Great Valley School District Board Meeting - June 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM

001for virtually. Um, so we are going to start this evening by saying the pledge of allegiance. Our flag's back here. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Americ. All right. Um the board met in exec session this evening to discuss some legal and personnel matters. Um and so with that we will move on to section two which is our recognition. I believe we have a couple of recognitions this evening starting with the manager of the year award. We do and I know our supervisor of food and nutrition services is here Nicole Taylor. Nicole, would you mind taking the podium? And we're going to honor uh Ivonne here in a moment. So thank you. Good evening, members of the board. I am delighted to share some exceptional news with you tonight. Our

002very own Ivonne Westlake has been selected as a 2025 state manager of the year by the School Nutrition Association of Pennsylvania. This prestigious award named in honor of Louise Sublett celebrates school nutrition managers who demonstrate outstanding leadership, dedication, and commitment to serving students through excellence in school meals. Ivonne's nomination and selection speaks volumes about the impact of her work. Ivonne demonstrated excellence in each of the fine areas. her dedication to creating an exclusive and efficient cafeteria, her commitment to developing and supporting her team, and her engagement with both SNAP School Nutrition Association of Pennsylvania and the local community truly sets her apart. As part of this recognition, Ivonne will be Ivonne will receive complimentary registration to the 2025 SNAP annual conference and she will be honored there at the president's dinner. We are incredibly proud

003to have Ivonne representing Great Valley School District. Her passion, professionalism, and dedication to our students well-being through nutrition makes her truly makes her special and a true asset to our community. Please join me in congratulating Ivonne Westlake for this welldeserved recognition. Thank you. Oh, they're all 15. Great. And I know next uh we have some recognitions for the Chester County High School Art Exhibition. And uh Dr. Capola, appreciate you doing the the honors this evening. Thank you. I'm here on behalf of our art department chair, Jessica Stanhagen. This year, 31 artworks by Great Valley High School student artists were displayed at the annual Chester County High School Art Exhibition and PA's sixth district congressional art competition in April. For 51 years, this exhibition has been an opportunity for all the Chester County high schools to

004showcase their strongest student works in a professional gallery space. From over 500 works on display, five Great Valley High School students placed in four of the eight categories. And we have two of those artists here tonight. If you could come up. I think Theo and Lindsay are here. I'm going to read all of them first. Senior Emily Matthew, honorable mention in collage with her piece Joyful Butterfly. Sophomore Lindseay Lighten, honorable mention in printmaking with her piece Eternal Forgiveness. Senior Lisbet Ordonz Gomez, third place in photography with her piece looking back. Senior Kira Moscarello, second place in photography with her piece expectations and senior Theo Aker, third place in sculpture craft with their piece, the aspects of my identities evolution. And I saw many of these pieces in our art show and they were incredible. So

005congratulations to all of our winners. Get a picture. All right. Um, we don't have student council reports this evening, but we do have the introduction of our new student reps starting in the fall. Come on down. I know Neva is going to do the honors and introduce us to uh her successor. So, welcome everybody. Please take the podium. Hello. I hope everyone is having an amazing Monday. Um I'm here to introduce two incredible students. They are rising juniors. Um and they will be taking on the role as student representatives to the board. Now I have seen them in action at school and I can assure you these two students are truly up to the test um and I am so excited to hear them um throughout next year. So without without further ado, I guess

006I'll let them introduce themselves. Good evening everyone. I hope you've had a great weekend and it's a pleasure to be here today. My name is Anna Seao and I'm a sophomore at Great Valley High School and I'm incredibly honored to stand here today as one of next year's student reps. I know that Justin and I were both really excited for this opportunity to work with you and represent the voices of our high school. Great Valley has always been a community that I'm proud to be in. From the amazing teachers that we have at the high school to the great spirit that we have and the wonderful clubs, I truly love being a part of the Great Valley community. And I've been lucky to be involved in many of the clubs and activities at our school

007and that's made me more passionate to represent our diverse high school. So, let's take a quick look at my experiences at Great Valley so far. So, I moved to Katie Markley in fourth grade from Xton Elementary, which is in the Westchester area school district. And throughout elementary school and middle school, I played violin in the orchestra and obo in the band. And after we got in person after virtual school and middle school, I also did track and field as well. It's been a total of seven years at Great Valley, which may seem like a lot, but I'm looking forward to the next two years where I can be more involved in our community. At the high school, I have done a little more than middle school and elementary school. As a sophomore here, I am

008the treasurer of the National Art Honor Society, and I'm also the co-president of Crochet Club with a senior named Lillian Hansel. And I'm also a member of WISE, which is women in science and engineering, which is the perfect club if you're interested in STEM at our school. And I'm also a member of the Great Valley Mosaic Club, where we make the school's art magazine each year. I've also continued orchestra since middle school. And I recently moved up to the first violin section, which is nice since I've been in orchestra for such a long time. And besides clubs and activities, I also do athletics at our school as well. I am on the varsity girls tennis team at our school. I play first singles on our team. And the image on the left shows me and

009my doubles partner Sahasra Neru at the doubles championship this year, which was nice to be champions, especially since our coach, Mr. McGrath, will be retiring this year. So, it's good to end on a successful season. And besides tennis, I'm also part of the varsity swim and dive team at our school in the winter. I've been doing both sports for both years that I've been here. And the bottom two images show me at the Chessmont Championships for swimming as well. I know that this is a big role as student representative. And I think that with everything I've been involved with throughout my Great Valley journey, I think being a student rep is such a great opportunity to take all of these experiences and use them to help share our student life at the high school and

010be a communicator between students and the school board. I'd like to thank all of you for the important work that you do as the school board and to keep our schools running here. Great Valley wouldn't be so great without all of the work that you do and I'm really looking forward to being part of the effort next year. I hope the rest of the school year wraps up smoothly next year. And speaking of the school year, we're in the home stretch now. Our seniors had their graduation last Thursday, which was nice to see and celebrate them. We'll definitely miss the positive role models that they were. Our high school also had our summer sendoff um this afternoon and fortunately the weather cleared up in time. So the freshman, sophomores, and juniors got to celebrate the

011end of the school year and participate in events that did that. So I know our students are looking forward to the summer and I hope you all have a relaxing break as well. Thank you for your time and next up will be Justin who's the second student representative of next year. Thank you. I have to say I agree with pretty much everything Anna said about the uh amazing district that we're in. Um I started here in kindergarten where I moved um for the kindergarten uh the start of kindergarten and I started at General Wayne Elementary School where I spent all six years there and I had an amazing time at General Wayne. Um, I was also then in the middle school for all three years where I was the treasurer of the National Junior Honor

012Society, which was a great experience for me because we raised thousands for local organizations like the people's pantry, putting on food drives and, uh, putting on tournaments like the volleyball tournament at the end of the year, which is a huge success. Um, then at the high school, uh, I served as the ninth grade class president last year and had a fun time doing that, running events like the pep rally and the Mr. Great Valley Contest uh in 11th grade or that's next year sorry I was the I will be the FBA treasurer which is the future business leaders of America which is a club about business and uh leadership as you might have guessed in the title and um we do competitions such as at the state leadership comp state leadership conference and at the

013national competition which I qualified for this year but I did not go to hopefully next year. Uh, and I think I want to reiterate again that I've had such a great experience here with all the programs and I have another slide after this um with some more stuff that I've done. Thank you. Um, uh, I'm also in the speech and debate club uh, practicing speaking and uh, debating people like my brother who I know um, Dr. GF you know Dr. Aul you should know on the student forum. Um, yeah, we do a lot of debating at home and in the debate club. Uh, I'm also involved in baseball with the school and outside of school. And I enjoy baseball, not just playing, but also watching. I'm a huge Phillies fan. And you all might have

014remembered that I was here a month ago to present Mrs. Freeman as the all-star teacher for the Phillies this year. And in addition to that, I'm also a boy scout and I did my Eagle Scout project for General Wayne Elementary School and we built benches and fixed up a pond area at the front of the school. And again, I'll reiterate the same thing Anna said with I'm really excited to look forward I'm really looking forward to working with all of you. Thank you for all the work you've done this year and the work you'll continue to do and see you in the fall. Thank you all so much. Very impressive. I I love how you're taking full advantage of all the things that are offered and uh we'll definitely be having you back in in

015the fall. We'll give you off for the summer board meetings. No reason to attend in July and August, but we'll start back up in September. So, uh really excited to be working with you and again, very very impressive resumes. It's good to know a little bit more about about who you are and what you're involved in. So, thank you for stepping up and and taking on this role. Hope you have a good summer as well. Thank you. All right, moving on. Um, I already talked about we met in executive session, so 5.02. Any secretary's correspondence? There's no no secretar's correspondence this evening. Okay. Um, as people are leaving, that's fine. Any update from the IU? Uh, yep. I have a just a quick update. Um, they touched on two things that I wanted to share.

016One is that the CCIU horicultural program won the blue ribbon and an outstanding blue ribbon at the Philadelphia Flower Show last month. So, that was a really huge honor and a really huge um deal for that club. It's it's led up by Mr. Walls, who I hear wonderful things about. Um so those students were very proud of their work and all of the effort that went into it. It was an absolutely gorgeous display that they recreated at the board meeting for us. So um they should be extremely proud of that. And then the other piece I wanted to share was um they have launched their uh BBA, the Brandy Wine Virtual Academy has launched their cyber check-in program. And this is due to new legislation that says that any student who is enrolled in a

017cyber charter school needs to have a on camera face-to-face wellness visit with someone from the program. This legislation stemmed from a tragic event happening with a student who was enrolled in cyber charter schools, not BVA, um that had an incident. And so now, uh we spent quite some time talking about the safeguards that are being put in place and all of the work and care that the BVA teachers are putting into checking in with their students, connecting with their students, and letting them know that these check-ins matter. Um and the next CCIU board meeting, the last meeting until the next school year is next week. Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Rizzo. Um legislative report. Uh that's Samantha who is away this evening. Um foundation update. Uh it'll be at next meeting. The their next meeting is

018Thursday. Got it. Thank you. Um any other board committee reports that I have overlooked? Okay. Um, superintendent update. Yep. Thank you very much. We will have a presentation. So, um, couple of things. I I want to lead off with just some some good news sharing in the beginning and then I I want to do a full debrief with the board about this year's goals and then I do have a draft version of next year's goals where I'd like your input and then I would certainly be prepared to make any sort of enhancements between now and bring them back in July. Again, goals don't require official board action, but we do discuss them, and certainly your input uh helps to to shape them. Uh I do want to direct you to board docs. There are a

019few things there. We have a more thorough analysis of the district goals. So, if you look within board docs, you'll see that document and there's a few other pertinent documents there as well that I will speak to in the course of my report this evening. So, I do want to draw your attention there. Uh but let's start off with some some good news and I think some really good news. Uh we had our middle school field day for all seventh and eighth graders last week. What a point of pride. I mean when you look uh to give you the context I I hope I can do it justice. This was really an event where our PTO took the lead and they worked with our our staff. They worked with our teachers. We had high school

020students who came back and served. We had alumni who came back and served and sponsored uh activities. We had parent volunteers. We had the foundation there giving support. It was a day when you really look at all the stakeholders coming together to do something for our children. This was the hallmark event of the year. Uh as I walked around and went from station to station, the weather cooperated. It just was an endeavor where everybody came together for a common goal which was to give our kids a great memorable experience as for some of them they get ready to leave middle school and enter high school and just to celebrate the year. I I just had to hallmark uh that event and give my thanks to everybody who who made it possible for our kids. Uh

021it was wonderful. We also had our senior stroll in advance and I think we got some great shots here uh as our students went about. It's just a tradition where kids go back or seniors go back to the schools that they attended, whether it's their elementary school, their middle school. Uh they visit old teachers that they've had. Um with the 56 center being unique, even though our seniors never went to the 56, you know, I give our principles work together so that those teachers could be freed up. And if you were at the middle school the year before, then you could go back to the middle school and meet your students there and reminisce in that building. Or if you were at the elementary school, you could go back to the elementary. So, we'll see

022how we we build things going forward, but with the addition of a school, I was glad that our principles were able to work that out so that those teachers could go back and see those children five, six years later. So, senior stroll, very nice tradition. I mean, even I love the one with the kids on the swing set and just playing and showing the little ones. So with the senior stroll, I know that we allowed teachers to go back to where they had previously taught to see students, but I would really encourage us to have the seniors come through the 56 center because what I've learned about this event is it's such a community event. Like everybody loves those seniors and the kids. I want those kids to see those seniors walking through and to

023know what's waiting for them. Um I think it's really special for the kids as well. So having them do a loop through the 56 center would be much appreciated and then we don't have to deploy teachers and get some. Yep. Yeah. We're able to use existing staff luckily. But I do understand your point and I think Totally agree. Totally Dave totally agree that I mean that was the original intent right was um years ago was to share that experience and and let those kids see what they have to look forward to. So we should include them. Yeah. And I think a lot of the focus really was on that senior experience, but you're right, as we've come through, uh we'll look to see if we can uh do things a little differently next year. So,

024I appreciate the suggestion. And then obviously our graduation, the the weather cooperated. Um we had some some wonderful student speeches and just a a night. Uh what a great senior class. So, we're going to miss them. It was a a great group. um we know they're going to go off and do wonderful things and um I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about our graduates of the class of of 2025. Just a quick thank you to everybody who made that event possible. I mean, if you show up at graduation from the parking support to the facilities to, you know, tickets and programming. So, we we have so many hardworking people that want to make it a special memorable night. And I I want to give my thanks to everyone who played a role there with

025with graduation. So, thank you. Um, now moving on to really I I think this the substance of the report and again I'll remind you that there is a more detailed report within board docs that breaks out our various annual goals for this school year. So, I will not read all the goals to you. We we did a mid-year report which was shared with you and obviously we we shaped them u throughout the year. um largely developed you know the comprehensive plan we were able to get done. Uh the implementation of the middle school and the five six programs although not perfect uh to implement such largecale changes in the same year uh was a huge undertaking. We've done a lot with feedback. I know we gave the board three formal presentations about our work and

026our next steps. So, um, very, I think, what was a successful year in terms of launching a building and doing a whole redesign of that middle school experience. Again, much more um, in in the way of enhancements down the road. U, we've been taking that feedback and as we go into the summer, expect some some changes to be made. Um, the digital citizenship work, continuing our curriculum, you've seen the present presenters that we brought in. You've seen the curriculum documents come through. We expanded our digital citizenship curriculum into sixth grade. Uh we've continued to make the efforts there. And then lastly, just those steel standards that are coming. We're laying the foundation. We got people out the conferences. They've been trained. We're working with department leaders. So I feel with those academic goals, um we

027were really able to hold true and sustain a lot of that work. Are there any questions you might have regarding this first section of goals? Okay. So there's other slides there that you can see. I think I' I've spoken to a lot of these. Uh the second category is our communications and engagement section. Uh we did have a transition of a director of communications midyear where we went several months due to a resignation. So with the board's approval, we did table a lot of the goals um that you see here before. The third one we did create and I know Miss Marston was was here and she presented an employee recognition program that we're going to launch and I have a little video I believe that um we're going to release on social media. So

028you're going to get a a first look at that. Do we have that that video available gentlemen? Would you play that? Thank you. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Thank you. We'll take us back. The beauty of the recognition, we want it to be online. We want people to be able to nominate individuals internally. And I know in that video we show teachers, but I want all aspects, right? We were just here. We had a food service director of the year. We have bus drivers. Some have been with us 30 30 plus years. Uh we have wonderful power professionals, office staff. So it's a mechanism where people can be recognized internally and externally. And so once we ramp up in the fall, we'll release that and get some of those those programs out. And I know

029we ended up using the the heart acronym. Teresa, do you mind just the the full the the full acronym? Do we have that that whole part? So, we did call it our heart award. Yeah. So, it stood for um honoring excellence, achievement, resilience, and teamwork. Really just something that would encompass kind of every corner of the district. And like Dr. Gfredo said, whether it's a teacher in a classroom or one of our um other staff members who assist our students and our staff, um it just kind of encompassed all of our district. Yeah. And I want to thank Teresa. I mean, you kind of came in late in the year, took charge of that goal and started even working on some of the other goals because they are going to carry forward into next school

030year. So, I wanted to thank you as well for your effort in setting up the recognition program. And also, she was in one of those mascot costumes. I will share that. So, thank you for suiting up for the team. Very well done. Um, any questions there regarding those goals? And you will see we will carry a lot of them forward to next year because we we had a transition. All right. All right. Our culture and well-being is our our third category. Um we have worked with the responsive practice framework. Uh you've some of the board members have even worked with some of the consultants there. We are building our own internal capacity. So we will be kind of scaling back on that consultant work as we become more self- sustaining with some of this work.

031obviously infusing the responsive practice, building community, how do we meet children where they are? How do we really build those strong communities in our classrooms and throughout our schools? So, um that work continued quite extensively even all the way up to our to our high school. I know Dr. Capola is here tonight. Um her first work around a responsive home room to get students maybe off devices and a little more engaged out of the gate. So, uh more work to be done. first year is always hard, but um we're really trying to work on building those communities and those other moments, non-instructional moments that we have built into the school day. Um our professional development for all staff uh trying to improve um more and more learning opportunities. So we do offer online cataloges or

032support staff in particular have been a group that sometimes gets overlooked. You know, so much of our focus ends up on staff development for teachers or administrators. And I want to give Miss McGibney a lot of help here credit here. We started bringing in presenters really for our support staff to the point where they started requesting people to come back and help them with stress management. Many of our support staff are on the front lines when it comes to answering phone calls, greeting visitors, helping to problem solve situations, and planning events. Uh, a lot of stress on them. So a lot of the feedback for those sessions has been really helpful. It is a little harder with the teachers. Our teachers work 10 extra days and a lot of that time gets used for other

033pieces. So we have been able to offer more but not really to the extent that I I think we're just constrained on the amount of time in all the competing initiatives that we have to train teachers in whether it's safety, curriculum, grading, best practice and instruction and the like. So more work still will continue there, but I I think for that particular goal, the efforts around support staff in really elevating their opportunities is is a point of pride. And then lastly is our district equity plan. So it is a robust plan. We have not met every goal there. Um we have a variety of um initiatives within the the three-year goal and within the three-year plan. So we're coming up on that third year. Some goals transcend two years and you'll see within the report

034if you have specific questions uh because there are a lot it would take up a page or two to go through each of those. So if you have questions about our progress on the equity plan, let us know. We'll continue when we get into next year's goals that we will report out several formal presentations to the board uh exclusively on progress with the equity plan. We didn't quite do that this year. Uh but for next year, I think that's something that that'll be much more meaningful and keep you more informed as to the work. But I would direct you there to that report um to see more of the um specific outcomes. And you can see the ones that are listed here. I I won't take the time to read them all to you. The

035last goal is just out breaking out our finance and operations. So our student information system, which is a huge change, uh that's our Skyward system that we're currently using. We're doing an investigation. Uh we put out an RFP, a request for proposal. We got seven back. We are going to narrow that down to a few and then we're we're going to need a little additional time. So, this is a goal that we're not quite there, but in the fall, we're going to bring back a finalist to the board for your consideration. We want to make sure that we're engaging our stakeholders. We're getting feedback from teachers, from staff, administrators. We're we're kind of vetting the cost. It looks like it's just going to take us a little extra time, but the RFP is out and

036our job now is to narrow it from seven down to a smaller pool and then ultimately one. Even by delaying this goal just slightly into the fall, it will not set back our implementation. We'll still be ready to go all in on this program for the beginning of the 2627 school year. All right. Uh other pieces, the second bullet, we've really addressed uh you've seen a lot of recommendations for positions. Um one, we've asked for a director of HR, human resources back in the fall and the board granted it. We're a growing institution. Things are much more complex as an employer. We can't have an assistant superintendent doing double duty with uh HR functions. So, thank you very much for allowing that position to happen. We did add one additional office staff person at Charlestown

037with the addition of 120ome students. We realized that that main office was a little short. And then lastly, we did um when Miss Lind Linderman resigned last year, that was an opportunity for us to rethink that program, which was supervisor of specialized instruction. And that for all intents and purposes will be repurposed for an ESL supervisor to help support that important work. So, um, every time I think we're always bringing up different positions to the board, uh, ways to do things differently and yet also do them in a really cost-effective way. And then the last goal is just that record retention policy. Um, Miss McGibney led the charge there this year that we met with every department making sure that we're not keeping paper records or digital records longer than we need to. And so

038there's a lot of paper that gets pushed in the district and uh she was able to get out with every department, every building, uh went over our retentions policy, things are clearly marked. Uh I think we did a really nice job tightening that up as well so that we're not keeping things uh that we we no longer are obligated to keep. All right, that was really quick. I just wanted to give the overview. I do think the real details are in the report and I encourage you to review that and let me know if you have any additional questions. All right, then let's move forward. We're already working on next year's goals. Um, the categories are largely the same. However, the first category was exclusively academics last year. We'd like to expand that into academic

039growth and student development. We can't really separate them. And we've talked a lot about both academic growth for students but also their personal growth, their social emotional growth uh and so on. So this first category is really dedicated um to really inc imp improving that student academic experience and their their development. And so I'll just give you a chance to take those those goals in and then we'll see if you have any questions or comments. I won't read them. any questions on those? And again, my anticipation is to float them to you now, give you time to think about that, provide feedback in this meeting, and then when we come back for our July meeting, get additional feedback and then finalize them in July. so that when everyone returns in August, our goals are set

040and um clearly articulated. So again, if there's not immediate feedback this evening, know that we'll we'll capture it later. Um the one I will highlight the WEDA standards. WEDA is a consortium. They are the premier consortium around English language development. A majority of the states in our our country belong to the consortium. And I have a WEDA document in Boardocks if you just wanted to get acquainted. um even the PTE standards are based off of the the WEDA standards. So they have a lot of resources, a lot of support and that's why um that might be a newer term or organization for the board and I did provide a link there to some of the WEDA information if you want to check that out. All right, category two remains communications and looking at our engagement

041moving forward. A a lot of the goals that we weren't able to accomplish um this school year and I'll give you a minute to take those in. The only points that I'll really highlight I think the third bullet having communication which is outward to our families and our community but also there's so much going on internally that monthly internal newsletter so that all of our staff are informed is is very important. as well. And I know our communications committee took some time to vet some of these and the annual report was something that the communications committee really viewed quite favorably. This idea of getting a a an annual report of all the various progress points of the district and achievements out um is something that I know Miss Marson is is going to ch be

042challenged with. So uh I feel pretty good about those those goals moving forward. I think they are going to enhance um how we engage our our community both internally and externally. Culture and well-being within board docs. I did provide a copy of PTE's common ground framework which really has some uh pretty impressive standards. I actually think it's a pretty robust framework. We haven't done a whole lot of internal work with it, but we would like to start to train our administrators and getting acquainted particularly with the emphasis on the trauma-informed classroom practices. Uh they are just good for all students. So whether you're truly dealing with a trauma-based situation or just good practice in general that makes students feel comfortable, accepted, and like they belong, uh they're just good practices. So that framework is there

043for you to review as well. Um the second bullet is probably the the next one that I'll I'll speak to. Uh having a shared philosophy and approach to guide or disciplinary practices. Um you've heard us talk about restorative practices to build community, but that is not the same when it comes to imposing discipline. Um as educators many times we're we have a similar role to our parents in our community is that you know our job is yes to hold children accountable. Sometimes you have to levy discipline, but it's always to help children learn from a situation, learn from their mistakes, and sometimes that includes res repairing relationships, restoring relationships with one another when harm has been done. What are those lessons learned? And so we're we're a little scattered. I think we we have um

044principles in a lot of our buildings doing good work, but I really want to take next year to kind of corral it to a common K12 framework, philosophy, and approach when it comes to discipline. So it really will deal with those dual channels of yes, we will still hold children accountable. We will have to levy consequences in the form of discipline. But what are those other pieces that we truly do? So I use just the classic example of a suspension. A high schooler suspended for 5 days. They do their suspension and they come back on the sixth day and they go about their day. That's it. They were suspended for five days and then they come back. Part of our approach is how do we transition that child back? What is the repair work? Has

045the reflection really occurred that that behavior is not going to happen again? Did that student do something that affected another student or a staff member negatively? How do we go about and then repair that relationship? So truly when the child comes back, it's just not you've had a fiveday absence from school, but you truly get to the heart of the problem. Hopefully the child sees it and then hopefully if there are victims or others that are impacted, they see it as well. And I think that's a real powerful piece. So we we're doing that in a more scattered approach. What I'd like to do is corral our team and do it much more systematically and identify a common philosophy and approach. So that's what I mean by that one. Um and then you could see

046the other the others there that uh I don't think require any explanation. Any questions on this category? Okay. All right. Lastly is our finance and operations. This our fourth and final category. I think you'll see that a lot of them are all topics that we discussed here at the board level. Then just a a kind of a general question and and more like kind of me wanting reassurance but also kind of re reiterating what I think is is how this process works from the last from last year's. These goals right now at all are all very like 100,000 foot goals. um when when we get to the point where they're finalized, they're going to be operationalized a little bit more clearly and a little bit kind of closer to the to the ground. Yes, we'll

047we'll certainly share the action steps. We'll have road maps for these. We'll have communication plans that also go through. But also, if there's specific benchmarks that you're looking for with some of the goals, I absolutely would encourage either tonight or if you want to email me later or as I said, when we revisit this in July, um I want to make sure that I'm hitting the mark for you as a board. When when do we have to finalize these? We really have timing. The goal is really to have them ready so that when everyone comes back in August, they are ready to go. So my hope is that we socialize them here tonight. You provide some feedback between now and we take some time in the July 14th meeting and then after that I'm able

048to really polish them up and have them in a presentable form for August. But if we need to take August to do some further massaging and the board feels more comfortable that way, um that's certainly something we could do as well. And and I don't know how other people feel. I just feel like the academic growth and student development and the cultural well-being categories are just very very very broad. Um, so, so I'd like to see just some more examples of of what specifically kind of operationally is meant by by some of the Okay. Yeah. some of the points. All right. No, very good. We can certainly look at that. I welcome that feedback. And I know it's a lot for you to take in in one sitting. So, um, again, we'll we'll cover this

049over over two meetings. All right. if there's anything else. Um, if not, Miss Gus, that concludes my report for this evening. All right. Um, okay. We are at public participation for voting items. You are welcome to come up, speak for three minutes. There will be an annoying buzzer. That means you have 30 seconds. Keep talking. Um, you also have another opportunity to speak at the end of the meeting on anything. So, this is just for voting items to be clear. All right. Um, and with that, we'll move on to our uh where are we at? Consent items. Sorry. Thank you very much. Section eight. Miss McGibney, I have two changes to the consent agenda. Uh one is item number 8.06 and 8.07. Uh we added a cover sheet uh which normally is there uh for

050the 11th grade course. It's kind of a story of the course and the purpose. So that was an additional ad and item 8.31 the annual insurance renewal. Uh the actual premium numbers are there with the detailed backup information. the numbers did come in less than anticipated, which is great news at about a $16,000 savings. So, those are the only two changes to the consent agenda items. All right. Is there a motion on the consent agenda item? Motion to approve item 801 to 842. Okay. I'd like to pull out item 8.22, please. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All right. Um any discussion around these about the first group? Correct. The larger group. Okay. All right. Hearing none. Um all in favor of 801 to 8.42 holding out 8.22. Um all in favor say I. You

051are good online. Dave I Wendy I Dr. Rizzo I that gives us eight seven sorry Niha's out of the country as well. Okay. Uh seven and nothing. All right. And then do we take 8.22 on its own? All right. [Music] Um, so, uh, a motion to approve 8.22. Okay. Motion to approve item 8.22. Is there a second? Second. All right. And then discussion around the iPad charging cart purchase. I'll I'll just make my comment that I spoke of last week. Um I am I guess not in favor of our um taxpayers paying for charging stations when I believe children should be more prepared when coming to school and charging their devices in advance. So, and I'll add that I think that there's more cost-effective ways to manage kids who for whatever reason need a charge.

052I recognize that sometimes kids do need that, but kind of the the I think there's better ways that we can we can look into doing that. All right. Any comment for those dialed in virtually? Rachel, I thought we were going to get clarification from I thought that's how we left it. We were going to get clarification about what some more information on why the charging stations were needed, if it was indeed because students were becoming coming to school unprepared or if it was more of, you know, students were using their iPads during the day, the charges would run low, etc. I thought that's how we had left it. Okay, Mr. McGibney. Um, Miss Litzky, to jump in and and kind of piggyback on what you were already explaining. Um, a good portion of it is

053to make sure that students have the opportunity to be able to charge their tablets in the middle of the day. Um, so the first four periods of the day, I think, was what came up in question. Um, a lot of times kids are utilizing their tablets during those periods. Um, although it is an iPad, it's not meant to last for an all day usage. Um, a lot of times you're finding that kids after that lunch period are in need of an additional charge. Um, so a lot of times, and you know, I welcome anybody else to join in, but a lot of times students are plugged up with their tablet with their plug at a wall in a classroom um trying to charge. Uh, does that happen in the first four periods? It does. Uh,

054but it's also happening in the afternoon as well. So, we're trying to afford the students the opportunity to be able to have the moment where it's the most downtime that they're going to have in a day. Um, because they're with their friends, they're chatting, they're eating their lunch, it gives them the opportunity to put their iPad in a locker and charge it up for that moment so that they have it for the remainder of the day. Is this is this coming concern coming from teachers or where's this concern coming from that they're not charged properly? Um I'm getting the message from the tech department um saying that that is the feedback that they're getting about tablets not being charged. So yeah and I know a lot of times children will go to the tech window.

055So they will be on the front I need to borrow a charger. I need a device. Those type of things. So um our tech department's kind of on the ground floor with a lot of this as well. And has anybody talked to the cafeteria staff? My understanding is that they were going to be in the cafeteria. Is that correct? Anybody talked about the cafeteria staff about what kind of a um kind of how that would look um and and the whether or not we have I mean the cafeteria is already a little bit crowded um and you know how is that just going to work kind of practically. So the actual charging stations themselves as a whole you get 24 charging stations. Um it's not large um in size. I do have the measurements. Um,

056the other piece is is our tech director has been working with our facilities director. It's in the cafeteria, but it's not in where you're getting your lunch. It's kind of where the students are out and eating and kind of like a corner area. So, it's it's not going to interrupt how the students are moving throughout the cafeteria if that's your concern. So, our devices that we're giving the kids don't hold a charge for the whole day if they're using them in each class. If they're using them in each class, it all depends on how the student is utilizing them. Some students them also depends on the classes that they're in um of how often they're using them. I can't truly speak to what that looks like. Maybe Dr. Oul um or Dr. Fredo could speak

057to uh how often students are, you know, involved in using their iPads during the day. But I know some teachers use them more than others. Um so, you know, you might go through your charge by seventh period before you know, you get to the end of the day and you might just need that extra boost to get you through that last period. So, yeah, I would agree. It does vary. It varies on usage and and the device and what what type of programs they're doing, how often they're on it. Um, it's kind of hard to have one. Okay. One size one, Mr. Barrett. So, so um statistically if we had a issue with kids using their devices so much in the morning um that their charges were running down then I would think that we

058would need a heck of a lot more than two is it two stations that re that do 24 each. Is that what we're looking for? Correct. Right. So we're we're looking to accommodate a you know not even the majority of the school district in the high school, right? So if that's truly the issue, then we should be looking at more of these, right? Um but if it's not truly the issue, then it sounds to me like the kids are coming to school with their kid charge with their iPads half charged and I as a taxpayer, why am I paying for them not coming prepared? I'm done. I have a question. Um, have we explored any other options besides purchasing these carts? Because we have talked a lot about charging stations and charging blocks and charging

059everything everywhere. So, have we explored what we already have that exists in the district? Maybe if it's something cast off from the elementary grades that can be repurposed or have we explored other options of not charging them in the cafeteria but maybe charging them in a classroom or a library where charging areas already exist. What have we explored already? And I would share we have looked uh at within the classrooms absolutely if you go in any one of our classrooms there's normally alternate chargers outlets kids are able to to plug in there. We have looked at some of the bricks. I know Dr. Maybe I'll let you speak to those as well. Uh those weren't quite as successful as maybe we anticipated. Yeah, when we first rolled out one to one, we we talked about

060charging as a potential issue with students midday at the high school and we had charging bricks that we allowed students to borrow. Um, but with charging bricks that they can use to go from class to class, they tended to then, you know, sometimes be kept, you know, even if they might have been borrowed and signed out. And then our tech department is having to then try to find and locate the device. And sometimes the iPad requires a little bit more of a charge than your normal um, you know, off-the-shelf kind of battery charger. Uh I mean teachers have some access to um you know extensions and worked with the building and grounds or buildings and grounds service or group to work on that. At the elementary level, they do have charging carts, but those carts

061are not they're in the classroom or, you know, they're not as, you know, in this case, there was discussion years ago when we first started to look at options for charging a secure place for students to ch place their iPads. So, if they're at lunch, putting it in their in their bag is one place, but that's not getting charged. But if they can have a place where they can store it and this is what these lockers would do and I think as a trial to see you know to what Dr. Mr. Barrett was saying is that you know this isn't sufficient to cover the entire lunchroom. Um but you know for a kid who might need we were I think from what was shared earlier or last week was more of just to see is

062this an opportunity for students? Can we learn from this and try this for um in the lunchroom as an option for those kids during those periods after the first four? I um I I'm sorry. Is it okay for me to go? I can't tell because I'm not in the room. Yes. Go ahead. Um, again, I have um a focus group of two high schoolers here and I did talk to both of them about it and um you know, they felt like a and again I would love to push on this a little bit more and get a little more information but one it's an access issue that not all kids have access to readily accessible chargers and charging stations. Um, the other thing that was confirmed is that depending on how you use your iPad,

063it could die, you know, midway through the day. Um, and you know, so I I just put that out there. I also brought up last week that if you go to the 56 center or if you go on any college campus, you can charge your, you know, computer, etc. Like if you go in one of our academic buildings, there are students sitting all over that building with charged, you know, charging their computers, working on their computers, um because they do use them so much. So, um if we're not ready to to vote on this and we need more information, that's fine. Um but I am supportive um based on what I know right now. So, it sounds like we do want to vote. Yes, Wendy, I know you indicated if people information, but I don't

064know that there's folks need more information on this topic before we vote. Let me start there. Well, right right now there's a motion to and a second to vote on this. So, we'd have to um whoever made the motion would have to withdraw it and whoever second it would have to agree in order to table it. Just, you know, or we have to vote it and we have to vote on it. I just just from my perspective, I don't feel like I need more information on this. I think I'd like more information on other options because, you know, $5,300 for 48 charging station just feels like I I understand and I appreciate the need for charging stations. Um but but $5,300 48 charging stations feels like something I'm not comfortable with. I agree. All right.

065So, uh there's an outstanding motion to approve 8.22, 22, which is the purchase of the iPad charging stations. So, I'm going to go through um and ask for a vote. Tom, no. Okay. Trisha, okay. I am a no. Uh Becky, okay. Dave, no. Wendy, I'm the only yes. Andrea, no. Okay, so fails. Uh six to one um how to keep a chart and if we can come back with different options in the future great the board is all ears about it but with that um we are going to move on to nine personnel approvals and I think there's some questions here but we'll start with 901 Dr. afraid. Is that you? Yeah. So, not necessarily my specific agenda item, but I know it's pretty lengthy. There's a lot of summer hours. No, it's okay. Um,

066you know, we certainly have a lot of new courses. I think some board members may have questions about this with the the large number of summer hours and I know, uh, Dr. Beck's here as well and she can certainly assist in answering any of the questions you have. My initial framing on behalf of the board is this looks we see summer hours all the time of course and we're grateful for the folks who are spending their time doing this. I know they're getting paid but it's still time. Um but we typically in our recollection do not see this amount of summer hours being put forth for the board. Um so we welcome um education from the administration on this. Is is our recollection correct? if there is a huge increase why um I know there

067have been instances where we prepare for a lot but then it we don't end up using all the hours so that's just my framing of the issue other board members please chime in on your more specific questions and I can certainly just give a a quick overview and if we have some real nuance questions I'll bring Dr. her back in because I know she she requires as I look you are correct there there are lengthy but they are in response to a lot of the changes so you'll see project lead the way for example is our high school engineering program we are going to have a turnover of staff we have new teachers you're obligated to go through the training that's not one that you normally see nor will you see uh in future years

068so we are adding a new course so we have to get the individual teacher trained in that course and then also there's a good 10day day training when you come on to the project lead the way program. It's a very um engineerbased widescale um engineering program across the country. So those are something you're not going to see regularly but we have some some turnover. We have some new teachers and we have to get them up to speed. Um the others you'll see a lot of curricular work. You know we've been making a lot of changes um as we go through with our special areas and really as you indicated these are not to exceed. So, I know we're you can calculate and look at the max, but we don't always go there. We sometimes we

069get teachers approved and they're not available in the summer, but we only have one shot to get them approved before the summer work. So, we tend to load up the list and that's why we always word it as a not to exceed. Many times we we certainly come in underneath. The summer health is something that we offer every year. It's kind of money in money out. Uh that's a traditional one that you will see. Our ELD summer camp, we offer that every year. I'm going to say in excess of 200 250 students come in for that. So that one you'll see every year, but we have a lot of people involved supporting. That's a large endeavor that runs the majority of the summer. Um and then as you start getting down to like letters K,

070um a lot of that really is us trying to engage our staff in more meaningful ways about some of the curriculum changes that are coming, some of the best practices. I wish we still had the days when I go back 10 years ago where we could get 20 substitute teachers on any given day and pull teachers over and work through the work through issues. We can't do that. Um we're just those days are over and that is forcing us more into the summer. Now we can scale back some of the changes to be more cost-effective, but I have to we are not going to be able to do the volume of work during the school year because there is a huge substitute teacher shortage. uh we're pulling teachers on a regular basis at our secondary

071level to cover classes because we're we're short. It's just you know about the teacher shortage and it it continues with that area. So, uh I do think we've been ambitious with some of the work and I am sensitive that I know the summer expenses are significant. I I realize that. So, I do think we can maybe look and maybe table some of these or or delay some of these in in future years being mindful. Uh but a lot of this work is is actively going. and you'll see a lot around our ELD program. Um, let me just see if you have specific questions. I'm kind of working through the list a lot with the math changes that we're doing, illustrative math, new courses being added, our data science course which is new, social studies, we're

072in the midst of a major revision. So, so Dave Dave here. So, I guess my concern is this is probably easily twice what I've ever seen in my 16 years, right? Um I I understand all everything you've said and the reasons behind them, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Um you know, we've got to I just think we've got to figure out how to make things work. I mean, one one thing on here is figuring out the 56 recess. We've got 12 teachers and I think it was 20 hours each at 46 bucks an hour. Really? It takes over $13,000 to figure out what re recess should be in the 56 center? That sounds like a couple admin and a couple teachers figuring it out in a couple hours. I mean, that's this

073is just I mean, I get the um putting everybody on here because some won't be available, but that's like signing a blank check, right? I mean, Sheree, if we spent every teacher, every hour for every project that's on here, is it in the budget? Not every single teacher. It's based off of Okay. So, so why aren't we just approving that this project will mean hours of some of these or all of these teachers? Why Why are we approving every teacher for all these hours, for all these projects, knowing full well that we're not going to be doing all those projects for all those hours? It doesn't make it's a blank check. To your point, I mean, 24 hours to talk. I know it may not be 24 hours for the recess, but 24 hours to

074talk about recess. I mean, there's another one here, letter O. 20 20 teachers doing it. Well, yeah. I don't know whether is it 20? I don't know. Whatever it was, it was $13,000 to figure out recess. I would hope we could do it better than that. It's letter O. kindergarten parent progress report to develop a progress report to accompany the report card that shares student achievement and growth based on teacher feedback up to 18 hours per teacher at $46 an hour. What I don't understand is what is a progress report to accompany a report card and I don't understand why you need 18 hours to develop that. Well, times the number of teachers. So anyway, I just wanted to point that out. Yeah, I mean we we can certainly speak to that. Dr. Beck, are

075you able to come to the podium and we'll answer Mr. Richard's question regarding kindergarten? Uh, and you will see we have representatives of the four schools that get included, but um, do you want to speak to the kindergarten question and we'll take them as they come? Sure. And I can let Dr. Tol jump in too, but we um, we've done a lot of work, comprehensive literacy work, um, in our K2 grade levels. And so we have a number of diagnostic literacy assessments that we administer in response to structured literacy and some of the other changes at the state level. And so our current report card until we have a new CIS doesn't reflect the sharing of that information in a way that's parent consumable to families. So we've our hope is as other school districts

076have to develop a parentfriendly way to share that information that's not just quantitative numbers. So to outline the funological awareness pieces, the concepts of print, concepts of words that when you say those words to a parent, they don't necessarily know what that's measuring. So it may not be to your point it may not be 18 hours per teacher but we would like to pull the kindergarten teachers together. They do feel like they're sharing verbally information with families but there isn't something to hand to families to say this is what your you know child is able to do when I work with them individually and then it changes across the year as you all know that children grow. So the developmental, you know, what's developmentally appropriate at the beginning of the year looks different than the

077middle of the year than looks different at the end of the year. And that's in response to parent and teacher feedback that we're not truly communicating where students are in terms of their progress. Um, we know that when we get a new student information system, hopefully it will be able to improve our ability to communicate, but that's been something that's been a need since we implemented full day kindergarten. When the pandemic hit, we weren't able to do the work that we intended. So, we wanted to be responsive to student and or to but but I I I mean to Tom's point, you know, I understand getting those teachers together. I don't think any of us have that problem, but 18 hours worth. I mean, that's two and a half, three days to figure this out.

078I I just it just doesn't make sense. So, we we've got to figure out how to be more efficient. I mean, you know, we keep adding staff and adding staff, which is great because we need it, but you know, for the rest of this, you know, stuff, we we need to figure out how to be more efficient. not um like I said, this is I've never seen so many summer hour approvals in my entire 16 years. And and Dave, I think that's what I'm just struggling with because when I looked at them, too, I I just couldn't remember a time that I'd seen that many. So, whenever something's a little bit off in that way, I always start to question like where did this come from and what's the reason behind it? So, I also

079had kind of that same reaction when I looked at all of it because it was like nothing that I had seen before and I didn't have the context as to why all of these hours were needed. I'll I'll um add a little bit of context I think to to what Dr. Beck is sharing. A couple of things that over the summer make it challenging for us. As Dr. Gfredo shared, "Sometimes we'll have teachers on this list who have said that they could work sometime over the summer. Then we find out later that they can't. And then when the load and the lift of the work that we had thought we were distributing over, I'll make this up over five people is now distributing over three or two. And then if we've only come to the

080board and said we need five hours for five people and now that number has dropped down to three and the lift is still you know for five people. Sometimes we then have to either come back and and and and that other the other three people are saying I'll work the extra time but we only got them committed for no but but see I think the point is that if it takes 20 hours to do a project whether you you know 20 person hours right if you have five people right that should be four hours worth of work if you have three people that may be seven hours worth of Right. That's I think the concern of the board is that the way this is all written, it says it's 10 hours each regardless of how

081many people show up. And and that's that's the concern. I understand the concern if you have less people. But the concern is it's not it's it's just it's not thought thoroughly through for approval to say we expect this project to cost $10,000 worth of overtime. Okay. It just says it just says we need all these people approved because we don't know how many are going to show up and Hootman's not and we need all their hours approved. That just doesn't make sense. It should if you got to do it that way then it should say with a project maximum of X. Dave, hold on. Dr. Oul is going to respond please. Yep. We we we've never exceeded the hours that we've asked for the board in the past where uh in the sense of we

082know that we work to anticipate the number of hours that the work will take um similar to what you're describing with looking at a project cost. The challenge is that if a staff member, if we anticipate that it's going to take 20 hours over five people and we only ask for four hours, once that person hits four hours and they're adding on the support of a colleague that isn't there, we've only gotten them approved. So the business office cannot pay them beyond four hours. But you can't but you can approve everybody like it's written and say with a maximum for the project of $10,000 or so many hours total. I I think years ago we did have a list of people and we said um up to 30 hours and then I believe and I

083can't remember what was the rationale. we were asked by the um maybe former business manager uh so I won't it wasn't uh MCIMD um to now put how many hours per person so if you were to look back to about two or three years ago we had just said 30 hours for this scope of work and these are the 10 people that we're looking to uh authorize and then that meant it could be three hours for each person or it could be you know maybe we only had uh nine or six people show up so then we used the 30 hours of scope of work. So what we were instructed to do and we can go back to what we were doing about three years ago uh to put the scope of the work but

084we were instructed to ask to just put the number of people and then how many hours that we were going to get board approved for each person. So you know we we we've gone we've done both. Um we're happy to do whatever the board is is requesting. Uh but at this point we're trying to look at and and to go back uh to the the question as to why at this point you know um you know with the five six center you know the sixth grade work that's that's had to uh take on the the world language support for the new world language. We have Spanish for heritage learners. We have another another level of Spanish for heritage learners that's continuing. We've done a lot of work where where we've updated the board around social

085studies. So there's still continuing work that the teachers are asking and oftentimes much of the response of what you're seeing on here is at the request of our own staff who have said to us that being pulled out of their classroom and writing sub plans and then having to do the work is adding additional layers of challenge for them whether it's professionally or personally. So they would rather at a time when they know that they're not having students in their classrooms to write lesson plans and such. uh and if they have taken off for other reasons um uh you know that that becomes a challenge. So in addition to the sub uh sub challenge and filling sub rates uh we also have had staff just indicate to us that it's a it's a stress to

086also be pulled out too often and we have a handful of people who are committed to the work. Stephen, I don't think anybody's debating what you're saying. It's the fact that we're approving what boils down to significantly more hours of work than what you guys really need. And so that's the concern I think we're expressing is that how can you sit there and say we got to approve all these teachers for all these hours even though we're not going to use them? That's like, you know, let's just, you know, I mean, that's nobody functions that way. I mean, like like Shereice said, if we if she's if you guys spent everything that's on this agenda, it's not even close to being in the budget. People off. You're cutting people off. I'm sorry. Sorry. I was

087just trying to explain more so for Miss Slitzk's question as to, and I think Mr. Barrett, your question as far as why the volume is different compared to previous years ever. And I think the the the challenge I I was trying to express more so is the volume and the and the type of work that's being addressed is um based on feedback from staff as it relates to our comprehensive literacy approach. Our revisions of social studies that have been ongoing and the support that staff have asked our work around the restructuring of elementary K4 along with 56 and then also 78 with a new structure with so there's a lot of change that's happened in the last year. So I think the reason for the volume that you're seeing is because of the changes that

088we've had over this past year. I understand Mr. Barrett your concern and and and and agree in the sense that we can go back to what we had done in the past where we said the scope of the work is this many hours. These are the people that we'd like to approve who have indicated their uh availability and then and and and we can go back to what we were doing you know a couple years ago. Can we safeguard that now? like we're at this point, it's on the agenda. Um, you know, how do we safeguard and protect it so that in a perfect storm, not all of these positions and these hours are then fulfilled and we don't really have the budget to to provide for it? Well, I mean, at this point, if

089I mean, in all honesty, if this were to not move forward, then we would have to we would have to wait until July. and the work that the teachers have indicated, many of them we typically look in June because they they don't take vacation uh as as often in the month of June so that we can actually capitalize uh their time after the school year. uh and then we can report back to say I don't know how that works with uh the the board's approval and then we come back and say at this point you've approved x number of hours for each staff but now we're rescending I'm I'm making this up but I don't know if that's then to say even though you've approved 30 hours for Stephen Tul uh we're actually going to

090cut those hours to 10 you know in next in July to to let you know what we're using and how we're using that time. Are we able to convene a a special voting meeting just to vote on one item? You know, so if we if we tabled this for tonight and we asked for a not to exceed limit um on each on in each of the areas, could we come back in a week or two weeks um vote on it? Just this one item. Yes. As board president, I can call a um well, Rachel's acting president tonight. Um we can one of us can call the um a board meeting for a voting item. Can I jump in really quick? Um so I went back to last year and I went back to the previous

091year. Um it is listed uh each individual category uh alphabetically uh based off of $46 per hour. Um, some items say, for instance, C, K through five, English language arts curriculum, $46 an hour, $46 per hour, 30 hours each, and it lists the individual teachers. Um, the next item is 46 hours, and it specifically gives hours for each individual teacher. Um, and the way that the business office does understand it is exactly how uh Dr. Tulle explained it to you. Uh, usually the list is provided. No, we do not budget for every single teacher on the list based off of that. Um because it's always been past practice that they're only pulling the certain teachers that are needed. Once that's maxed, it's done. And that's something that we do track in the business office based

092off the budget that is there. Um I even know a lot of times I've been in contact with uh Dr. Beck uh to have conversations to just kind of let her know, heads up, this is where you're at in this particular category. So that does get tracked in the business office. But but see that's that's the disconnect, right? Is that you're tracking a different set of numbers than what was approved, right? I mean, I'm not saying we didn't do this last year. Don't get me wrong. It was probably not right last year. It's just all of a sudden it seems like a hell of a lot more money this year, right? And so now the magnifying glass is sharper. Um and I do remember in the past when we would have and I think even

093with your predecessor um there were used to be not to exceed um comments. Um so for you to track one set of numbers yet the board's approved a different set of numbers that's definitely a problem. I think I think two parts to that Mr. Barrett and again it's it's a point well noted. I do think moving forward we can certainly work to include a total number of of max hours. The part that I would highlight for the difference I think the board is seeing as I've ran through it, there are things that we've never addressed before in any prior work. Um we're now doing a heritage learner course, right? We've did that. The board touted that course. We need to do the work to get that prepared. We're working on the seal of biiteracy. We

094proposed that. We now have to find time to do the work. We talked about extending world language into an earlier grade. We did that. We need now to find the time to do the work. Illustrative math. We have a new curriculum that's being rolled out. A lot of the trainings are on illustrative math. We're rolling out a new data science course at the high school. That's on this agenda. We have a new project lead the way course at the high school. That's on this agenda. We're in the midst of a large social studies agenda. You see a lot of that there. I'm not saying that accounts for each and every item, but those we have never undertaken. But Dan But Dan, I don't I don't disagree that some of these projects or all of these

095projects aren't justifiable. Okay. My concern and I think what I've heard from some of the board members is the fact that we're approving hours that are never going to be used and we know that. So why why would why would like first off, why would we approving stuff that's outside of the budget? Because that's what we're basically doing. The budget's got X dollars in it. Theres already indicated if we spent every single one of these approvals, we'd be over budget. So that's there's the disconnect. The fact that all these projects might need to be done. I don't think anybody's Well, I guess I have a problem with recess, but um I think most of us would not disagree that most of these need to be done. It's the methodology. Yeah. I think where we are

096at is exactly that, which is the work has to be done, but we can't approve something we know we can't pay for. That's just not okay. And even though we have sort of a handshake agreement that we're not going to get there, that's not good enough. So, I think what we're going to have to do is call uh Mr. Barrett's going to have to call a specialized meeting where we put some limits here that bring this within the confines of our budget because we're not going to get we're not going to get there tonight. Yeah. I I have to say, repeat, I think the recess thing, I know we're picking on that. I find that offensive. 12 teachers doing studying recess. I was head of an elementary school. I know recess is important. I get

097it. But I I find that sets a tone here that makes me very uneasy about what we're doing in approving these things. I I think that really for me is an example of how did how did you come up with 12 teachers for 24 hours for recess. I I don't understand that at all. And I will say and there's a couple of us that have um kids in that 56 center. Recess is an issue that needs to be rectified certainly. Um but I think to Tom's point at that rate and level isn't where we saw that going. It does need to be fixed but not at that budget line item. Right. So, the the feedback is helpful. We'll go back. It sounds like um for now, I guess we'll we'll proceed. This won't be voted

098upon. Mr. Barrett will call special meeting. We'll take the board's feedback, apply the necessary changes, and then um come back and vote. But I don't I don't I wouldn't you can't draw that conclusion yet, right? It's on the agenda, so there needs to be a motion. The motion may not include um that part of it, but until the vote until the vote occurs, I don't think you can draw that conclusion. That make sense. Yes, it does. I was just synthesizing what I No, I I understand. I'm not I'm not disagreeing that that may be what happens. I'm just saying that until the vote occurs, um, we can't we can't just jump to conclusions. Agreed. Yep. I I just need to point out that summer health, which is funded by families, does begin in the next

099two weeks. And EL summer camp planning has already started, which is paid for by title three and ready tolearn grant. So, from a timing perspective, I don't want to I just I'm concerned about those two items because we have families signed up. They've paid tuition. Their tuition's paying for the teachers. So, I don't know how that works, but I am we can we can have motions to approve those items. But you you just you made a good point. You said um ES was it EDL? What did you say? EDL. ESL, sorry. Has already started. Well, that's another concern. Well, this should have been proved a month ago. Administratively, planning for EL summer camp has started. So, I just don't again I understand I understand and again I don't want to stop the progress and I

100don't want to stifle a vote on that and it should be approved in my opinion, but my point is this should have been approved last month. And and can you tell me what the health is for? Just remind me. Is this for the summer so that students in the high school can take it over the summer in case their schedules to jam with APs, etc. in the fall? Yes, this is a program that's been running for before my time. Um, but this is something that students, 11th and 12th graders, a school messenger sent out to all incoming 11th and 12th graders. Yep. Option to take summer health over the summer. Parents pay that for that credit. And then it's our summer health teachers who apply to teach that course. Yep. Okay. I just wanted to

101make sure it was exactly what I was thinking it was. Thank you. Summer health class. An example of where we know the exact hours that are going to be needed for that. They're the same hours they've been for years and they usually do come in pretty close to those which is why we've because it's a defined and it's defined by the tuition of the family. So we're not paying and at times sometimes we do we over we collect tuition for hours we didn't. Okay. Yeah. I think it's isn't it like uh there's two oneweek sessions right? So each there's um so a kid basically a child's there for one week and they get the health credit if I remember correctly. It's shifted but it's a three-week session. Oh there you go. Three weeks now because

102of more kids. Which of these letters tracks that health model where we know what we're doing here in terms of exa exa pretty close to exact hours? I don't have the letters in front of me. I apologize, but I know that the summer health class and then maybe Dr. Gfredo, you can help me. And then the EL summer camp coordinator and teachers is paid for out of title three and ready to learn funding. So that's HI and J. H and J. And they're based off of time sheets from all of the years past that we've done that work. And those are the if we had to triage, we need to move on those. Yes, please. That's fine. Okay. And I think some some of them I see they already have the the not to exceed

103um in there. And I guess my question is if if those not to exceed hours are kind of in line with what we actually need and have been used in prior years, um that I would feel comfortable um approving those if we if we're comfortable with that that ceiling that's been provided. Um I think it's only for FG. Um I think it was just F and G that I saw the cap on. Um so so yeah, I don't know if if um Sheree if you're able to tell if those those caps are are in line with prior years or with at least what we think we're going to need. And also I don't know Wall Street is looking the um the title three funding um we don't expect any disruption for this year right not

104for this year. Okay. Were there any other items on that list that are um title funded? No. Oh, I thought the ELD was title funded. Any other any other beyond the title three for the EL? No others are. And that's a combination of title three and ready to learn. And is that fully funded by those those grants? Okay. Yes. So Rachel, are we going to take this in triage mode and and approve or what are we doing? Waiting for Mrs. McGibney. Oh, sorry. Okay, got it. See if we can make it an even six that we can push tonight. Have to table the rest until the next um meeting, ad hoc meeting, I'll call it. Um that we know needs to happen soon and it will. That's fine. Um, we just need to figure out

105what this the mo it's a motion to approve personnel and then we'll lay out the letters that we're approving. Yeah, I mean I'm looking at a A through through J and those are you know typically I know you know with pupil services and looking at um you know the some of the work that's been happening gifted education along with medical record entry for registration the project lead the way as Dr. Gfredo mentioned those are all PDM um requirements through the project lead the way those are the hours and we've consistently done that with any new staff um you know the item B with Mr. Ellis, he's teaching new course at cyber security. These are these are trainings that are happening on, you know, those hours are been consistent with what we've approved in the past

106or at least requested and we know are times that are not beyond what are required of the staff um for those courses. So um and then the data science course uh to get training for those staff to be able So those are based off of the trainings in and of themselves. And then I know um the other work. So we need to go through by letters here so we know what we're motioning. So I'm just going through it looks like a lot more do have caps on them, you know, up to 30 hours per teacher. Um so I I guess my question would be and I don't know I think this applies to a whole list of them. Like is that reasonable and appropriate? Um and not just a No, no, because they I mean

107it sounds to me like that's not what the plan is. That just says there won't be any more than 30 hours per teacher, but they don't plan on using that many. I mean, like I said, if if that much money is in the budget, then fine, but I don't think that much money is in the budget. Definitely do A through J. That I'm 100% sure. I'd have to go through the rest of the list to compare. And I look back at 21 and 22. Between two 2021 and 2022 was when the switch changed from having it as a projectbased hours. If you look back at the June of 2022 agendas, it was the total project hours for the all the individuals uh listed. And then in 2022 it was changed. We were asked to put

108the number of hours per person. Okay. So at this point I would put forth a motion to approve personnel sections 1 through 4 also section 5 A through J. Yes. My motion is to approve personnel sections one through four and then also section five A through J tonight. Is there a second to that? Trisha with the second. Okay. Um Dave, are you okay with that motion? Is that an an I have no problem with that motion. Nice. I'm super articulate. Um, Dr. Rizzo I Right. Wendy I. Patricia. Rachel is an I. Becky. Okay. So, we've got that moving and then as for the rest of it, Mr. Barrett, we're going to ask you to pull together a meeting within the board policy of which we can pull together such a meeting with proper notice um

109to deal with the rest of it. and we'll ask the administration please at that point to come back knowing that we can't approve at all at the way it is written. Um we just budget-wise we can't write that check. Um so let's come back with um a more a financial model that we can approve and make sure we're still getting that work done with the understanding again to everybody. We understand why this work has to be done. We just can't approve the budget under which it's being proposed without more detail. Okay. That was great. All right. 9.02 Memorandum of Anderson. Perfect everybody. Thank you. All right. Anou. So, this is just an an agreement. Uh it adjusts our hourly rates for homebound services. We realized there were times where sometimes we're not always able to

110fulfill the need for homebound. So we are upping our rate u by about $9 to see if that's more attractive. Homebound services would be provided if a student is tempor they break their leg and they're out of school for a few months. So we're going through a treatment and we need to send um teachers out to the home. So that's a homebound rate. So we are looking to just elevate that rate a little bit because it's defined in our CBA does require a memorandum of understanding. So just so to make sure I'm clear on this. So if we offer this um to the CBA at this rate and we don't get any members who want to um take advantage of it because it's there's nothing in the CBA that says they're required to. Correct. Um

111we will then do what? Because these these children are entitled to this service, right? Correct. Then we would we would look at outside providers. Um the expense is normally a little different because third parties to No, I understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But the the goal is that it would be offered to CBA members first and if no one takes uh takes up the offer on it then it would have to be outsourced because we're obligated to provide this service to these students. Right. We have a um a contract with Learnwell um that we are using as a third party vendor but we cannot outsource that work. So theou allows us to do that when we cannot staff it within the CDA. follow process by which we'll ask all uh CBA members if they want

112the work and then then if they don't within a certain time frame we will go out to that third party but you already approved that contract for us and um we've asked the board's uh approval to just up that rate slightly to help get more people internally preference would be to have our teachers do Thank you, Dr. W. All right. Is there a motion to approve uh 902? Motion to approve 902. Second. Second. Uh Dave. Yeah. Or n I Wendy Andre. Hi. Sorry. I in the room eyes. Yes. Okay, that passes. Seven. Oh. All right. Um, next up, 1001. We have policy up for second reading and adoption. Um, is there a motion to accept those policies for second reading and adoption? Motion to accept 10.01. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion on these?

113We went through them last time with Nha. All right. All in favor in the room. Dave I Wendy I Andrea I have nothing. Um, next up 11:01 program approvals. I don't see anything there. Um, facilities, transportation, 1201. Nothing there. Um, and then we are back around to public comment again on anything you would like to say. Three minutes. Tell us your name, where you live. Um, again, there's a a loud buzzer that indicates that you have 30 more seconds, so please keep talking if you wish. Come on down. Thanks. Good evening. Sherry Lawrence, uh, Charles Township area. Uh, I'm here tonight because tomorrow night the uh Charles Township Planning Commission is having a meeting to discuss the DP White um White Horse uh build of 205 to 389 town homes on the corner of Route

11429 and White Horse Road. Uh there are a lot of Charles Town uh township community members such as myself that have a grave concern about building these many town houses in an area that is not only zoned for commercial but it's only half a mile away from Charlestown Township and based on those numbers there is no way in God's green earth we're able to put that many more students if we have families moving into the area with that type of volume. So, I just wanted to uh bring it to the board's attention. You probably already knew about it, but if not, certainly for the public uh to be aware that uh planning commission meeting is tomorrow night at 7 o'clock. Um the second reason why I'm here is I appreciated uh your thanks uh Dr.

115Gfredo to all of the public-f facing people at graduation. Uh, but I did want to uh put a special spotlight on the student uh uh uh stage crew and tech crew who very much behind the scenes um did a lot of grunt work to make um graduation possible and they've been doing it for decades according to Mr. J. um they are very much behind the scenes and they give up two to three days of school uh but they are still responsible for their 90% labs and their 90% papers and all the schoolwork for the time that they volunteer to help set up um uh uh commencement. So, I just wanted to once again offer my public thanks to them and uh offer a suggestion that maybe those people are also added in the commencement book.

116Uh if you're going to add the choir and the band and all that stuff to maybe include the people who actually set it up. Um but that's about it. Thanks so much for the time tonight. Okay, good evening everyone. My name is Ellen Davis and I live in Atwater which is not far from here. I have two young daughters who attend Lower Villa uh in Melurn, Pennsylvania and I represent about 10 families in a very similar situation. Um there's 10 of us, 10 plus families, probably about 25 students at Lower Villa who are part of the outlier region I call it. It just doesn't make sense for the transfer. In the morning, I believe it's St. Patrick's and in the evening it's Sugartown. And I'm looking for to work with somebody to analyze adding a

117third transfer location, particularly Charles Town um elementary, which would make sense for these five communities. Um, so that's why I'm here today. I had investigated this about five years ago when I moved, my husband and I moved up here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, downtown Philadelphia, and I was told, "No, there's only a couple of students. Now we have 25 plus that could fill a bus." And I have other examples. Case in point, my brother whose sons all go to Devon Prep, they live in the Phoenixville area, that school district provides a small bus, holds about 12 students. So obviously these 10 families represent over a h 100,000 in taxpayer dollars to great valley and we'd like to potentially set this up for our children for a safe environment. All right everybody um is there any other

118board comments? Anybody else? No. With that, is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? I I you everybody for being here. Thank you.