parent of a third grader at General Wayne. I live over on Brian Avenue. Um I'm also here to respectfully uh advocate for the addition of another third grade class as well as a fourth grade class at General Wayne. Um, right now our third grade classes are also nearing the district's recommended capacity and just a few new enrollments could push some classes beyond 24 students. I understand we saw a reduction thankfully from July through August. So, I appreciate the communication
071over the summer with that. Um, but as I'm sure you guys are aware, research consistently shows that the benefits of smaller class sizes leading to better academic and behavioral outcomes, especially in the early grades. I know somebody had referenced before that there weren't many studies, but there actually are. There's the Tennessee Star study. I know that was in the late 90s. Um, but that has found that students in smaller classes from grades three to five, which would benefit our third and fourth grade students. Um, in classes of 18 to 20 actually do significantly better. They outperform the peers in both math and reading. Um, and those benefits were long lasting. So, it was at least a four-year study. Again, I don't need to go into those details with time constraints there. Um, I'm also representing
072um at least a third of the third grade parents at this time and um over 60% of the fourth grade parents who are in favor of the smaller class sizes and would prefer additional sections be added. Now, we did lose a fourth grade teacher at General Wayne and that position, to my knowledge, has not been filled at this time. Um, so I'm concerned about my rising third my third grader who will be in fourth grade in two years. Um, I feel like by proactively adding a section now, we can protect the quality of instruction, ensure more individualized support, and maintain the strong educational standards that our district is known for. So, thank you for your time and for putting our students first. Thank you. Um, hi. So, I'm a parent. I'm a mom. Also, I'm
073a behavior an analyst. So I know for sure for my almost 10 years of work exper work experience with special kids with special needs when they're in a classroom environmental factors like how big is the classroom these the noise level um how structured your classroom setting is how predictable your schedule is these are the easiest thing we can change to provide for the kids to provide them for a high quality educational experience. So I know there might be barriers, there might be challenges for us to solve this. I'm not an expert to um solve big problems. But I just want to know what's the barrier, what's the what's the challenge in here? Is the teacher or we don't have a classroom or we don't have enough money. So I just want to know what's exactly
074um it is the challenge. Thank you. Good evening. My name's Roina Sharless. I live um on Waybridge Drive. I have a rising fourth grader. Um, the ladies said everything I needed to say, but um, in the end, I know we've we've heard there's no magic number, but I think we all know that in a smaller setting, um, the students get more attention. Um, the students can be more focused, there's less distraction. Um, so, uh, for that reason, I respectfully, um, request the addition of an additional section, um, for the fourth grade at General Wayne Elementary. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jessica Noiki. I also have a rising fourth grader at General Wayne. Uh my son was in a class with 21, I believe 21 third graders last year. The class was very difficult for
075the teacher who had very little support, no aids in the class. They couldn't do circle time. They couldn't do anything where they weren't in their seats because of the the issues with some of the students in the class. Adding five more students to any classroom where a teacher was already unsupported is going to make life very difficult. I know with my fourth grader, he was asked to or he stepped in to trying to handle fights to be a witness to the principal on multiple occasions. To add five more students to any classroom where the teacher is already unsupported, I I feel like is such a disaster. Also they were anytime that there is a presentation or participation where the student is now I'm raising my hand I want to get called on and there's 26
076students or 27 students your participation level goes down your willingness to start raising your hand goes down because you're not getting called on and you're not getting to do your presentation because now you don't have the time in the classroom or it takes too much time so that not every he didn't even get to do this year end presentation because they ran out of time and that's with 21 students. I just feel like trying to stuff more students into one class where it's already too much for one teacher and the and trying to manage so much. It's just asking too much for the teacher and you're you're really shorting the students. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mike Schaver. I live in the Malvin Burrow on Monument Avenue. I have four children. I have a
077fifth on the way. Uh I am in sixth grade, my daughter. I have a son going into fourth, a son going into second, and a son in kindergarten. all that General Wayne um since sorry I have some notes. So since coming to General Wayne one of our biggest concerns in our family has always been class size. My kids have always been in a class 22 23 kids. And I thought that was a lot. And now you're telling me my fourth grade child is going to be in the class with 27 children. And somebody over here argued earlier tonight against smaller class sizes. It's just it's just it's just crazy. I mean, we all know the benefits of a smaller class size. So, I don't really understand this. We had five teachers last year in fourth
078grade. Now, we have four. Why Why aren't we adding They talked about filling the positions. We haven't filled this position. It's open. It's empty. Why aren't we filling it? It just it just seems obvious to me. Um, we have 105 fourth graders. If we have five teachers, that'd be 21 students. So, I I just I'm baffled that we're not doing it. Um, I thought the idea of building the 56 center here was to free up schools like General Wayne, which were overcrowded. We've done that. So, why aren't we We have the capacity to add the classroom. Why aren't we adding it? Um, I don't think it's fair to teachers. I go in the class to read to my my kids each year. It's a lot. When there's 21 or 22 kids, we all know that.
079To think is it's it's just an insane number. And it's higher than the gu the guidelines. And I know there was comments made, but we've done this before. Why why are we going above the guidelines? They're there for a reason. 26 is the max per your guideline. So, I just don't understand why we're not following those guidelines. 26 is insane. Um, but 27 is over the guideline. So, let's follow the guidelines. Thanks. All right. Um, thank you all for being here um and for your comments. Um, are there any other board comments at this time? Remembering this is our only meeting before school starts. All right, with that, is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? All right, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody.