001Yes. I know. What's that? The mission of the school district township is to educate to inspire a community of lifelong learners who become well-rounded global citizens. District goals are academic excellence in an evolving world, prepare future ready learners who persevere, adapt, problem solve, think critically, and are supported by engaging learning experiences and intentional use of technology. Belonging to honor every individual's inherent dignity through equitable, inclusive, and diverse practices. Social, emotional growth. Build a learning community that prioritizes social emotional wellness as a foundation for academic success, resilience, and strong relationships. Community pride and civic engagement. Empower students to be active, responsible, and contributing citizens through shared responsibility and community partnerships. >> Thank you. Math, you call the role, please. Miss Lee >> present. >> Dr. McKay, Mr. Schwarz >> here. >> Dr. Shelton >> here. >>
002Miss Snagris. Miss Vitali. >> Miss Weedman >> here. >> Dr. Larson >> here. >> Dr. King >> present. Um Dr. McCay is absent due to travel and Miss Vitali is absent due to a personal matter. We'll continue on to section two which takes us to public comment. The board values public comment. There are two opportunities on the agenda for members of the community to provide public comment during the meeting. The first opportunity on the agenda for public comment is to allow members of the community to speak on action items listed on the agenda for board vote. The second opportunity on the agenda is towards the end of the meeting, which allows members of the comm community to speak on any topic. Public comment allows for residents of the township to speak for three minutes. A
003timer will be set at the start of your comments and an alarm will sound indicating that your time has been completed. Should you have any materials from members of the board, please leave them at the end of the table with Mr. Tessa for later distribution to the board. Please note that if appropriate, a member of the administration may follow up with you at a later date. Please state your name, confirm your residency, and the time will begin for your allotted threeminut remarks. I do not have anyone that has signed up for section two of public comment. So, we'll continue on with section three. So, 3A takes us to our official minutes. Can I have a motion to approve the official minutes from the October 23rd, 2025 regular board meeting? >> Shelton second. >> Moved and
004seconded. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion passes. 3B, finance. And I have a motion to approve the authorization to advertise for the incurrence of non-electoral debt. >> Moved for second. >> Moved and second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? The motion passes. 3C takes us to our bill list and I have a motion to approve dispersements for payment totaling $489,492.71 moved >> moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Any oppose? The motion passes. 3D takes us to personnel. Can I have a motion to approve the personal actions listed below? >> Moved and second. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? The motion passes. So we have now concluded the action portion of the meeting and we are moving into the working portion of
005the meeting in which items are being provided for information and discussion purposes only. None of the items discussed are being considered for official action at this time. We'll move into committee reports. Um for 4 A we have facilities. I believe there is no report for this evening. All right. Thank you. For 3B, we'll continue to finance. Dr. Shelton. >> Thank you, Dr. King. We have six items in the finance section. Um the first item is discussion. These are for uh discussion information purposes for our next meeting. Uh the first item is a bond issuance uh update from Jamie Schlesinger of EFM Financial. While they're getting this together, this is going to be very similar to the conversations we've had in the past uh with regard to the last step of the capital improvement plan planning
006and financings related to the various uh elementary schools and the middle school cafeteria uh as well as a solar project. This is that presentation. So once we have it up, uh so where we Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Apologize. Uh so for today, uh we're going to talk about what the next steps are to complete the last financing associated with the bonds to cover the cost of the capital projects. Uh this chart is very traditional what you see when we come to these board meetings. I try to give some background behind what the interest rate environment looks like right now. Uh always when you have coa charts uh you see lines going up and down. Uh in this particular case uh I'll describe the bottom chart. Right now we're seeing the interest rate environment in a
007pretty good place overall. Uh there's been a large demand for municipal bonds in general because the investors in this market are looking for certainty. We've had some volatility in the market in general. Generally speaking, this school district has been very very wellreceived in the capital markets being a double egg credit and we don't expect anything to change in that fashion when we go to market in this particular case. Uh rates have come down in a small fashion over the last few months. It's you know mostly just driven by you know the market itself uh and that that demand. Uh we haven't seen a tremendous amount of volatility for the municipal side just in other places. usually the start of the year when we do enter these type of capital pro project financings we do pretty
008well uh January is a good time to issue debt uh because it's usually a good time where investors are have a need for filling their coffers with municipal bonds and if anyone took you know economics 101 in college there's something called the January effect it actually means something for municipal bonds the January effect is something that hits the municipal bond market itself and it's all about the supply and demand side for for municipal bonds itself. So we're uh looking forward to moving forward with this. You can turn to the next page. All right. Uh so just briefly, this is again no different than what we've talked about in the past. Uh given the amount of capital needs that the district has been handling for their for their building projects. Uh we've been doing this in
009various steps. Uh the concept behind this has really been to allow you to have funds when you need them for the projects when you need to do them. Uh it allows us to amortize the debt service payments over a period of time to step them in a process. So as you're working on your budget, you're able to afford them in a reasonable manner to keep those uh impacts for revenue enhancement or tax increases if necessary to be at a smaller amount. So we've been doing this for a number of years. It's worked quite well. We intend to do this with this last transaction. With any municipal bond transaction, we're going to be issuing these as general obligations that are taxexempt. And big picture behind tax exemption is as a local government or a school district,
010you're allowed to issue debt for these purposes at lower interest rates because the investors get a special credit for the interest that they receive. So since you're doing uh building projects, you're allowed to issue these as tax exempt and you have to follow the rules associated with that. So, if you're building a building and you're going to put a Starbucks in it, let me know because we won't want to do that as a tax exempt issuance. You're not going to do that. So, we're going to issue traditional bonds in this particular fashion. You have to spend the money within three years. That's a reasonable expectations. We've had no problem doing that. This district uh has a a long-standing capital project and you spend the money reasonably quickly. And uh the last thing which we're going
011to talk about is a a reimbursement resolution. As part of the resolution that we're asking you to adopt at the next meeting for this advertisement, we're going to include the ability for you to reimburse your general fund with the proceeds of this debt issuance should you pay for any capital or or payments for the project before you sell the bonds. In this particular case, based on the cash flows of what's remaining from the previous bonds, we're going to probably tap into some of your your general fund to offset some of the costs. and when we issue the bonds, we'll be able to transfer that and that's allowed under tax code. So, it's an important aspect of this resolution and it doesn't force and speed us into doing a transaction until we're ready, but this is
012the plan at this point in time. Okay, you can turn to the next page. Uh, as we see, this is usually a sideways and the numbers get a little smaller each year it seems like, but uh, we're looking at an additional about $20 million. If you look in the bottom right hand corner in the gray box where we have approximately about $200 million of outstanding debt, uh you traditionally ask the question, is this a little too much? Do we have just enough? Uh I would say it's like the three bears with porridge. You guys are just about right right now. I think you can you can amortize and issue debt in a fashion that you can pay back. the credit rating agencies are comfortable with this with the the amount of annual debt service meaning
013principal and interest and it fits within a double A category. You know, if there was another $150 million we would do next year, maybe we have a different conversation. I do not believe that is the intention of this of the school board for this particular situation. So, I think we're in a good place and we have some room if we need to do other capital projects in the future based on how your debt's going to fall off. Uh everything else on this page really just gives you an idea of when the call provisions are, meaning the ability to refinance debt. We always monitor that. So if interest rates fall at a certain level, there may be an opportunity for me to come back and talk about saving money with those existing bonds. For right now,
014we're just talking about this new money uh and the and the borrowings itself. Turn to the next page, please. Okay. So this has been the plan. Uh this is essentially a draw schedule that we helped create and worked with your construction managers and architects. Uh it has provided us the guidance to show an estimate of when the funds are going to be utilized for the various capital projects. So this started back with the Chattam Park project, the middle school cafeteria. We now have Coopertown and we have Chadam with some solar projects. That timeline has been really really important and we've been building our model off that. This is the last step and this helped guide us in the decision point of how much we should borrow. Some adjustments were made over the last couple years
015just because of cost of of of the project itself or maybe moving things moving up or down, but we've done a pretty good job of managing this. And in this case, based on the amount of proceeds that we've received, the interest that you're earning on the bond proceeds, and anything else associated with this, we think we're comfortable that we'll be going out for about a 20-ish million dollar issue. that should cover the balance of this and used to have enough funds to cover uh the various needs that remain. A lot of numbers on that page, but understand this has been the blueprint from day one. Little adjustments, but uh we're pretty happy with the results so far. So, we'll talk about what that means to you in in debt service, and that's on the next
016page. Again, very similar to what you've seen in the past. Lots of colored uh options. If you're looking at the green section, that is the proposed estimated new amortization schedule with the, you know, proposed approximate $20 million of of bonds necessary to cover about $20 million worth of of capital needs. We would be doing this as we've done in the past as a wraparound debt service structure, which really just means we are advertising principle more as other debt falls off. Uh the important uh aspect of this is the phasing in of those payments is in a fashion that allows you to kind of leverage uh your your taxes in some capacity to cover your payments going forward. We will have a run rate, meaning a budget of about $15.5 million, almost 15.6 once this is
017all said and done. Again, it's probably about what we've estimated from day one. And overall all of these capital projects based on your tax base uh is worth you need about a half needed about a half mill of planning to cover all of those projects. So about 60ish million dollars worth of capital projects that have happened over the last three or four years uh will will cover about a half mill all in. And that's about what we talked about from day one about three years ago. Uh the next page unless anyone has any questions. I know I'm going through all this. You've heard me say this a bunch of times, but I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Can I ask a >> Sure. >> question. Um, >> looking at the green column, there's about
018a million dollars of additional local effort for the first 12 years or so and then um then it steps up to $3 million that schedule that you talked about wrapping the payments to the end. A question might be, is there any opportunity to reduce the the million dollar amount up front and put more to the end and um near term reduce the effort um in years of 27 26 27 209 I'm just curious like how that structure >> so the front end unfortunately we can't really touch it anymore because there's very little principle can be paid in the first year. So that's really the interest that's kicking up from the 20-ish million dollars all in to allow us to kind of leverage that payment. So we don't have a lot of room at all to
019to manage that. Uh the back end of this we're trying to allow for and we can adjust this definitely a little bit if we need it based on a strategy. The concept that we thought of uh was you can notice that if you look in column 16 you'll notice your your that run rate I've mentioned about $15 million. We're allowing for a drop off of debt service to the $10 million mark. And the idea behind that is simply I expect I may be back here in the future and I want to make sure that there's availability and room to fit in more principle if we had other capital projects. So this giving you or future boards that access to that drop off to put more principle there and also maintaining a structure that's within about
02020 years which is kind of the useful life or longer. So, we're we're able to do all this in a reasonable manner of time, but also having that access to additional availability for for principal payback. >> I appreciate that. Thank you. I think um you know, we're looking at our budget and trying to figure out where all the dollars are going and >> it's getting close >> that we can't kind of escape the term. >> We what we can do is and we you'll notice on column uh 15 there's that capitalized interest. We could put some more capitalized interest in some of those years while you're in construction to kind of give you additional phase in if you'd like. That would just mean we'd borrow a little bit more money, but we can do that
021to give additional ability while you're in construction >> as an as an option. >> I'm not advocating. >> Oh, no. I'm just just throwing it out there. We we actually have that as an option here uh as capitalized interest as a purpose. So, I'll talk to Tony at some point in the near future. We can decide if we want to make some minor tweaks to it. Yeah, it's it's working out fine, but we have some room if we need to. >> Appreciate that. >> Okay. So, the the last page is really the the timeline. Uh you're a welloiled machine at this district when it comes to to going through this process. Uh because we have a strong credit rating and the timing and how it works because you have multiple meetings coming up. Uh all
022that needs to happen for the districts uh to get this moving is there's a parameters resolution is the terminology which means that we're going to be asking you to consider that resolution that will be more than $20 million by the way. It'll be higher as it always has been to give us the flexibility to make adjustments in the principal payments when we sell the bonds and we'll have a higher interest rates than we anticipate as well because we want to have extremes on both ends amounts and the interest rates. We've never come close to it, but we have to do it this way for purposes because we're not actually going to price bonds until next year. That's the key here. So, we're going to have a public approval at the next meeting, assuming you move
023forward. And then we would then work with the administration to get ourselves ready to sell bonds in early 2026. Uh that would be sometime in, you know, early to mid January, which I which again works very well, which means we'll have funds in hand by about midFebruary. That's the story. Uh happy to answer any other questions on my side of the world. Um which is the debt side. Um and I know I have a colleague here that we'll may bring up later or now. I don't know when that'll be, but uh we can talk to him next. Okay. Any questions? >> Discussion from the board. >> I just going to say I appreciate that we are considering this at this time. When you look at the page five with the way that we've deployed the
024dollars into our capital projects and if I'm looking at the ending balance um we will have effectively utilized all of the bonds that we raised um here at the end of the calendar year and we need to be able to continue to keep up with the costs that are going into improving Chadam and Coopertown and others. So, um, thank you for just staying on top of of the needs and planning this out. It looks like it's well sized to meet the plans. >> We we're I'm glad we can do it this way and it's worked very very well. I mean, there's been some adjustments here and there, but generally the the the team that's not just me has done a great job of kind of keeping this in line. So, uh, it works very well.
025>> Question. Yeah, I think that's a key point because you don't want to take on extra costs and by phasing it appropriately, you're saving us money. >> Yep. Yeah. This is uh we're we're ekking out just enough money for you to get this done. So, >> great. >> And the other side of it is we've also done very well with the interest earnings on the bond bonds that we've borrowed. We've done some strategies to kind of allow you to execute and get as much money as possible for this. So, knock on wood, you know, we're doing well. Okay. Yep. Uh, I'm going to introduce uh my colleague Ian Tyson. So, uh, one of the things that, uh, when we talk about the things that PFM does, I'm usually here talking about debt issuance and planning
026overall, uh, when it comes to capital needs and how to get bonds and do these projects. Uh we actually have smarter people than me that are doing other things uh for local districts uh throughout the Commonwealth. Uh Ian works with one of our practice which is the management budget consulting practice within our Philadelphia office. He spends much of his time working with uh school districts throughout uh many tasks are done through the department of education. Uh he works with both very wealthy districts in between and the opposite end and kind of seen a little bit of everything. So when there's things that are a little bit outside of my scope, I bring in uh him to talk about what we can be helpful with if you choose to do something like that. So he's here
027to talk about some of the things that we do on the other side of the world and you can answer ask him any questions you want. We'll go from there. >> Thank you, Jamie. Um I do have a presentation. Um I don't know if we have it here today or >> Yeah, it should be another PFM one. See Good morning. Here we go. October 31st. >> Should I send it to Tony or to relax. >> That's not only the day that's alive. Jamie, >> Jamie, if you don't mind, just because we don't have the presentation, we're going to pause. I'll include it in board update and we'll review with them. Yeah, that's okay. We just want to stick to the agenda with it to stay transparent with that. >> All right. Well, thank you everyone.
028Um, my name is Ian Tyson. I'm with uh public financial management. Um, and >> we're just going to pause on it. Oh, >> okay. >> Because we need to make sure it's on the agenda and everything first. >> All right. Perfect. Thank you. Would it be possible to bring Ian back to a subsequent meeting if there are more questions? >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, moving on to the second item uh to confir is a document to confirm the engagement of RBC Capital Markets LLC as an underwriter and not as a financial adviser and municipal adviser in connection with the district's upcoming bond issuance. Um Tony, are are you covering that one or or was that just provided? >> This is just um setting up RBC as our underwriter. They traditionally have done
029this, but I don't know in the past that the board has reviewed it necessarily. So I just wanted to make sure that when they see that come through that RBC is the underwriter. So separate from what Jamie does in the bond transaction, it has to be separation of duties. >> Okay, great. So that document is included in board docs for board review and is there any discussion on that document hearing? None. Um moving on to item three. Uh discussion of high school wiring RFP and E rate. I didn't see a document included here. Bob, are you up for that? Yeah, I think it's in the administrative content for you guys. It's not >> Yep. >> Um this is a continuation. Last summer we did uh we rewired half of the high school. Um so this
030would be just the RFP to complete the rest of it under um a federal program. We get uh 40% reimbursement on projects that we do through that. Um so it's mostly for uh connectivity and networking equipment and things like that. Um so this is just starting a new rate cycle for us um for this year. >> Great. Any questions or comments on the rate? >> Can you speak to some of the improvements that you're looking to get done? >> Yep. So this year we'd be moving uh last uh summer we did the classroom wings of the school. Um, so the existing wiring in the building was majority installed about 199798 somewhere in there when the building was originally wired for internet. Um, so it's just, you know, obviously 25 plus years later, it's time to
031upgrade to the to a newer standard. It would it gives us better connectivity. It reorganizes our closets to make it easier to troubleshoot. Um, and then just gives us um capacity for probably the next 10 or 15 years before we have to talk about rewiring again. Um, so this would be just the wiring. um underate we'll also be back I think in December to talk about some smaller things um because of the wiring project and the timeline that gives us um we have to have approval in March has a long timeline so starting with the wiring project and then we'll talk about um a couple of uh network projects um probably in December um to kind of try and maximize the rate money we get a certain amount every five years um that we just
032kind of have to use little by little over comments, questions, or comments? >> I had a question about the bid walk through. Um, it looks like it's scheduled for Monday, December 8th at 9:00 a.m. Is that a day that school is in session? Like, do these people have clearances? Who's who's running around our building? >> Well, well, so it's always chaper run by us. It's it's walking the vendors through the building. Um they'll go through the raptor check-in process like any other visitor to the building and then they'll be with um myself and another member of my team as we walk through and kind of show them the areas. Um the areas we're talking about this time are the office area um cafeteria, cafeteria and gym um and then um the basement. Um so it's
033mostly areas that are away from the the students anyway. >> Supervised. Okay. Thank you. Just in terms of federal programs, is - one that has some committed funding and longevity? >> Yeah. So, so - funded through um there's actually a fee on most of your telephone bills and uh TV bills that kind of fund the program. Um it actually just it had a little bit of a shakeup, we'll say, over the summer where the Supreme Court ruled um to continue doing it. So, I'm hopeful that it's not going to be one that's cut, but it's not funded through um directly through uh federal funds. It's funded through um FCC contributions um from communities and it funds not just, you know, stuff for us for education. It funds hospitals um and stuff like that in rural
034area rural areas um that need connectivity and and uh tele medicine and things like that as well. So, um like I said, it was it was kind of uh reviewed over the summer and and found to be upheld. So, We're optimistic that it's not going to be something that gets cut, but we always but we always in the RFP there's always a um line that basically states if we don't get our rate funding then we're not doing it. >> Thank you Rob. >> Okay. Item four uh under finance is intent to donate. We have three um donations uh that are available in the administrative section. Um it will be on our next for action at our next meeting. One is a bench donation at Sham Park by Girl Scout Troop number 5625. So very grateful
035to them. Um the second item is $300 worth of grocery gift card donations by a local family for uh families in need uh in the Chestnut Wall community. um very grateful for that and with the current SNAP program under the effect on the the current SNAP program. Um the third item, Monoa PTO, a $5,000 donation for playground equipment. So very grateful to the Monoa PTO. >> Any questions or comments on the donation section? >> Question. Is thereific checks just for that? >> Document itself uh indicates just school enhancement playground equipment. I don't know if there's any details, Tony. So, anytime there's a donation of something like that for playground equipment, they'll work um through JR just to make sure that it fits fits in that space, that it's safe for that space, and if we
036need to make any modifications to um take on that equipment. >> Yeah, it's wonderful. One of the kids Yeah, the gaga, right? Okay. And so like really gaga and so I just wasn't sure if there was something >> and there's always that collaborative effort in between. not related to these donations, but um a report on a prior donation for Chestnut Wald and the double-sided wall ball. Um I I walked by this morning and noticed that it's up. So, um seeing the donation in action is nice to nice to report on. >> Great. Okay. Uh so that that's that's the intent to donate. Item number four in finance number item number five is a board summary and student activity fund reports that you Mr. Tester. >> So the board summary report is the your revenue and
037expenditures for the general fund through the month of September. So given that there is no state budget at this time you can see from the taxes that we've collected so far um there were at about 93%. So, we are one of the districts that's fortunate in that we do have strong tax collections. So, in light of not having those basic ed specialized subsidies come into our accounts, we are holding strong at least knowing that we have um the majority of our revenue come through. So, that's helpful. Then, when we look at the expenditures, we're about spent where we were this time last year. So, we're we're um on track for expenditures as well. Hopefully, I know the I believe it's November 17th, they're talking about looking at the budget again at the state level. So
038hopefully we'll have some news on that. As far as what we pay for peasers, we only had to pay our share of peasers. The portion we would normally get reimbursed for, we did not have to pay. So at least that outlay of cash has not gone out, even though we would have expected our state reimbursement to come back. So at least we have that to work with as well, which is good. uh we did not have to go out for some districts you have the ability to forego your debt service payment and kind of get get an advance on your state subsidies so we didn't have to do that as well either so that's >> great just note that uh the state uh is withholding 30 million currently because the budget impasses that's a significant
039chunk of our budget >> at what point we don't get a budget, will we be in that position? >> I would say probably early spring, you know, if we were not to get anything by then, that that would probably be a concern at that point. I I kind of see them when we this happened years ago and they funded it halfway through and then kind of squabbled about it and then, you know, got the rest in June. So hopefully they at least give us that half of our subsidy that we would be due up to this point to make us whole. >> And what's happened in the past you get all that money right away? >> Not right away. It takes some time for them to get it distributed, but they usually try to get
040you caught up to speed and then go back to the normal distribution process for the remainder of that year. For some districts, that not getting the funding is an issue. Some have gone out for loans um to actually help support their operations of their districts. >> So, I guess you'll just report back when you think maybe things are working a certain way that we might have to make alternative. >> Yes, absolutely. But I don't see that at this time. >> Mr. Test, um, this report is maybe not kind of a financial report that people have a lot of familiarity with. And, um, would you mind just giving a quick orientation and maybe highlighting those line items or sections of the report from which you're drawing those conclusions about um, how we're doing, what funds we
041have, Sure. So on page one of this report um this starts with your local revenue sources. So you can see the um of our operating budget the local revenue sources are about 124 million and we have collected 93% of the taxes which represents uh just aboutund a little under 120 million. So that's where um you know we're comfortable in that we've collected most of the local revenue that we anticipate collecting for the year which is good. um your state sources, which are your basic ed subsidies, your special ed subsidies, transportation reimbursements. Um that's at 6% um collected so far. And you can see that's about 30 million of what we're hoping to get for this year. So not as huge as the local revenue. And then your federal sources, which are your title programs, um
042any money that we get reimbursed for access programs, that's just under a million. So again, not as impactful as the the local sources. If we go to the next section, which covers your uh general expenditures, um you could see there that for your 10,00 expenditures, which are is is your instructional items, um we're about 14% spent. So um coming into the third month of the year, it's probably about where it's about where we were this time last year. Um, and then your next section are your support services. And again, you can see in all these reports, you'll have your current budget, what we've spent year-to- date, any outstanding incumbrances that we have for purchases that we are planning, and then the balances along with what's been used to date. Your instructional, your non-instructional services are
043at the bottom of that report. Again, not your largest piece of your operating budget. And then as you move towards the back, the very last section is 5,000, which is your other expenses and financing. So that's your debt um the principal and interest along with that. So in total your total expenditures and your other expenditures. So you're about uh if you just take the average of those two you're right between about 25 20 and 25%. >> Thanks for walking us through numbers. >> Yes. >> Any other questions or comments? I think the second part of that was the student activity report. >> So the student activity report so just to be in line with the uh budget for not the budget the uh board policy for student activities. This just gives the board a snapshot
044of the clubs and activities that do take place that are basically led by students. They are fundraised by students. Um it's basically serves as a learning experience for the students to be part of a club and run the activities that are in that club. So, this just um gives you an awareness of for each of the schools what clubs are out there and kind of what balances that they're tracking because that was part of the board policy that um they do spend their funds. They're not carried over into multiple years. So, they're spent for the students that raise those funds for um the the appropriate activity. >> So, we this is a new report that we haven't seen before. Um, we did one last year, but now that we actually have the board policy in
045place, I wanted to make sure it becomes a recurring report for the board to see. >> Great. Thanks. It's just amazing to see the number of clubs and and actual dollar amount and half a million dollars. >> Yes. >> In student, you know, led activities, >> right? And just for the board's knowledge, even though they are funds raised by students, we're still the custodian of the assets. So that's why it's important for it just to be transparent what activities are being run through and the dollars that are going through the as well. >> Great. Any questions on the student activity report from the board? Final item under finance is title three memorandum of understanding with the DCIU. Uh as I understand it, this is a document that um outlines our obligation or our responsibilities in
046collaboration with DCIU to distribute and manage the title one sorry title three activities which have to do with delivering language instruction language instruction educational programs to students have primary language other than English. What is the actual amount that we get for Taylor? I know it's generally nice. It's not a lot of money. >> Uh, Miss Carter shared it. >> I shared it at the last committee meeting. I have to go back and look at what the numbers I wish I could memorize numbers, >> but that is definitely not my gift. >> It's not as much like a few thousand dollar, right? It's really >> Yeah. So, I know the thresh we meet whatever the threshold is to be a part of consortium, >> but I can find it for you quickly if you're going through
047this. folks and if not we can give it to you in the board update. But so essentially theou outlines as I talked about before the services that the IU provides um districts who are part of the consortium but also what our responsibility is and something the state has been emphasizing with districts in particular is that we have to remember that our IU is a vendor and that we still have to oversee it because we're still responsible for the fund. So, it really just outlines basically who's responsible for which piece and how we are going to continue to monitor our work together? >> Sorry. Um, are we taking advantage of the professional development um that DCI is providing our teachers and not just ELT teachers also classroom teachers? I know it's listening to principles, leadership. From
048my understanding, yes. But I believe I'm like I can't see your face, but yes, he he actually oversees that part of it. If you want to get you can get the answer. >> Just while David's coming up, um the title three funding is about 26,000 >> which is significant less than >> I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? >> Sure. My question was um so one of the the um things outlined here in terms of the consortion plan with DCIU is that um there's professional development for ELT teachers, classroom teachers, school leadership. Could you speak to how Habford is taking advantage of those opportunities? >> Yeah, our we have four EL teachers, full-time EL teachers in the district and they do participate actively in the uh per I was going to say P professional development
049opportunities. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Uh but for our own staff, our teachers are turning that around. So um it's you know train the trainer model if you will. Um but yes so they in terms of what they're getting primarily from the IU uh we take advantage of the PD but most of the from my perspective most of the resource allocation is really going to the summer program without that uh the summer program is the vast majority of the consortium budget and we are the most in terms of student enrollment the highest enrollment rate of any of the other districts in the consortium who participate. And we actually host the elementary program every year which is very fun. >> Is that >> it's been at Limwood for the last couple of years historically just >> then
050looking at our enrollment because that is related. So the L student enrollment essentially dictates how much we receive in title three funds. We believe I saw we had like 145 larger students this year >> for the current school year. >> Sorry I'm hopping because we'll talk about this report briefly. They're interrelated. So they are. >> Yes. So for the current >> 145 >> and that number Dr. Larson just to be clear is reflecting the students who are receiving direct services uh pimps code one or six if you will. Anyone who's been reclassified and they're in the four-year cohort they are not reflected in that number. >> Thank you. >> Sure. I just have to say thank you to like his passion for working with the multilingual learners and the teachers and their dedication especially during
051these times truly shows a level of dedication. So he has done a lot of great work. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments on those items in the finance section? I'll turn it over to Dr. >> Thank you Dr. Sh. That brings us to academic and people services, Dr. Larson. >> Thank you, Dr. King. So, we have a few items on the agenda for this evening. Um, our first is an enrollment update. I will turn it over to Miss Saxa and her team. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Larson. And, uh, with your indulgence, we will, uh, if it's okay with you, we would like to start with the enrollment update and then just switch the order of the next two items that we go from there to the course selection
052guide and then the academic. That's all right. Okay. Great. Well, then I'd welcome again Dr. Parker up to the podium to take us through our enrollment update. All right, good evening. Tonight's presentation provides our annual overview of the district's enrollment, where we stand this year, how our actual counts compared to projections, and how trends influence future planning. This update is important because enrollment data drives so many district level decisions from staffing facilities planning to budgeting and instructional resources, as well as program development. We'll start by looking at our current enrollment by building, compare actual to projected counts, and consider what those patterns mean as we move forward into 2026. Here we have highlights of our elementary enrollment for the current school year, both the projected and actual counts by building. Overall, the district's elementary enrollment
053remains consistent with projections with only minor variances from school to school. On our next slide, we have a more detailed view of each grade level across our five elementary schools. [clears throat] Excuse me. As you can see here, overall, the projections are relatively consistent with only some variance observed at specific grade levels. These small differences, typically within a few percentage points, reflect the normal fluctuations we anticipate each year as families move in and out of the township. This slide provides an update on charter school enrollment for the current school year and our charter enrollment remains relatively stable compared to prior years. This consistency is important as charter enrollment directly impacts or affects our tuition expenditures which are calculated through PTE's per pupil funding formula. We continue to monitor charter school trends closely both to understand
054family choice patterns and to ensure that we accurately forecast tuition obligations going forward. This slide shows our enrollment have for middle school compared to projections. Actual enrollment is within one or two percentage points compared to projections showing continued accuracy in our modeling. Overall enrollment stability at HMS supports effective staffing scheduling and space planning. On the next slide we have our enrollment at he for high school compared to projections. Actual enrollment is slightly above projection, but again we have a high degree of accuracy in our forecasting. We continue to see strong cohort stability at the upper grade levels with modest in migration contributing to this consistency. These patterns help ensure that staffing, course offerings, and facility use remaining well aligned with student needs. That's where Dr. Larson was getting her number. Here on this slide, we
055have a snapshot of our district's current demographics. The overall distribution remains stable compared to prior years with only minor shifts across subgroups. These trends reflect the township's consistent community composition and continued enrollment stability. This data helps guide decisions around program access, language supports, and equitable resource allocation across our schools. This slide compares the district's actual October October 1 enrollment to the projected forecast for 202526 as well as our actual enrollment over the past six school cycles. Our total variance in the 202526 enrollment is less than onetenth of 1% yearly or perfect projection. These patterns confirm that our projection model remains highly reliable for staffing, budgeting, and long range facilities planning. This slide connects our enrollment data, the state and national trends. Across the country, public school enrollment remains about 1.3 million students below prepandemic levels
056with Pennsylvania showing similar declines. Here in Hford, our numbers have stayed relatively steady, roughly 6,500 students per year. Enrollment drives funding through PTE's child accounting system. Maintaining accurate counts ensures our allocations for staffing, programs, and services reflect the students we serve. As we look ahead, our focus remains on applying this data to daily decision-making. Enrollment trends inform staffing ratios, program planning, and resource allocation across all of our schools. These projections also guide long-range facilities planning from classroom utilization to maintenance and future construction or renovation management. We continued aligning textbook adoptions, technology licenses, and other instructional resources to verified student counts to ensure both equity and fiscal efficiency. Finally, our teams continue to monitor monitor demographic shifts so that our plans remain responsive and sustainable. In summary, our enrollment projections remain highly reliable with little variance.
057Enrollment has grown nearly 10% over the past decade and remain stable compared to recent years, consistent with both state and national patterns. As live births in the township level off around 600 annually, we anticipate continued stability in early grade enrollment. The data affirms that our planning models, systems, and collaborative collaborative monitoring processes are working as intended. Thank you. Be happy to address any questions, >> questions or comments from the board. I had a question looking at the demographic summary. The special education line was I'm seeing both an increase in the number of students and the proportion of our student enrollment um which I would imagine has impacts on the services we provide the staffing for special education students. Can somebody just speak to how we've responded to the relative increase in specializ? >> Sure. At
058least I can give it a tent. Uh for an example, this year we've had 652 new enrollments, K to2. Of those 652 new enrollments, 102 of those students are special education students. They are coming into us already identified as eligible under IDEIDA or chapter 14 Pennsylvania. That's 15.6% of the current for the current year. Um overall enrollment as as mentioned has dropped a little bit since you know 1.8% roughly since uh the pandemic. Uh but as we've kind of touched on in different aspects, we're able to accommodate for our current students and their services. We continuously look at programming, what's what we're able to do in our facilities and what we need to do as we look at our projection models going forward. Does that help a little >> question? I don't have a little
059thing on my microphone, so I don't know how this is going to sound. Um, uh, we were able to accommodate the increase this year. We are already looking at planning for next year because we're all already expecting another bump in EI, we have high EI numbers. And so, while our programs had space this year, we're looking at what we'll need for next year already at this point. >> Miss Pell, could you just clarify EI for the the public? >> I'm so sorry. Early intervention. >> My apologies. Early intervention. We speak in acronyms. Yep. >> Guess I have one other question. I was looking at the district actual enrollment, the one that showed all the grades. Y. And there's lots of numbers in here. you kind of see um the elementary schools were um bigger at
060the ear earlier years on the chart and then you see the bubble kind of going through um but one thing I was just kind of curious about when you look from year to year 11th to 12th grade um there's several of these years where there's a bump in 12th grade uh 49 students at the end of 21 and then 506 to 533 489 to 58 like that seems to be a pattern and just curious what what's bringing these students in at >> I would be venturing I guess an educated guess about the the why but you're right at the high school level between grades 9 and 12 typically between grades 11 and 12 to be more precise we do see it in migration pattern uh students coming from private schools that no longer need or
061want to attend a private school and are coming to the high school for other opportunities that we're fortunate to have. Uh this year, I believe the number between grades 11 and 12 was somewhere around 68 new students, which is relatively, you know, given our cohort size, it's relatively significant. >> Interesting, as I was going through looking at numbers, kind of an interesting observation that >> I I don't know if you'll recall, Mr. Lambert was here in the spring or winter or spring to do an update for our enrollment. He's the demographer who provides our projections. Um, and his one of his comments in that presentation was how strong at the specifically at the high school level, how strong our cohort survival percentage is compared to other neighboring high schools. Uh, it was something he made
062I I know he pointed out to me multiple times and he I do believe he made a comment to the board. Mhm. >> A question about the percentage of lowincome students. Um I'm wondering looks like you know in 232 24 we around 18%. Um dipped in the 2425 school year to just under 16% now we're back up over 18%. Is there anything um as a board that we can support the district doing to better support our low-inccome students and their needs? And I'm also wondering, are we looking at um potential of, you know, more schools being eligible for title one? >> I don't have a breakdown, at least not on hand, about the the percentages, how they play out across the seven schools as far as I and I don't want to. >> Thank you.
063So we do see a dip, but right now our at least our buildings who are identified as title to make sure that they maintain their title status have been asking families to fill out the applications more. Now with the changes and a lot that's been happening around the qualifiers being with SNAP and um some of the other pieces, those are some pieces that we have to just make sure that we're having families fill out the applications more. But I know within our for happenings, it's been pushed out and we're continually asking families to reertify to make sure that they can get it. Our schools right now look like because just so I can clarify for the public, we use the number from the year before. So when we identify our title services, so this October
064one count will be used for next year's application. So we should be okay. But I always say you just never know with the federal government because they could change the thresholds on us and we just have to wait and see what that application looks like. But based off of what our application is this year, we should be okay. We also um have had albe it early on discussions about various ways we can um explore maximizing title one services and some of the federal programs in different creative ways um just to make sure we're providing that equitable approach to all the students regardless of the school they're in or or whoever. So those conversations are early but yes we are looking at different ways we can maximize that. I guess I would just ask like given
065the times that we're living in um if there are things that the district needs you know to come to the board with um for the board to discuss for us to better support them. >> Yes. Thank you. Any other questions about the demographic of the enrollment update? >> Um just going back to slide eight um showing the district actual enrollment year over year that we've been looking at too. And obviously we look at this every year and we bring it up all the time, but I mean just looking at the percentage of enrollment at first grade as opposed to kindergarten. >> Um I mean really just speaks to me the need in the community for an all day program and the want that there is for that. Um which is I think what everyone probably
066understands is driving the difference. Um it's like looking at 2024 359 students in our kindergarten programs. Then the next year those kids are in first grade, almost a jump of 100 more students. Um, you know, we know that that families are looking for full day programs and that's why they don't put their students in our kindergarten programs and so, you know, I would just encourage um continued conversation um at the board level with what we can do to see how we can um build kindergart. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Parker. And up next, we will welcome our uh high school uh administrative staff, including Mr. Berdoni, I believe, uh will be the primary presenter. Uh he's going to share with us this evening an overview of the proposed course selection
067guide for the I can't believe I'm saying this 2627 school year. Uh so the what generally happens here and as uh everybody's getting this pulled up, I'll just sort of walk through the first slide as a timeline. You can go ahead to the first slide. Um actually the next slide, the second slide. Um and you can see if you go to the next slide there, you can see um typically this is a process that happens every year. Did anyone click to the next slide? Thanks. That's perfect. Um and and really the changes that you see coming to the course selection guide are a result of a curriculum review cycle process where we um take a look at a particular instructional area like for example social studies or science K through 12. And then um as
068a result of the audit and um what our teachers and administrators learn from that, they then uh start to look at what new courses or changes to courses or removal of courses might help to address what we found was needed in the audit and then we bring those suggestions to you here as a board. Um, so you can get a sense of what we believe would be um, courses that meet our standards that our students are interested in that will help modernize our uh, offerings. And we do that a couple of times. First with this overview. You also have the course selection guide in draft form uh, attached here for your review. And then in a couple more meetings, we'll bring it back to you in December for approval. We don't ask for approval right
069when we present it. give everybody time to digest it, ask questions, and then we'll we'll come back in November or December uh for approval and then that means that the high school can actually begin the course selection guide process. Typically, I think it's February, but sometimes we get a little earlier than that, but yeah. Yeah. So, January, February time. So, um then once we see if students actually selected and were able to um schedule these courses, then we finish the curriculum writing for the actual course. So you may hear us come back for requests for specific texts about the courses that you have approved this evening a little bit later in the spring. And with that, I'll pass it over to Mr. Baroni. >> Thank you, Miss Saxa. And as you'll notice there in January,
070we'll do an electives fair for all of our students. So all of our departments will put on an electives fair of all of our courses, which leads into February when students actually do course requests. And then we meet with the middle school in early March with the eighth graders to do their course requests as well for high school. So updates from last year. We had some great new English courses that the 11th and 12th graders are extremely excited about. Up on the slide you see the numbers and the amount of courses we are offering for each of the six courses and AP Seminar. It's a pretty wide variety of different options for students and the overall student feedback. They really love the choice of the classes and they love that they're able to read now
071books and things that interest them more than just the regular general curriculum. So this year the 12th graders will only get one choice. The current 11th graders will actually get to pick a second one of these six courses moving into 12th grade. So they'll get each student from here on out will get two choices of these six particular English courses. And then the AP seminar has been a big hit this year with our students, 11th and 12th graders. Many of them in 11th grade are also looking forward to taking AP research, which we'll talk about in a minute, which will then set them up to possibly graduate with a capstone diploma when they're done. The AB schedule, which was approved last year by you, and thank you for that. All of our quarter classes, all
072of our elective classes are now on an alternate day AB schedule. So we no longer have the nine-week solid course. All of those courses are now alternate day for the entire semester. That has really done a nice job of balancing our courses across all four blocks. And as we said, one of the main reasons was for music students and some of our support students to have access to the entire course catalog as opposed to just a small variety of alternate day courses we had in the past. So that has gone over well. We see something that's some something we want to continue moving forward. So, we really love the fact that we're now alternate day. The teachers have gotten used to it. We kind of came up with a few different options this year. We
073got space. We've done different pieces with that. So, a lot of our courses have now gotten used to it. And they are now, we had one teacher actually tell us, "I wasn't a big fan when we started. However, now after it's running, I wouldn't want it to go back the other way." So, we're excited about that. Some of our new options, proposed level two additions, fizzed is going to bring about health and wellness 2. We currently have health and wellness one as an option for a third gym class, a health and PE class. This particular class will give students possible potential career paths. They're going to learn about doing EMT. They're going to learn about athletic training, being a health and PE teacher, and as well as getting first aid and CPR certified. So, that
074is a very n neat new course for them. Another big new course, AP business is something that we're really excited about. The business department has brought about this. It's going to be coupled with personal finance. Students are going to learn how businesses operate in real world contexts, develop practical skills, excuse me, skills in [clears throat] budgeting, saving, investing, and they're also going to explore entrepreneurship, marketing, and the global economy as a whole. We're really excited about a brand new AP course in our offerings. The biggest change, we just got finished. You see some some name changes up there. Nothing really changing there. The biggest one there is concert corral is going to now be 10 through 12. We're bringing about a freshman chorus class. We have over 130 students projected to be in the choir
075next year. Concert corral. We really can't have a course where 130 students are in the choir room together. So there's about 75 who have committed eighth graders who have committed to Mr. Fernandes that they want to take choir in the high school. So we're not going to offer a freshman section on top of the 10 through 12 section. And the other ones are name changes. And then of course our science audit just completed under the direction of uh Dr. Nesbet in the past and then Dr. McGloin now Mr. Smith and of course our assistant principal Ro Edmonston the proposed new courses are up there for science and just like last year offering the English courses they're going to go into a little more detail on the particular science courses and what those four courses came
076out of the audit cycle. So Miss Edmonston and Mr. Smith, if you'd like to talk about the science courses. Good evening and thank you um for allowing us to do this. Uh it's an exciting process. So we looked through the course catalog. We surveyed our students um and we decided not to we're really not taking anything out. Any of the electives that are offered are going to stay. And then we decided to propose these four new classes because we surveyed our students and what we found out was a lot of our students had not taken a science elective. They met their science requirements without doing so. So, we wanted to open it up to kids that aren't as science driven as some of the others. Um, we have AP classes that are full in science.
077We have coding classes that are full, but then there are some kids that we felt we kind of missed and they were high on the list of the survey of what students would be interested in. So, the first one up there um is our best buddies science class. And we decided to do that one because our um kind of your gray room project that's going on in education. It leaves our kids who want to be teachers another opportunity to work with students with disabilities and it gives our students with disabilities time with their, you know, regular general education peers. So we picked that um as one of them as well and botney was just kind of a it's an outlier. We have nothing like that. So we felt other students would be very interested in
078that and identifying and de debunking myths in science. We thought we could hook more kids who may not be big science people into doing a science class by that. And we have a great marine environmental class already. We have a great marine class. So, we wanted to add to that because students seem to be very interested in that. Um, Mr. Smith is going to go over the course descriptions. >> Thank you so much. >> Okay. >> Good evening everyone. I'm going to do my best to make sure I'm keeping this short but also descriptive. Um, so our Best Buddies course, we wanted to make sure that we had opportunities for children to take science classes without necessarily a bunch of prerequisites. So, this is one of those opportunities. Um, as we're talking about the course,
079we also want to give opportunities for those um, general education students to earn community service hours and things of that sort because they want to make sure they incorporate the entire school and everyone within the program. Our botney course was a big hit like we just had very popular teachers who make science extremely fun. So, this was actually one of the highest rated courses when we went through to get students interest and we went through the interest surveys. Um, this these all are meant to be on a semester long course on an AB schedule. So, it's it fit nicely with what is going on with the course catalog currently. Um, identify and debunking myths in science. So, I'm just going to be honest. We had to we had to worry smith that a little bit.
080Um, but we wanted to make sure that was appropriate while while still hooking students. We want to make sure they have the opportunity to ask questions, to be curious, to challenge thinking, to also make sure they're using data to verify things. So, this is why this course is important for us and we thought that the students would also be would enjoy it very much. Um, and lastly, just marine biology. Again, we have very popular science teachers. These are probably the most popular science teachers I've ever met in the entirety of my career. I am not joking. Um, but they're very passionate and that passion rubs off into the students. Um, this summer when I had the opportunity to walk the building when I first was appointed and we went into the various classrooms and you
081you walk into the classroom where marine biology and botist will be taking place, it make it will make perfect sense to you. Um, so I think these are great complements to the science program that we already have in place and we have very talented teachers to execute all these courses. Um, and I know I kind of talked went over a bit fast but before I step back there any questions or anything that I can unpack further comment actually. Um, I I mean I was very this I think really showcases the importance of these audits. I was very excited last year with the new English courses with you know bringing you know teasing out kind of what kids are you know what students are in learning about you know man and monster and all these different
082you know themes this is the exact same thing it seems or similar to what it seems like in in science it's not sc it's not science one science two science I mean that's what I did back when back in the you know late bronze age I mean this is like you know good solid stuff that I think can can really help people to you know help our students to to drill down to what they what their interests really are. So I these audits are are are important. I'm glad that we're doing and these are exactly I think the reasons why um why we can have great offerings for our students. So I I I want to thank you. I'm excited just like just reading over these now and I'm I'm I look forward to looking
083over the course guide in full. Thank >> Thank you. >> Um if I can make a comment I also want to thank you. I think one of the things that Havford does very well is Best Buddies. Um I I won't get into how I know, but um [laughter] I am thoroughly impressed with a Best Buddies science program. I thank you for all the ways that you stretch and model inclusion even in the things that you are projecting and and offering moving forward. So really really appreciative of of this on both sides, you know, for the for all of the students involved. So well done. Thank you. >> Each year you just make it harder and harder for students to even select which classes to take. Like I I've said this before, I think this high
084school course offering is a point of pride for our district to see the variety of classes, how um broad and inclusive they are. I love that we have the AB uh schedule now that makes all these electives available. And um if people are just listening and haven't pulled up the the guide, it's 103 pages. Like it is chalk full of choices. I can't imagine um going back and being an eighth grader and trying to plan out like how you're going to be fill in um your schedule with all these amazing opportunities to follow your interests and passions and build skills and prepare for the future. It's a really impressive offering and every year you just take it apart. say things for the inclusion piece too and thinking you know when we're thinking about science audit
085or an English audit you're thinking you know I think first level about all the kids who are really interested in that and so to come to the board and and you know present these classes for students who don't plan on going into a science field um you know and and but maybe want to be science adjacent right and and want to have a better understanding of these science topics um so to be thinking about catching those students and making sure that we're reaching those students is so wonderful so important. I think really does just speak to the audits that we do. Um and so I just want to say thank you for that. Um yeah, like Miss Weman said, I just continue to want to go to this school. Um [laughter] I really want to
086hear I mean I think I might push my daughter towards this identifying and debunking myth and science because it sounds so wonderfully interesting. Um, but you know, I mean, I I really do think it just goes to show. Um, I I was talking with a colleague about why they changed to a public school over the private school they originally went to in high school. And it was because of the course offers, because of how much that that we have and and how much the students can do with that. And so, and again, thinking about um, you know, the capstone diploma as well. I know this is science, but um, you know, just just how much we're trying to offer our students and really set them up for success. So, um, you know, thank you so
087much for the work that went into this. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> So, so before we move on to our next presentation, I also just wanted to echo the thanks of the board because this is absolutely a labor of love from our teachers, our our families respond to surveys, our students respond to surveys and give their input. The high school team works tirelessly to get all of the information together to make sure that we can schedule these things um to make sure they really happen and our um curriculum supervisors you know this is their work like this is really what they do and and Kevin has jumped in and really uh made that happen and a special shout out to Dr. Day and Mrs. Pointer Lori and of course Mr. Donnie who
088did not speak this evening and Mr. uh Mr. Dino wanted to be here uh but he is over at a sports celebration over at the high school right now. So just a big thank you to the whole team uh for all of your work on this and we look forward to bringing the guide back for your ultimate approval we hope uh in a future meeting and if it's okay to move to the next. Okay, great. So um I'm going to turn over first to Mrs. Carter. We are uh ready to present our annual academic state and national testing report. Thank you. So, good evening members of the board. We are back again this evening with our annual um academic state and national testing presentation to share with you all of our results. We have an
089audience full of familiar faces filling up the crowd here to show you and share with you the achievements and growth across all of our grades that we're so proud of. As we continue to work as a district, we identify areas that we are continuously improving and making sure that students are able to meet grade level expectations and continually grow throughout their time here in the district. I really have to say thank you to our teachers who are really on the front lines and they're the ones working with our students every day, helping them to grow and see themselves in new lights. When you walk in the classroom and you see that aha moment pop up on the child's face, they're helping them to see themselves as a learner and growing in meeting whatever goals are
090set before them. So, we really appreciate all that they do and that our leaders of the building do supporting them in that process. Tonight, Miss Sex will go over next kind of like a balcony view of all of the different ways we assess students and think about the whole child. So, I'll hand it over to her and I'll be back in a little bit. >> Great. Thank you, Mrs. Carter. Uh so on the next slide I don't Do you mind? Thanks Stephen. Uh on the next slide there uh you're going to see uh what oh sorry what there we go perfect um how we usually like to begin these presentations which is just um with an acknowledgement as Mrs. Carter said of the big picture of the many ways that we analyze feedback about how
091our students are doing. Um, of course, we use multiple measures of both academic achievement as well as non-academic factors in this analysis every year. So, this evening we're sharing the sort of the academic side, the PSSA, the Keystone advanced placement and SAT performance. Later in the year, you'll see uh presentations regarding some of the things on the right side in that column. Um, but I want to just assure you that you'll see our staff also collect data using daily assessments, unit tests, universal screeners, the uh psychological assessment of school membership, participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, and so much more. Uh, there's a little quote there on the bottom that actually comes from the Pennsylvania Department of Education's testing uh web page that um likens PSSAs and PEOS to um when you take your child
092to the physician. You know, a physician wouldn't just use the growth chart in isolation and say, "Now I know how your child is doing." No, they use multiple measures. And so, we are presenting on some of the multiple measures tonight, but um just keeping in mind that there are so many pieces and every data point that we bring to you tonight is a child, you know, is a human being, is someone who works through our system and comes to school every day and um is supported by the people who are there. So, we just wanted to um acknowledge that before we go on and I'm going to turn it back over to Mrs. Carter. Oh, ping pongs. Rose, thank you. Thank you for always acknowledging that there are children, not products, that are behind the
093numbers. And sometimes I think we forget that when we just look at a lot of numbers, but that matters deeply to our teachers and especially us. So here, do not worry. I am not going to read you everything on this slide. Don't panic. These are some of our assessments tools, acronyms that you may hear throughout this evening. Please, please, please, sometimes we forget that we're saying an acronym or that we're breezing over something that may be educational jargon for us. If you have a question, please stop anyone throughout their time as they speak to ask for clarification if you need it. We do not intend to uh brush over it, but sometimes we forget. So, thank you. And I am going to bring up Mr. Dunigy and his team. They're going to start us off
094with the keystone results and then we'll just keep going through each set of results. >> Thank you. I just wanted to clarify for WEDA. It's actually not the screener tool. It's the WEDA access. >> Okay. >> That's a >> Thank you. We can correct it. Thank you. Uh Miss Saxis stole most of my uh speak my speech here, but I do have great assistant principles and they are here. if they wave. She just uh as you heard from two of them, but uh our scores which are on the next slide. Um we're very proud of our scores. They just tell a part of the story obviously of the high school. Uh I think our offerings are reflected in the scores. Uh student motivation is is very high at the high school. Um which keeps us
095in the top 1, two or 3% depending on the uh category. uh for each of the uh uh I just want to point out that Keystones too up there Keystone math 200 close to 225 students take the algebra keystone in the middle school. So I'm I'm not sure if everyone's aware of that. So our score is a combination of those students and our students uh together. So, uh, they in the, uh, excuse me, in the middle school, if there's 225 students who take the test, 223 or 224 pass it each year. So, it's an unbelievable number. Uh, so it puts us uh, their success puts us in a really good place um because you're basically working with half half the grade level when they get to the high school in algebra. Uh in bio bio
096we were in the top 1% um last year. We're we're waiting to to see where we are this year, but uh we're expecting to be in the top 1 or 2%. Um and I spoke to my bio teacher and I said, "How do you stay in the top 1%?" And she said, "We try to make everything relevant." And I said, "Well, that's a that's a expression that everybody says. What does that mean?" And they really do. The teachers do a really good job of changing uh their lessons every single year. It's a different class starter. It's a different exit ticket. It's a different formative assessment every single year. Uh you can see the same lesson even from semester to semester because we're blocked schedule. You can see the same lesson and they tweak it to
097make it better and to make it more relevant and make the kids uh help the kids to remember and and it's reflected in the score. And then our our English, what we're proud of in English that like you can't see a lot of uh you can't see a lot in the scores. You see a nice bar graph there. The blue is an anomaly. That's that's CO. We don't even look at that that blue part there. I was trying to get Miss Saxa to take it off, but she said everything's five years, so we can't just take the high school one off. But uh we were uh our percentage of advanced about six, seven years ago was 12%. and now we're over 30% students advanced on the English uh Keystone. And when you get to that
098level, it moves everyone else up. So, every student moves up when you can when you can move a group of students. So, uh we're very proud of that. You you can't see it in the graph, but um our English scores are great, and that puts us in a very very high percentage of the state. So, we're just waiting to see uh how we rank, but we're going to continue uh to tweak our course selection guide. We're going to continue to tweak our day-to-day activities to make sure um we're we do the best we can and then we know it's going to be reflected in the scores. And when you see the students taking these tests, whether it be the SAT, which I'm going to talk about later, PSAT, their focus is really unbelievable. uh we
099took the PSAT last Friday and they come in school. It's kind of like an like an athletic game or the play or they're super focused going into these uh these tests and they uh they know what they mean for themselves. I think they also know what they mean for the school and the community and they they do a wonderful job and they do their best and it's always reflected in the scores. And lastly, we do very well because K2 K through eight does very well. Okay, this doesn't all of a sudden happen in ninth grade. They just appear at the high school and everybody starts getting good scores. You'll see, my colleagues are going to talk uh about their scores, but the foundation they set when they get in the ninth grade, they hit the
100ground running. We're in November now, and the ninth graders are moving at light speed. We didn't have to get them up to speed. they're already there and we just start and we just go with them. So I just wanted to add that before my colleagues get up. >> Mr. Haran and his colleagues will now come up. >> Can I just ask a >> Sure. Sorry. >> Um just looking at this. >> Yes. >> You see generally Hford's trend is upward and states is downward over those same five years. Is there >> anything that we know what's going on at the state level or is it at the test or something like how are we bucking that trend? >> How are we bucking that trend? We we change our every single year we look at our
101curriculum. We have time set aside to look at our curriculum and our coursework. We have time for teachers to collaborate together and just like I said to improve whatever they have. and our teachers at the high school and I know knowing a lot of teachers K through eight they just have that mindset that we got to get better or or you know we don't get better we're gonna be James Franklin so we got to get better. So that's what I told the staff. I said I'm James Franklin and if we don't win this year I'm done. So we have to we have to just keep getting better. we have to keep looking at uh we know who the 20% of the kids are right now that and we have different strategies that that we're you
102know attacking. So um they just know how to look at the data and they get they call me July 7th and say what are my Keystone scores and I said it's July 7th. Can't this wait a couple weeks and they're like no we want our scores right now. So they they have a nice competitiveness, but they're also very professional and they want to be very successful. So it's hard to kind of just say that and talk in general terms, but being at, you know, different places in my career, it's just different here. It's different. And and the um and the teachers put in the effort and they put in the work, so it helps. And and we got a great staff. We got a great curriculum department. So like all our departments work together not
103just for test scores but but we all work together on our deficiencies or or we don't have deficiencies I don't like that word on our things we have to get better at. We all work together and we know what they are. We know what those things are. So that's that's kind of how I look at it. I'll be back too so I don't want to say too much. >> Thank you Mr. Donny. And and to echo what what Pete said, there's a lot of people that that share in the work that goes into the data that you're looking at up here. Some people in the audience who don't come up because they're normally our team, you think of just the people that are in our building every day. So we have I'll just do a
104quick introduction. Dr. Gavio, who's our sixth grade administrator and supervises language arts, Mr. Ford, our seventh grade administrator, supervises science, and Dr. Hollandback, our eighth grade um administrator who supervises math. Um we also have Shakura Monroe and um Miss Julianne Hill who are connected with uh pupil services support us as well as Dr. Parker. So working together every day to to kind of support our students. So good evening. Our latest data show strong performance across multiple grade levels and subgroups. Our progress reflects your vision, central administrative administration's directions and our collaborative leadership within our schools as well as our teachers and support staff's deep commitment to every student success. While achievement gaps remain for some subgroups, the same students are exceeding growth expectations, demonstrating that our efforts are making meaningful and measurable impact. Dr. Gavio
105and Dr. Hollandback will now present our ELA and math data and are prepared to answer any questions you may have. >> Good evening. On the screen at the top, you'll find our math achievement data for the last five years. We continue to trend in a positive direction across grade levels, reflecting steady and sustained growth. While there is a slight dip in achievement for sixth grade, and I know this will be discussed later on in the presentation in more detail, this group still demonstrated above a year's worth of expected progress. Our teachers consistently hold students to high standards while building meaningful relationships that support both academic and personal growth. We remain committed to continuous improvement and to find ways to strengthen our instruction and our outcomes. We continuously and intentionally analyze student data to be the
106best instru make the best instructional decisions for our students in front of us. This commitment to reflection and uh responsive practice allows us to keep refining our approach and ensuring that every student has an opportunity to thrive. >> I think they can hear me from here. Okay. Um similarly below the math data you'll see ELA achievement data from the last five years. Our grade levels have shown consistently high performance over the past five years with overall increases in proficiency and only a few minor fluctuations. Um, this steady growth in both math and ELA reflects both the strong systems in place and most importantly the dedication and expertise of our math and ELA teachers at HMS. Um, our ELA cohorts showed increases in proficiency across all grade levels on the 2025 assessment, and you'll see that
107a little bit later, too. But from fifth to 6th, 6th to 7th, 7th to 8th, our students remain well above the state proficiency average. When looking at growth data, which again you'll see a little bit later, um ELA showed positive results across every PES subgroup, math showed very similar trends, uh with only one single subgroup in one grade falling below the growth target, um which will be an area of focus for us this year. This means that students regardless of their achievement level or their background made academic gains in reading, writing, and math last year. This speaks to the strength of our instruction and intentional use of data and the commitment our teachers have to ensuring growth for all of our learners. Our teachers are reflective, collaborative practitioners who analyze data from multiple sources to
108make the best instructional decisions. They challenge advanced learners, support those who need extra help, and uh use schoolwide resources to ensure every student has what they need to be successful academically, uh socially, and emotionally. Their ongoing commitment to growth creates a strong, positive learning environment for all of our students. Now, for the elementary Great. Uh, thank you so much to our middle school staff. Uh, coming up to speak on behalf of our elementary team, we have, uh, Mrs. Heather Panero, uh, Mrs. Ashley Leech, and Dr. Jillian McGelry. >> Hello. Good evening. Um, so looking at our 2025 elementary PSSA data, we anticipated a temporary dip in ELA performance given the fact that we had a new curriculum. Um, which would be typical with the implementation. I will say and kind of to Miss Weedderman's point
109earlier that while we noticed the state had trended down in the ELA PSSA scores as well, um, we remained somewhat steadfast. For example, our fifth grade um at the state level, the fifth grade saw a 14% decrease in their scores while we saw a 4% decrease. Um our PSSA data highlighted text dependent analysis is an area that we could make meaningful growth. Um in response to this we are providing ongoing systematic professional learning to strengthen writing instruction to ensure that our students regularly engage in reading and writing opportunities um similarly aligned with PSSA expectations. Teachers also are participating in collaborative sessions calibrating writing um utilizing rubrics and having common conversations about grading utilizing these common rubrics for consistency. Um, with one full year of implementation of our new curriculum under their belts, our teachers have
110reported stronger overall understanding of the curriculum, greater confidence in identifying the most critical concepts within the lessons, um, and an increased ability to deliver rigorous instruction with fidelity for our students. We are continuing to support our teachers through professional development. We are focusing on productive struggle and effective core tier one instructional practices. Additionally, we continue to emphasize consistency in our foundations practices. Um, as we recognize that strong foundational reading skills are essential to long-term literacy success. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Um, as you heard Miss Panero mention, we've spent a great deal of time strengthening our tier one instruction and aligning practices across classrooms. And we're seeing how that same work uh is paying off in math as well. We're very proud of our growth in math, specifically in fourth and fifth grades, and our
111achievement across all grade levels. Um, on the top half of the slide, you can see that our math achievement in grades three through five has continued to move in a positive direction over the past several years. These gains are consistent across all grade levels and show our district performing well above the state averages. Uh, when we asked our fourth and fifth grade math teachers specifically about this success, they had the following to share. Our students growth in math over the past five years is a result of their hard work and persistence. The fourth and fifth grade teachers have created a stable environment in which predictability, consistency, and accountability are displayed every day. We use the Eureka curriculum with fidelity which includes daily whole and small groupoup concept development, zern exit tickets and problem sets. During
112win, which is our what I need time, work on telling you guys the acronyms. Uh we use those same curricular resources to enrich or reinforce skills within small groups. We also use study island map learning path uh to individualize independent practice and expose students to new concepts. For an added challenge, we encourage students to answer the bonus questions in Zern as well as problem of the week questions. That's the end of their quote. Um the progress we see directly connects to one of our goals in our comprehensive plan as well which is consistent implementation of core curriculum. Our teachers are using our full set of math resources with fidelity and our instructional coaches are providing ongoing support to make sure implementation is strong and aligned. We're also being intentional about how we use data and
113collaboration time to identify next instructional steps. Overall, the growth we're seeing in math highlights the success of our shared commitment to consistency and high quality instruction across classrooms. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. McGillry who has a couple more words from our teachers. >> Good evening. We um anxiously await our students data every year and we're really excited to um to take a look at it and to learn from it. What is it telling us? Um and we want to know from teachers too. What is it that you think? We saw some really nice success. Uh there's a particular team at Lynwood, the fifth grade team at Lynwood saw great success in ELA and in math. Um in ELA this year, we expected the implementation dip, but our students held steady. Um and
114in math, we saw a crazy increase of 18% in achievement both with high growth um in ELA and math. And so we asked the fifth grade teachers like, can you tell us what do you think it is that made a difference? them. And so this is uh from Steph Krauss, Liz McCann, Julie Parkerson, and Jen Walsh, our fifth grade teachers at Lynwood. They said, "We believe our students success was the result of a combination of factors coming together at just the right time. Last year's fifth graders benefited from a consistent curriculum since kindergarten and uninterrupted early learning experiences. Through collaboration with our math and reading coaches, we were able to identify student needs, provide targeted support, and offer enrichment for those ready to go further. Equally important, our students were motivated. They cared about their
115progress and they took pride in their growth. By fostering a growth mindset and providing scaffolded instruction, we were able to help students experience success, find joy in learning and continue striving for more. Um, so it's so exciting, I think, for the students and for the teachers really to be able to see um what happens uh when when they put all that hard work in. We're so proud of our kids. And I I love that they also talked about finding joy in learning. I think that's a really important piece to us and like it's elementary school. We want our kids to be having fun while they're learning and making great progress. So, we're excited about that. >> Thank you so much to our elementary team. Uh if we could go on to the next slide, just
116want to mention that another way that we analyze the proficiency of students is to look at cohorts. You heard our middle school administrators speak a little bit about this. Uh a cohort follows a group of students over a set of years. So you can see here in yellow for example uh that's a group that was in grade three in 2022 and then you sort of follow it down diagonally to the right and you can see the last yellow block ends with them in grade six in 2025. Um so looking at the data in this way helps us to determine if there are curricular strengths or weaknesses with a particular grade level or if maybe there's a performance issue or a celebration with a particular group of students. Right? You have to look at it in
117both ways. Um just just as an FYI, we we do use a data management system to track and monitor data like this both at the grade level in a subject um in different like parts of a subject the strands or or anchors as well as individual student level. uh and in fact currently we are reviewing our current data management system and evaluating it against some other options that are out there to make sure that we've got the most effective and efficient system um in in our conversations with teachers and administrators. We have reason to believe that maybe we can make this an even uh more effective way to look at data and respond to data. So that's something we're looking at right now and if we have any recommendation on that we would of course
118bring that back to you at another time. And I'm going to turn it back over to Mrs. Carter for the next two slides. >> Sure. Yeah. >> So, I I appreciate looking at the cohorts together and seeing how it's it's moving through. And I think I heard some comments that uh the data that you all get is a little bit even more granular looking at particular subgroups of students. And so, I guess I would ask when we're looking at this throughout the year and next year um because I know that we went having leveled classes last year and now they're unlevelled to particularly look how that's affecting our students and particularly the students who are um in the gifted curriculum and how that's affecting them and their growth. Um, so I know, you know, you
119present to us the overall cohorts, which I think are great, but when we're making a really big change like that, I think we need to look at the more um granular groups as well and how how they're absolutely um and and we do we have not yet gathered any formal feedback from teachers regarding that change, but we do plan on sharing out soliciting that feedback and sharing out probably in January when we come here about that in particular. But I have made a note of uh looking at that level of detail around both achievement and growth. >> So would it be possible for the board to see the elementary numbers broken out by school at some point? >> Sure. >> I remember last year there were some schools where there was higher levels of performance
120in certain grade bands um and lower levels of performance in certain schools. I think it's important for us to see that data as well. >> Sure. We can send that along to you. No problem. All right, ready? Okay, if you can click to the next. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So on this slide, you will see our subgroup data. So each year PTE provides us a district report that shares how our students are performing in each subgroup. So we just talked about subgroups. This will talk more about the way the state gives it to us initially and then it gets broken down further as we get the information. But this slide shows math by subgroups. You will see that um any subgroup with an in count. So the number of students in that group is
121lower than 11. We have excluded that. We try to keep that consistent so that we don't identify any students inadvertently who might fall within a group. So um we don't share that piece publicly but if you need it we can always provide that. This slide is separated into programs, gender and demographics. I would like to highlight that our students who were in um the economically disadvantaged um who are an economically disadvantaged and who are in our Asian subgroup. They had the highest achievement. are students who are identified as having IEPs and African-American students had the lowest achievement. I would also like to know many of the students who you see with the lowest achievements often they have really high growth. So you just have to remember they're still making progress even though you may see
122a gap here for their achievement. Our schools continue to work to ensure that all students are receiving the supports and interventions needed to improve their achievement gra gap while they grow each year. as you heard about MTSS when they're all receiving supports during that time. You can click the next slide for me. Go back. Thank you. On this slide, you will see ELA. Again, it is separated by program, gender, and demographics. For ELA, economically disadvantaged and multi-racial have the highest achievements, while students identified as having IEPs and African-American students achieved the lowest. As I stated previously, we continue to monitor subgroup growth along with achievement. Please remember that just because a subgroup has a low achievement, this does not define that they are unable to achieve. We see this evidence in the work of our
123schools as they're working through MTSS. We have students who close gaps daily. We continue to have our strategic plan work and our comprehensive plan work addressing different subgroup areas where we are looking to provide interventions and identify barriers for particular groups to help them with their achieving proficiency at grade level. And I will hand it back over to Missa. I feel like we're playing tennis. I play tennis. >> I know. There you go. >> This is good. Over to me. Uh and I'll ask Dr. Whitehead uh to come on up. He's going to speak with us a little bit about these PES results. If we can go to the next slide. Uh as a bit of an introduction though to PES um we are used to seeing this term PES which is on one of
124those opening slides. It's the Pennsylvania value added assessment system. They use the PSSA scores like the state test scores and they analyze them. We're used to seeing them in uh terms of what uh Pennsylvania Department of Education is now calling a gain over a year. Um, so those scores in the past uh have reflected whether or not groups of students maintained their position relative to other students. So did they stay in the middle of the pack? They're probably green. Did they grow to be higher in the pack? Maybe they are now blue. Uh Pennsylvania Department of Education has stopped reporting that way and is now reporting what what is called predictive. Not to be confused with a prediction. This is actually talking about whether or not the group of students met the prediction for their
125achievement. It's not like they're saying, "Oh, next year we think they're going to be." They're saying, "Oh, no. Compared with how they did last year, they actually met what we expected them to do this year." And so, if they did meet that, you'll see green right there. Uh if they exceeded the prediction, then their predictive measure would be light blue or dark blue. If they didn't make it, it would be to the left there. It would be yellow or red. So, just wanted to give you sort of an an update on the difference between how Pennsylvania Department of Education is reporting this information now and moving forward. And now I'll turn it over to Dr. Whitehead to talk about the actual information. >> All right. Good evening. So, first of all, I want to look
126at the the mask for PSSA and the outstanding work that our teachers and curriculum supervisors and with the support of our schoolboard community. It just remind me of ll cool J's mama said knock you out is that line, you know, don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years just because it's constantly every time you turn around, we we constantly see the achievement in this area. And what PEOS is really about, we have the cohort over time, uh, usually a three-year composite. It's really a time of reflection. And the benefit of this is we have opportunity to sit down with our teachers individually and by grade level to really discuss what's happening behind the scenes. So for math, we have opportunity to see the rigor that's laid forth through our building thinking classrooms. opportunities
127from K through 12 where the students are able to have learning beyond the class whether it's uh 24 competitions continental math league they also have the sky high queue at the high school and then as the as the schedule and the the the course guy point earlier you see many of the opportunities are that are laid out for our students to continue to grow and learn also there's opportunities for peer observations and meeting with our coaches through PLC's as well those particular learning communities to discuss the data uh that obviously uh PSSA and we also utilize the e-metric data or interaction data which breaks it down by item analysis for our our students so that our teacher could take a look at not only about the students in front of them but what this what
128the trends were from the past and when they're looking at the PEOS data individually. I know the teachers like I heard was echoed earlier about how anxious they get to make sure that they want to see how their students did, but they're also able to point to the fact that there's an entry number that students are coming to them. They take great pride in making sure that that trajectory is still going forward on an upward trend. And then we also have honest conversations about why uh we and the phrase this year uh we've been uh using is not negotiating our greatness. We are a culture of continuous improvement and that's direction we want to go and those conversations when teachers have known and you know teachers very person is very personal. Uh those conversations sometimes
129can be very tough, but I give our teachers a lot of credit for sitting oneonone and being able to talk about having conversations across school, but to be able to pinpoint and target u the areas we need to work on and grow together. As far as English language arts, obviously we still are strong, but we have areas to grow in. Uh you already heard you may heard about the Texas pendant analysis and the area that we need to grow and also from being here working at Hford but after being other districts it's quite maddening to see the drop between I mean the the raise the rise expectations from the fourth grade PSSA to fifth grade PSSA it's been like that for a long time no matter where I no matter where I've been. So uh
130but we're responsible for continuing to grow and improve in that area and that's know what we'll continue to do and that comes to our you know what I need times through when uh whether we're focusing on structure literacy working with the DCIU and understanding what components are available that exist in our current curriculum through wisdom and through foundations and heard and other pieces to make sure that we're reaching and closing those gaps for our students whether it's comprehension more fluency pieces. That's what we'll continue to to grow and do. And like um uh Pete had said earlier and Dr. Rand mentioned earlier, it's about setting foundation and working together because we do have a we great we're afforded a great opportunity to sit together in our principal meetings and get feedback and have some tough
131discussions about what needs to be done. And I know you guys already mentioned about the audits, how critical those have been and whether we're using the right tools, whether our ladder is against the right wall for the work that we're expected to do. And then in the end, you also see the keystones of algebra, biology, and literature. We just keeping up the great work. And I think that's just a spring for uh from the foundation opportunities we have for our students. Any questions? >> Right. >> Thank you, Dr. right here. >> All right. >> Also for the LL CoolJ reference, I have to say like we're just really proud of this slide. Like this is this is really good. Now, we don't have comparison data, but I'm I'm going to bet there aren't a ton
132of school districts that have slides that look like this that also have the achievement numbers that we have. So, again, you've heard it over and over again. Nobody's trying to rest where we are. We are always trying to get better. I hope that people see that. Um, but like this is something that our families should be really proud of. Your kids are bringing it every day and our teachers are working so hard as long as as well as the whole group as you heard a thousand times. So, I'm going to bring up next again Dr. Parker who's like got a recurring role this evening uh who's going to talk to us a little bit about the WEDA access. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Saxa. In 2024-25, we had 132 students identified as English learners
133who are receiving direct instruction from our four full-time EL teachers in the district. Of those 132 students, 72 also participated in either the PSSA uh ELA or the Keystone student literature exam. This slide illustrates the relationship between those students, those 72 students, their weedest English proficiency levels and their performance on the state assessments. As shown on this slide, uh students demonstrating higher levels of English proficiency on the WEDA tend to perform at higher levels of proficiency on the PSSA or Keystone, underscoring the strong connection between English language development and academic achievement and literacy. >> Thank you, David. And David, could you just remind us um under what conditions do students take the math and the uh ELA uh PSSA if they are English language learners? >> So >> is it their first year, their second
134year? >> Are you talking about the exception students that are in >> Yeah. Uhhuh. for the only exception for the PSSA would be students that are under in the district for under a year or in the US for under a year. They would they could be eligible or they could be um my vocabulary is leaving my head right now. I'm sorry. Uh waved for one year, one year only, but they'd be taking the PSSA the following year. >> So, this could be your second year in this country and you're taking the leading PSA >> for the science and for the math. There is no exception. There's no waiver. >> Thank you. This slide, just be clear that this slide was we replicated what we did last year in January. This is focusing on the literature
135and the ELA. We have the numbers if the board's interested on the other areas though. >> Would it be possible for the board to get information on the number of students who passed the math um PSSA? I see we have growth data here and that's helpful. But similar to the the chart that's provided for ELA to actually see those numbers for the math. >> Certainly, we can provide that. Um, and I guess another question. So, you know, as you mentioned, it's it's true as students um develop higher levels of English language proficiency, they're more likely to pass state assessments. Um, I guess my question would be though looking at students who are like to level four and five, those are those students are near native level proficiency. So my question would be like what additional
136supports is the district providing to those students who didn't pass but technically have you know much enough language where they should have a good chance. Not saying all students would pass, but like that's >> that's a gap to have, you know, 32 students tested at level four um than to have 17 pass. Like what are the other 15 students? Where are they falling? >> Right. And what are we doing? How are we responding to that of the students for to your I think to your point Dr. or perhaps at some point the students at level five and level four on this slide to the left that have advance scored advanced or proficient um from them doing this from memory all but two I believe were reclassified prior to coming into the school year if that
137helps. >> Thank you. All right. Uh we're rounding the bend to the end here. I'm going to ask Mr. Dr. Donnie to come back up and talk to us a little bit about SAT and PSAT. Oh, sorry, SAT and AP scores. >> Uh, as you can see from our SAT, just to point out a couple things here, roughly about 350 students annually take the SAT and and correctly code it so that we get their scores. Okay? I'm not saying that there's more than 350, but I'm saying that this you have to correctly code it in College Board. Some students don't want us getting the scores because they kind of want to see what they are. That little game of whether to use the SAT or not. They don't trust the process that we're going to
138give it to a college or whatever. So, uh, we do very well. It kind of falls in, uh, a little bit on the same lines as Keystone. Uh, students were looking at and try to improve it. We added a school day SAT. So now you can take the SAT during the school day. So when we were kids, you had to take it on a Saturday and you were tired and you didn't want to take it and your mom made you take it and there was no like food and stuff like there is now. So uh but so the kids we hadund and I believe 152 seniors take it uh this year in October last month. So out of those 150, we believe that roughly a hundred of them would have not have taken it or
139not have taken it a second time if we didn't offer them that opportunity. So it's a great opportunity. I'm kind of glad that the college board has it. It is a little bit of work for us. We're subcontractors for them, but um for our students, it's it's definitely a benefit. Um the and I just want to point out our NOCI scores, too. So, we have 350 students uh definitely take the SAT each year. It's probably slightly more than that. We have close to 80 students go to our our technical ed schools. Uh and then another 20 to 30 students who do our med careers program. And on their knock the exam, we either have 97% score proficient or 100%. So, I just wanted to point that out. So, that's another 100 kids that you don't
140see in that graph there. Um, and then another 50 students are either transfers and and we don't have their information or they take a different test such as passa or some other uh tests in the graduating class. If you guys could just hit the next slide. Let me see. Can >> I ask a question about that? >> Sure. >> So, um, the SAT that's offered during the school day, I know the PSAT was offered on a half day. Y >> and so that started right at 7:30. >> Yes. Um, but for the SAT, do we offer that on a full day? And can we off like what time does >> the SAT and P excuse me and PSAT now are roughly 2 hours to 2 and a half hours. They're online. So we the students
141come in at 7:30. They start about 8:00 and then they're done by first launch. So those seniors um they're mo mostly seniors, a couple juniors uh are finished by first lunch depending on if they some students have accommodations so it might be uh more time but that they're usually uh they have their own proctor. So they we start them at the normal school day both the PSAT and the SAT. Same with the uh uh Keystone. We try to make it as normal as possible. >> I guess my question was just um if there was an opportunity to start later just because I know you know >> Well, the only problem is the busing. >> So we uh we we want to give students access to these tests. Um and if they take the bus, we
142don't want to take the bus away from them. So it's it's uh so most of the students and it's their normal routine. So to them it's not too bad. But I understand what you're saying. Maybe you do it a couple they rest a little bit more. Maybe their score goes up. Uh yeah. So we just do it in the normal flow of the day. We felt going from a Saturday to a Wednesday is our first step. So >> I appreciate it being offered during school day. Thank you. >> And then these are our AP scores. Uh we added uh AP seminar this year. We're adding AP uh upon approval or hopefully gets approved AP uh business. Um these are subjects that gives more students access that may not have been traditional AP students 10 years
143ago. So AP seminars tough class but AP uh personal finance and business we have 500 over 500 students take business classes at the high school. A quarter of the high school takes business classes. So we believe that AP course is going to be heavily populated. We already have students. You have to sign up for the testing. You have to start signing up now. We already have more students signed up to take the the test in the in May than this year. And we're going to have we're definitely going to have more exams. So that's our goal. Our scores, yes, we want the scores to be excellent, but our goal is to just get more students taking the highest level classes as possible. We encourage them to take the test uh just so they get the
144rigor of a test such as that. Um but not every student has to take the test. Um we also there's a reduced price also through the college board and then we offer assistance. So we encourage any student who wants to take a test can't afford it that we will uh help um them pay also. So as you can see our scores uh our scores are the highest in school history. So, uh, we're very we're we're proud of that. Uh, but our main goal is moving up the number of exams and the number of students. So, right now we're at 50% of the senior class takes at least one AP exam. And AP has world language, art, uh, adding the business is great. They're going to cyber security in a couple years. So, all these it's
145a wide variety of classes. So, so we're we like that also. And then down below you can see the four and the fives. The four and the fives usually gives you college credit. Usually gives you some type of college credit. If you go to Harvard, they don't accept the four and the fives, but usually if you go to Harvard, they give you enough money anyway, so you don't have to worry about the four and the fives. Uh but a lot of highlevel colleges that a lot of us in this room went to accept the four and the fives. So some of that's a myth that they don't accept the four and the fives. Now, if you're going to be a physics major at Drexel, they don't accept your physics course because they want you to
146take physics at Drexel. But besides that, most of the colleges, they'll let you take use the physics as an elective course and get you out of that course. So, uh it's a great program. It's very rigorous. Uh the students respond very well. So as we were going up in number from you know I don't count 21 but 22 to to 25 uh the worry of the teachers and parents and students was this going to be too hard. It's going to be too hard for me and the the the teachers and us and the counselors and everybody are very supportive uh meeting you know the high expectations with the high support. So, uh it's just great to see uh those scores there. And then uh lastly, every most of the things we do come with very
147low money impact. All right, I know AP textbooks cost money. So, Tony, I know that. But, um a lot of trying to make improvements or even adding an AP uh business course, we try to do at the very lowest uh financial level possible. um and do it uh in a way that the students can be successful without just throwing money at something or throwing a program at something. If it's something the students want, such as Mr. B said, uh something the survey said they want, then we're going to do it. If the survey all comes back that they don't want AP business next year, we're not going to bring that or uh excuse me, AP cy cyber security or the next AP, we won't bring that to the board next year. So just so you
148know uh how we operate. Does anybody have any questions on that? >> I just want to say thank you for sharing breakdown of the scores. I think that's a new presentation. >> Yes, we added that this year >> and uh that's really compelling that um 71% of our students got four or five. So glad to to see that and affirm that there is value for many of the students, not just in demonstrating what they learned at Hford High School, but um value in transferring that to college credits. Both of my kids were able to um transfer credits when they went to college and it freed them up to take more electives, considered a minor or double major. Um It does provide a lot of flexibility in those schools to four or five just means those
149opportunities are open to so many. >> Yeah. >> One thing I think is is fantastic that as number of testing students have gone up the percentage of them passing has also been going up. I think that's a it's a correlation we know that you'll see. Um so you know big kudos. I'm looking forward to seeing how the AP business um class affects us too if that continues this this this great trend. Thanks. >> Thanks very much. >> I had a question about uh >> yes, >> you know, I know college prep test scores are very important in terms of judging the school and the rankings, all that, but I just how do we measure for those students who may not be where the direction they're going? How do we judge their success? >> Uh our
150part of our act 158. So act 158 is that every senior needs to have a plan before they graduate. So what we do is we look at every senior starting their junior year, see where they are with some of it scores, but see what they want to do and what path they want to do. So some of it we use our scores to help guide what their plan is. So, um students who don't want to go to college or want to go to a two two-year college or want to go right to to the workplace, we um us the administrators and the counselors counsel them on what their plan is. But but can you just repeat your question because I don't think I'm >> I guess the question is how do we judge >> how
151do we judge who takes the test? >> How are we being successful for those students that are not collegebound for example? >> Uh How do we how do we categorize? >> Well, we that's why what when Jabari came up was showing you the PEAS score. Part of it is is growth for those students. Part of it is uh looking at their scores. If we move up as many kids as we move up to AP, we're moving all the other students up, too. So, one of the things we're having discussions with in the middle school is they have so many students taking algebra 1 in 8th grade that they've moved this whole they they've shifted Havford high school math all the way up. So, everybody has shifted up. So, the question is are we doing are
152we just moving kids to honors? Is that the right placement for them? Because sometimes it's not because sometimes it's too fast freshman year. So, we look at each kid individually. our our strength is our course selection guy. If you look at our students, the kids come down, they want to be in class with their friends, but they can't because it doesn't work out because each student has a slightly different schedule based on their needs. So, that's one of the ways we uh kind of attack each individual kid and look at what their strengths are and how to and how to approach it. There's not like a test per se. >> You mentioned the NOCDI though. That's >> Yeah, there's NDI test. Every student gets tested in some form. So, we look at their their tests
153and try to figure out their best route. We don't try to pigeon hole anybody. Um, but it's very helpful to have so many offerings and have it's helpful to have 239 students in a school because then you have a lot of different classes and a lot of different teachers. So you have a lot of different places where you can put the students in. We also added work study program. Um we have a 100 kids. We're very fortunate to have 100 students in uh at Del County because that that's close to a million dollars a year that that we pay um to the IU. Uh so it's kind of hard to explain. I can I could probably do a separate question. >> I can kind of add a little bit to to help for like the
154act 158 which were you mentioned the pathways. So Dr. Moyer runs the numbers each year to see how many students are falling in each category of the pathway. So that's how we're looking at how successful each group is. So based off of let's say some groups might get letters to jobs. We're looking at beyond test scores at that point and seeing are they going to be successful as they transition out and did they meet specific metrics with of their required artifacts in each category. So if that's information that you're interested in, we can always provide that so that you know how many of our students fall within the categories. like we won't have this year but we can always share what we had last year so that you can see the success of the students
155who may not be collegebound but are careerbound or technical um schoolbound. >> I think that'd be great to see you know the overall success. >> Yeah. And we have uh students too that will take the SAT or score well on the AP exam and they're either taking a gap year going right to employment or or uh they might decide I want to go to a technical school uh because they're good with their hands. So, it it varies there. There's a myriad of different opportunities uh for the graduating seniors each year. And it's not as clear sometimes as you think looking at the scores. We I'll just give you a quick example now that I'm here. We had a student, brilliant student, he went to Daw County Community College and we went to the dinner. uh
156a few of you went to the dinner with me and he he presented and then he went uh he wanted to go to Delaware County because he wasn't sure what he wanted to do and then from there he got into the Drexal engineering program. Um all his credits transferred. It was level usually level one, you know, oneonone type stuff. All his credit transfers. He's at Drexel. He's going to finish as an engineer. So sometimes the path isn't as straight as it used to be with us. Uh so we we encouraged him to go to Delaware County and he kind of he doing great now. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Donnie. >> Thanks. >> Uh so I'll just wrap it up with um you know the major takeaways for us as we just look at the
157only the data that we're presenting this evening. I think to Dr. Shelton's point, right? There's so much other data out there that we do look at, but for this evening, um, our major takeaways include celebrations and some of the continued work that we talked about. Um, we're really proud of our students, our teachers, our administrators for their daily efforts. Uh, all they do to make sure that our students have access to rigorous and engaging curriculum. Um, we stand by our achievement and growth growth scores. Uh, we recognize there's always room for improvement. Anyone who has ever listened to these presentations knows that continuous improvement is an is a tenant of our work in this district. Um, and as you've seen tonight, our graduates continue to earn high marks on state and national assessments. They move
158on to successful college and career pathways. Like Mr. Donnie just said, our elementary and middle school students enjoy academic success and also benefit from programming that nurtures the whole child. Um, so we hope that that you as members of the board and of course the public see this information as we do, which is really an opportunity to better understand the students who are in front of us. An opportunity to celebrate the hard work uh that our students do and a chance to recognize all the good work that our teachers, administrators, and staff do every day. Also an opportunity to recognize that academic achievement remains a priority for all of us who work and live here. and and of course an opportunity to thank this board for its continued support of our students, of our staff,
159of our programming, all of the things we come to you and ask you for uh and for your um enthusiastic support of us in our programming. So, thank you all. >> Thank you, Miss Saxa. Um I just want to thank you and your team. I will say this presentation has become one of my favorite presentations after the student presentations we get. So each year I look forward to this now and the primary reason is not just the amazing um data and growth that we're looking at. It is the collaboration of your teams um seeing all the administrators who have worked together. I mean it is hard to collaborate on a presentation. Sometimes it's having like one other partner but like you all pulled it off somehow in one room, one seamless presentation. Lots of great
160information for us. So thank you so much for that. >> Thank you Dr. Larson. >> Moving on to our next um item is that the Great. >> Yes. And in fact, we ended up talking about this in finance, so I don't think we have anything additional to add. >> Okay, we move on then. Thank you. Um, and then finally, educational service agreement. >> And those are just I don't know if Mrs. Badelli wants to say anything, but these are just the usual ones that we have on uh each time and it's just a notice that there will be some when we come up to our action meeting. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um, before we um close out this portion of the agenda and I hand it back to Dr. King, are there any other questions
161from the board? Okay, Dr. King, I'll pass it back to you. >> Just want to make sure that I say thank you. I know it's an early morning for our teachers that are leaving, but thank you for coming this evening. >> Hey guys, I don't know if anybody here, but Dr. King was just saying thank you. Okay, >> thank you. Bye. >> All right, so that takes us to 4 D. Um, excuse me, policy and personnel. Miss Snassr sleep weren't so important to me, I would be offended that everyone just left the room even before our really great policy discussion. But I understand eight hours. I agree. Um, okay. So, we have our second reading of policy 137 and corresponding AR, which just had that one very minor um revision uh to strike the authority
162piece and just have it be um a general purpose statement. So, um just really if anyone has any other comments, thoughts um on that doesn't have to be on that specific change, but on anything in policy 137 or 137 AR. Um and we talked about um you know, how we're going to approach the policy readings um now that we're work going forward with a working session and a um a general session. And so um what we came up with was that we we do just want to with the readings and so this is a working session but it is just a reading. Um so you know we thought that it was appropriate to have this be considered the second reading and then have the adoption up for the next meeting which will be our our
163board action meeting. Um so certainly up to feedback on that, but um you know having only having the readings at the the board um at the the second session each month would just really delay the movement of policies through and since it is a committee at the whole and the whole board is reviewing um you know we can make any sort of changes as we go just like we could as as if it were at a general board session. So um that's why you have the second reading here separate from the other policy review. Um, so I don't know if there's any other comments on policy 137 that we um, looked at last time. >> I just had I had a question on the AR when I read through it the second time. Um, I
164I think there's two certifications that need to be provided yearly. One is a notorized affidavit from the parent guardian and the second one is I think lowered down um see there's another certification I think I just wanted those are not the same those are different >> it of the home the um evaluator yeah those are are different uh people so the supervisor is um typically a parent in the household but the evaluator there has to be a different person uh who evaluates the portfolio and then they have to have meet certain qualifications which often include having a a Pennsylvania teacher certificate. So they submit that to us along with the certified evaluation. >> Okay, >> great. Thanks. >> Yeah, sure. I was just going to um comment on the schedule that you proposed which I
165think is a efficient way to move forward and just wanted to add that the public would still have the same opportunities to comment because these work sessions also have time for public comment. So, um, feels effective and efficient for the board work, but as transparent and participatory as members of the community may want. >> Absolutely. And if there was a member of the public who, you know, looking through the meeting had a comment on on policy 137. Um, I think that would probably be in the first um, comment period because it was on the agenda. um I guess something we would think about um because we're not voting on it, but um certainly uh that would be okay with me. And either way, you know, we do have the the policy um or the comment
166period afterward and we're reviewing it again at the next meeting. So, I I do think it uh it agenders plenty of public participation. >> And just to update on that, um for the transparencies, we've updated the schoolboard's website to have the dates of meetings and proposed uh topics. So those policies are on there listed. So if anyone in the public would be interested in a specific policy, they could click on the link to see what would come up to make sure they're further engaged in that discussion. Um so we can move on to um the first policy I have which is actually administrative regulation um which is the um 200 enrollment of students AR. And I think we looked at this one before. Um and so you can see some changes were made um to
167terminology um instead of saying home homeless students um it would be students experiencing homelessness. Um other forms of educational stability that's on um section special enrollment considerations and then I think also just some other um minor adjustments were made administration to district. So, I reviewed this revised policy and didn't have any further changes. I uh and it's not a policy, sorry. It's an administrative regulation. Um so, this is something um I guess Dr. Hayes, would this be, you know, looking the board looking at it tonight? Would it still need to go on on an agenda at the um next board session or would this just be the update? >> The the AR would be the update for 200. Um, one of the things with the arrow was just the AR was just to make sure
168that the associated legal citations reference the policy as well. So just in the revisions for that AR making sure that's there. I know we're not at 202 yet, but the same approach taken to that as well as all the AR would just go for the update. those legal citations. >> How many >> sorry on that as we go through the legal citations >> um really looking at having those towards the end instead of without the policy embedded to make the read of the policy and understanding the policy easier. Okay, I think I'll have to take that as it comes. I think sometimes it is important to have the footnote there, the number there. Um, but I think that's more important for policy than they are. So, okay. Um, did anyone have any other comments? Um,
169so just as a reminder, this is an administrator regulation, so it's how the district is going to implement the policy. We're not actually reviewing the policy right now. Um but this is just how the administration is um implementing it and so this is something of of a notice to the board more than an adoption of the board. Um but certainly the board has input in how it's implemented because it is uh the board's policy and not the districts. So if anyone does have any uh questions or comments on on this AR happy to go over this. >> Can you just remind me with the AR? I know sometimes depending on the specific AR it will go to review um with administrators or staff members who actually in fact implementing this. Was anything um like that
170done with this specific AR? Yeah, we had administrators um specifically within people services um look through to make sure that and we've been doing this with other policies as well to make sure that the uh actions carried out are aligned to not only our current practices but if they're not aligned to those practices policy appropriately. So we did have in this case all the both the ARs for 200 and 200 by administration as well and that's something that we ask the district to do um whether it's an AR or a policy just because any stakeholder within the district we want them to be included or involved in the revisions because they're the ones being affected by the implementation. All right. Um so moving on now to policy 202. Um I'll start with the policy and
171then go to the administrative regulation. Um again this one I think had been discussed before. Certainly the um revisions that I have been looking for before have been made again with the citations here. I do like the footnotes um that that we can see added um and just the again that change to wording but otherwise I have any additional changes of this um policy which is the eligibility of non-resident students. Happy to hear from our supporting various policy. >> Yeah. So you can see like on mine it's showing up green >> having added um right and then so just referencing the specific um legal citation that it's coming from within the the statement which is I think pretty typical just what we do for the the policies. >> Yes, that's what we've been doing um
172the last couple years. I think the really the only changes is adding them to the ARS. >> Yeah. And I think it for those it's not only every AR I really do think it's we'll take it as it comes because it's the ones a lot of our ARs don't come from code right and it really is just how the district is is is practically uh implementing the policy but I think one that we recently looked at I think it was 137 um just had so many um pieces coming from code that it made more sense to show the work and show where it was coming from and that this wasn't just the school district have a return you know creating these requirements Um we'll look at the AR next. Um so this is just the
173trade regulation which I did have some comments on there. Um so first I think in the def in the policy we define non-resident students. So, um, in the very first section here, we have non-resident children. So, we're going to want to change the language there. Non-resident student, which is defined term in the policy. Um, and then I did have a question on looking at prospective students. So, the second paragraph references a submission um of an executed. So, submission of an executed contract to buy, build, or rent a residence within the district for occupancy. Um, documentation um for when we're allowing a student who uh whose family is going to move into the district within six weeks of the school year to just start at the beginning of the school year. But my question is this
174this doesn't actually say like when do they need to submit that paperwork. So um you know when do they need to prove that they did in fact become a resident within that six weeks is my question. Is that something we would want to include here? Is that just as some guidance? You know, >> I think whether we want to include it is good for discussion here. Um that would be incumbent upon us to make sure that like we do with upcoming sixth graders or upcoming nth graders. We're continuing to monitor and check the residency for the enrollment there. Um but certainly open for discussion from the board on whether or not we want to include something like that specifically within the policy itself. I think a question is is that followup occurring? >> Yeah. And
175when and and so and >> if so then can we put it in the >> would it be helpful for us to put some sort of time frame in here for the family to understand um you know it doesn't have to necessarily be like the next day like the contract gets signed and then you need to to give it to us but give them some sort of like you know within 30 days or or or something along that lines just so that people understand what the expectation is. Um, and you know, if if something happens that the closing gets moved back a week or something if they need to to talk with the district again just to so the family understands what they need to do for that residency verification. So I guess I would
176ask what the practice is of the district um in checking up on that um and maybe we can align uh something to go along with that practice. The current practice is that if this situation like this would occur and a someone asks, you know, can they start but they do not currently move here. Um, we follow the regular enrollment practice if they then have something like an executed contract build. Um, there's a frequent check in to keep up with them. We do not have timeline as of now because it's fairly frequent. >> Okay. Um, so that could help putting it in there, but it's more basis. >> Yeah, I mean speaking I don't know anything from administrative standpoint. Um, the clarity >> it's before the end of that six weeks. So, we're checking in before
177the end of that six weeks because they would have to become pre residents prior to the end of the six weeks. So, there's a constant check-in. Usually, people do it within a certain amount of time, but before the end of that six week that discussion though, right? No, there is no current within 30 days or within 3 weeks or whatever. Um, so if we wanted to be clear on that, I think we could certainly consider adding that. I think my interest would just be if the policy and regulation here is for six weeks to have a verification at least that six times. >> Yeah, just keep the same in here though. I'm reading under prospective residents in the AR two out of page two. Um second paragraph submission of an executed contract to buy rent
178resistancy. Um submit documentation if a student does not become a resident of the district by the end of six week period which free attendance is given tuition required until residency is established. >> I think the question though was um the says about submitting the intent to move into the district, but when is it verified that they actually did become a resident? >> So, I'm thinking like >> the six weeks, >> the difference between like the contract and the closing, right? So, like here you're submitting the contract to buy the home. The closing is going to occur within the six weeks. So, you'll become a resident within that six weeks. And so, you know, my question is, well, let's make sure they follow up on that. And I understand from Dr. Hayes, you know, we're following
179up with them, but maybe it would be good for us to say something here. um you know another submission of the actual um you know if it is a purchase of a home the closing document for example and I think like Miss said probably just the six weeks then right within that six week time period to submit documents And a minor comment um on page four again we have a language we need it needs to be students experiencing homelessness versus homeless I don't know if it'd be worth having a glossery consistency of language across multiple policies Yeah, I agree. I found that one too. I think the very last paragraph of the AR says administration, but I think maybe going back right after prospective residents, I had a question about former students. Um, students whose
180parents guardians have moved out of the district to finish the school year without paying them tuition provided the parent guardians were residents of the district for the full prior school year students conducted attendance records support. My question is um is that they can leave at any time during the school year? Um like whether it's the fall or the spring, it doesn't matter. That's fine if it is. It's just it's just a question. >> Yeah. Know there's currently no defined time within which they have. >> Okay. I think that's fine. Those are all my comments on the I appreciate the other board members who jumped in while I was coming to it. That's my preferred process. So, um but certainly if anyone has any other comments on the 202 AR just I have one clarifying question
181and we might actually be going back to the policy a little bit. Um is there so thinking about resident students within that definition is guardianship required? Like for example, I'm looking at um under eligible non-resident students.5 students who reside with a resident of the district who assumed full-time residential financial support. The student like is is guardianship bound up in this at all in terms of legal guardian? I think that that I mean the way I read that is to mean that even if you're not a legal guardian like that has its whole different process. >> I just don't know if there's like overlap between the two and if not >> Yeah. So the the question is how is guardianship captured like compared with like the gratus statement being out >> again fulltime residential support is
182that a guardian or >> so so that's a 1302 gratus arrangement where the the form is getting filled out and somebody's submitting the affidavit saying that they're going to take responsibility for the student um and and essentially um that the student will be eligible for attendance because of that 1302. That's what that is. >> So is guardianship bound up in this at all or not? >> So trying to understand myself. >> No, not specifically the I mean because the citation when you go down it's it's just a 1302. >> Okay. So I guess my question like it could be feasible that a student who falls under like this point this number five situation their guardian could be someone else and that would be the point of contact that the school has. However, the student has
183residency with this family that's um assuming the full-time residential and financial >> that's possible. >> Okay, >> it's all this might be because it's 9:30 now and I'm like looking at things buggy, but former students. Can someone explain to me the difference between the two paragraphs under former students on page two in the AR? Yeah, former students, students whose parents, guardians have moved out of the district begins the first paragraph and then students who move out of the district during the school year. So those are are those two different situations, but one says you can stay without tuition and the other then says about paying the necessary tuition. So so one would be What would be the parents and the guardians moved out but the child is permitted to stay even if the child is
184living with someone else but their parents are not. Whereas the second section is that the student themsself physically has moved out but is being entitled to remain. That's how I'm reading. >> So students who All right. The parents or guardians move out, but where is the student? >> They may be residing with somebody else still in the district even though the parents guardians are not. >> Okay. And then students move out. Maybe that could just be clarified between the two paragraphs. So if a student is able to stay with a friend or family member who's not a parent or guardian, >> they can finish the school year without tuition. Or someone can move out of the district, including the student, and tuition to >> within the last six weeks of that there's still a time
185frame in that section. To your point, they are two different scenarios. So clarification between the two would I would agree with you. >> Also wondering if we if we want to retitle that because it says former students and it's not talking about former students. It's talking about those who are >> residents. >> Former residents may Yeah. Maybe former residence, former or or residency kind of, you know, something to kind of because >> like former residency. >> Something like that would make more sense. Yeah. I would just kind of clarify help people who were looking for this to find what they're actually looking for. So yeah, >> perspective residence is the prior section, >> right? >> Follows. >> That's logical. And I do I think when we looked at this one before waving tuition for seniors
186is the next section. I think seniors is also understood to be senior citizens. Um so no so I yeah I think for 12th grade >> let's say senior class students in the body >> in the body it says senior [laughter] class. >> You want to put that in the in the header too. So, I have a a question. I know that we're under waving tuition for seniors, but I want to just go back up to former students for students whose parent or guardians have moved out of the district, but they're living with someone else. Where is the um what is the procedure for that family and or senior guardian to inform the district that like how would we know this that they are now living with another someone besides their parent guardian >> other than
187doing kind of a random checkup on things like that. Not sure we would. I don't want to see who doesn't do it. That's the only way. >> That's the only way that's the only way. >> The only way they can happen is if >> that they have that that the whoever the child would then reside with for the duration of the school year, that family would have to sign off on the statement that they're taking responsibility for student. what I think and I mean that's that's a potential scenario right now. >> Would they be subject to the verification investigation of student residency um further down in pages four four and five? >> I guess the other part of my question is is maybe two parts. One is that the how would we know piece and
188and if there are parents or guardians who are needing to move, wanting to move but not sure if their child can still remain in the district, how would they know to this policies with all the proper procedures. Like I wonder how many children are living with someone else and not telling anyone or feeling uncomfortable. You know what I mean? So like so I just want to make sure we're communicating that yes, this is possible. Um you're not a former student. Um and these are the steps that we want you to follow so that we do know who to contact. We do know where you live. We do know that you're this just feels like we are um >> we're relying upon childhood family to notify us. Yeah. And and so if and if I am
189a child or family who is not sure if my child can do this, I'm I'm not going to tell you. >> Yeah. >> We're in the AR, correct? >> Were you suggesting specific language? >> So I think that two things. So, one is if I think we've already discussed moving the former or rewarding that that title of their former students, they're current students, but we need somewhere and I don't I don't I don't know what the the answer is, but we need a place for parents and families or children and students and families to know where to go if I am moving but my child is not and I want them to remain in the school. And so whatever heading that is appropriate to be just a clear way to get you that these are
190the steps we want you to follow. >> Can I just briefly interject on that? Okay. So part of the standard for 1302 >> is that when the child is going to reside with someone >> um that means like they're not going home on the weekends to their parents who are actually providing for them. Whoever is taking them in is actually going to provide with them for indefinitely 247 365 too. So, and it actually becomes a disputed issue quite often, more than you might think. So, I don't I just so everyone's aware of that with how you want to characterize it. Um, I would just caution the board about making it almost an open invitation that if you're moving out, but you want your your child to stay and this person's just going to be willing
191to sign off on it. There's there's it is a kind of black and white legal requirement that it's really the exception rather than the the norm or the the rule that they would be able to do that. >> Certainly, I I certainly understand that. I guess the the reason for my question is that if I am if my staying in this district and I'm moving out, right? Um and and they and I'm unaware that this is possible following the proper procedures, then I'm just thinking about the added pressure that that puts on the student, potentially their performance. Um if they are feeling as if I'm sneaking to school and so our policies are meant to inform, but also to provide guidance. I want to make sure that we're not missing an opportunity to inform our
192community as well as providing our administration with the proper policy for standards that they should be following. >> We reference the statute that it would be under I mean I think that could help because it would be if it would be expected to be a 1302 year to sign this certification that that's exactly what you're doing then like reference it and then that way like to Dr. King's point they know oh well I should go look at this and that has something that I can make this legit >> and then that's I mean that's an affidavit basically right. >> Yeah. So I would imagine under penalty of perjury they're saying that I'm taking this first of my household situation council's warning just an open invite. I appreciate the concern that um nothing that we're suggesting
193here is >> open invitation, right? Like um that we need to maintain the rules of residency and adhere to those. typically like you said in most cases it's where you reside is where you go to school and that this is for some exceptions some situations and um appreciate also that these um ARS while we tend to think of them as being on how the district should perform and what the district should implement they are a reference for our community to use and having clarity on what situation am I in what am I asking um what what are the possible scenarios I think this whole section would benefit from thinking of it both for the district's perspective and then how would a member of the community interpret and use it? >> I think it's a really
194good point. It's making me wonder um so the policy like you have the policy book but then there's the actual team the district team that's actually supporting with the implementation of that hence the AR. Um Miss Batiselli this is typically your office right? So like do families reach out to you? Do they reach out to the school first in these situ? >> They reach out to the registar because our registar is also a notary. So she'll notoriize the support affidavit. I >> So I guess what I'm wondering it's like it's possible that families will go to the policy but we're not saying oh you need to reference the policy. It's typically like if someone comes to you with this question it's a person guiding them through the process based on the policy. >> Yeah. If
195they don't go to the they don't go to the register, they go to the um building secretary a lot of the times and the building secretary refers them to the registar because she has the 1302 and um can notoriize everything. >> Yeah. I mean, so we're not like saying, "Okay, thank you for calling parent. Um please reference the policy." It's we're going to walk you through the process. Okay. Thanks. One more comment um that I think we talked about before, but I don't seem final verification of student residency. Our current practice is to verify residency going into sixth grade and going into 9th grade. And so I would like that specifically referenced here >> that's in 200. >> We move on. Justin. >> Yes. >> Yeah. My question was um next steps. Do we have
196like what the next steps what the process is from here? >> I believe it would come back. >> Well, I mean it >> I think it could probably go to a first read. >> Yeah. >> There's too much and you got >> I don't think so. >> Okay. I think we can do it for >> so for clarity first read for the upcoming action >> probably not >> the first read for >> the next work section >> okay >> and I believe that's referencing the leads during the workshops you have approval at the meeting I think that as we're making that this transition to the plan, just brief snippets of reminders so that um community members aren't expecting the next meeting to be the next thing because we kind of program that program them for
197that. Okay, >> for sure. I I'm on it. All right. Um going to a new policy, new proposed policy. Uh 706.1, it will be disposal of district owned property. Um This is a new policy we haven't had before. I'll let Justin explain it um a little bit sort of what the genesis of this was and where the specific language comes from. Um also he could mention who was consulted um in crafting. >> Sure. So um the genesis actually goes back to last spring um when we we spent a lot of time working through the 600 series um with Mr. Tesa's office and I think it was around April or May um this was a specific policy that Mr. Testa requested um that we have ready to go and we ended up just not being able
198to get to it at the end of last year. So um you'll see cross reference to uh board policy 622 which was one of the ones that we worked through at the end of last year. Um and it was it was my understanding is that uh Dr. Hayes um Mr. test I believe uh your facilities department um Mr. Anderson there were I think at least four or five sets of administrators that reviewed it um before it came forward tonight. Yeah, this also um you know I know uh facilities has been um kind of logging in their facilities plan kind of a end end life cycle and beginning life cycle. Um but also looking at fiscal responsibility policy 618 procurement 622 with capital assets. um really just being thorough in how we are ensuring proper disposal
199um refurbish recycle um in order to also help inform um some of the potential procurement for capital asset purchases too. This kind of goes throughout the multiple departments and there were a number of eyes on it um to to really help guide the initial first look from an industry stand. My main comment is on the purpose and um the district shall sell or dispose of such items in both an environmentally responsible and secure manner in accordance with law. Um I I worry sometimes about just throwing things out like environmental labor responsib um and but luckily for us we have a environmental sustainability policy um which is polic and so I think what I would rather see here is to say something like um the district shall sell or dispose of such items in the secure
200banner in accordance with the law and board policy um 712 on environmental sustainability something along those lines because we we do I reviewed it before this um but we do in that policy also discuss um you know recyclability and and how to um I I think it just means a lot more than environmentally responsible um and so similar comment um you know I don't know if we want to beat it over the head um but you know further down four um four paragraphs up from the bottom disposal of any equipment or other through waste management services must be done in a manner consistent with environmental rules and regulations with the law. You know, again, I think we could probably also reference our our environmental sustainability policy 712 there. And then I would add it also
201to the legal references where we have policies. too. 950 a.m. or this is such a well-written policy. Did it come from PSBA? Did you say that? >> It it was originally. However, um your administrative team >> provides a lot. >> Mr. Anderson did a lot of work with it after we we did do a second. We did some significant revisions in terms of defining assets, capital assets, district assets, making revisions ahead of time to capture that GB 34. So, thank you to all of the team Jr. >> Nothing further from the floor. I will end the policy section and send it back to >> Right. Thank you, Mrs. So we have nothing listed for section five other items. Section six takes us to report on executive session. Um the board met on Monday, November the
2023rd, 2025 to discuss with council a personnel related litigation matter pending in the court of common please of Delaware County. It takes us to section seven for public comment on any school related topics. Um, I do have two people that signed up. I believe one person is not here, but I'll read their names anyway. The first person is Jonathan Deise here, and the second person was Rich Glory. >> That's okay. >> Just state your name for um the I'm Rich Mcllor. I live at uh 1246 D Road, Hertell, Pennsylvania. My son and my grandson live with me and they're supported by me and my son [laughter] and we live here just for that little tidbit there for you. And listen, I uh wasn't going to speak except I spent 10 hours at the polling booth
203the other night, you know, exercising democracy and education, which is my favorite subject in life. Okay. And I just and I know in the rigomear role I gave a a a public comment on October 9th and I didn't want to get the uh get forget about this statement at the end which I didn't get to speak on that night. The purpose of our public education clause is to provide every child with an education which will enable all of us to quote participate meaningfully in our democracy. And that's what I did the other day and that's what we do when we come to speak before you. And it was a pleasure handing out your congratulation Dr. King. [laughter] You won it. we'll miss you when you when you go and and all. Uh but also I'm
204also glad I spoke and ironically some of the things I wanted to say goes very well with the presentation on the test scores because my grandson's at the other end of that spectrum and I notice we have kids that at the basic and below basic and of passa and there wasn't one word spoken about those ch kids and one word about what we're going to do about seeing being that they are well educated. Okay. Now, just out of the Fair Funding lawsuit, I watched that whole thing and the expert Dr. uh Professor Block uh testified that the purpose of our education cause thorough and efficient means thorough and effective, right? So that our children can grow up and participate. This is quote right out page 416 of Judge Dublier's decision. Participate in a civic way
205in society and also be self-sufficient. And every child is entitled to under our constitution a high quality of education. Well, my grandson's in seventh grade and he cannot read. He doesn't have a reading specialist and I want a reading specialist for my grandson. He has not only not progressed since he's gone to the middle school, he has digressed. And I showed you how he read in fourth grade. Doc uh Dr. Hayes. All right. He can't do that now. the program that he's using, Readtopia. He is never going to read and he's entitled to a reading specialist. He's entitled to every resource we can provide that child and the other autistic kids who don't read any better in our school district. I taught kids in high school who were disabled readers. They made progress. We gave
206every kid a reading specialist when I taught who scored below the 25th percentile and read at between at the sixth grade level in high school or below. They received a reading specialist the whole period five days a week 100 day 180 days they made progress. We had high level lowlevel highinterest books for those kids that they could read that they were interested in and that they progressed. We not only did our standardized test scores, we gave them two or three reading assessments at the beginning of the year, in the middle year, during their final time, and at the end of the year. And our kids made progress every year. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, your comment. >> Those I'll conclude it right now. They're great test scores, but they broke my heart
207because I look in my grandson's eyes every day and I practice with him reading. I go through that. He's made outstanding progress in every area except his academic areas. He can't do math too good either. But I'm going to cry when I go to bed tonight when I look in his eyes because he will never learn to read without a reading specialist. And with that retopia program that you're using in my kit, I'm a certified reading specialist with a master's degree in psychology of reading. There are way more better programs, way more better methodologies that are provided in our middle school. Thank you very much. And you will hear more from me about this at future meetings. >> Thank you. >> All right, that takes us to section 8. Um, but prior to us adjourning,
208I just want to make sure that the community is aware that we appreciate the ongoing conversations that the board and HA's bargaining teams have had recently and continue to actively negotiate towards an agreement. We are looking forward to these conversations producing in a an agreement soon. Additionally, I want to note that the Habit for Drama Club is hosting a sensory friendly dress rehearsal for our upcoming musical production of Tuck Everlasting on Monday, November the 10th at 6:30 p.m. If there are any questions regarding the performance, please be sure to reach out to Habford's theater director, um, Danny Walsh, um, or the high school administration. The next regular meeting of the board is scheduled for an action meeting um November the 20th, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the Oakmont Administration building. And with
209that, can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Moved and second. The meeting is a